![\"letter-to-george-clooney\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/letter-to-george-clooney.jpg\" "\\"Click")
<\/a><\/h1>\nLetter to George Clooney<\/h1>\nby Debra Adelaide<\/h2>\n
Debra Adelaide’s new collection of short stories intricately maps both the sublime and the mundane landscape of ordinary lives, with her trademark dark wit and luminous intelligence.<\/p>\n
In Glory in the Flower<\/em>, distinguished but disillusioned British poet, Bill, crosses the world on the promise of a prestigious literary festival only to find himself roughing it with an unlikely group of amateur poets, with surprising results. One man’s attempt to negotiate the Australian taxation system reads like a noir thriller in The Pirate Map<\/em>, and the minefield of internet dating in Chance<\/em> artfully balances the absurd and dark side of the human psyche. Harder Than Your Husband<\/em> follows a serious-minded administrator as he attempts to navigate the induction of a new, and rather perplexing, employee. And the final eclipsing story, Letter to George Clooney<\/em>, opens a door into a world of terror and deprivation: searing in its devastating restraint, it demonstrates why Adelaide is one of the finest Australian writers of her generation.<\/p>\n Debra Adelaide is the author of several novels, including The Household Guide to Dying<\/em> (2008), which was sold around the world, Serpent Dust<\/em> (1998) and The Hotel Albatross<\/em> (1995). She is also the editor of several themed collections of fiction and memoirs, including Acts of Dog<\/em> (2003) and the bestselling Motherlove<\/em> series (1996-1998). As well as a creative writer she has also been a freelance researcher, editor, book reviewer and literary award judge, and is now associate professor at the University of Technology, Sydney where she teaches creative writing.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of Letter to George Clooney<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Two literary lives defined by storytelling and secrets.<\/p>\n As her mother Joan lies dying, Gabrielle Carey writes a letter to Joan’s childhood friend, the reclusive novelist Randolph Stow. This letter sets in motion a literary pilgrimage that reveals long-buried family secrets. Like her mother, Stow had grown up in Western Australia. After early literary success and a Miles Franklin Award win in 1958 for his novel To the Islands<\/em>, he left for England and a life of self-imposed exile.<\/p>\n Living most of her life on the east coast, Gabrielle was also estranged from her family’s west Australian roots, but never questioned why. A devoted fan of Stow’s writing, she becomes fascinated by his connection with her mother, but before she can meet him he dies. With only a few pieces of correspondence to guide her, Gabrielle embarks on a journey from the red-dirt landscape of Western Australia to the English seaside town of Harwich to understand her family’s past and Stow’s place in it. Moving Among Strangers<\/em> is a celebration of one of Australia’s most enigmatic and visionary writers.<\/p>\n Gabrielle Carey lives in Sydney, writes books occasionally, and may or may not be related to Peter Carey.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of Moving Among Strangers<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnusdottir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.<\/p>\n Agnes is sent to wait out the time leading to her execution on the farm of District Officer Jon Jonsson, his wife and their two daughters. Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoids speaking with Agnes. Only Toti, the young assistant reverend appointed as Agnes’ spiritual guardian, is compelled to try to understand her, as he attempts to salvage her soul. As the summer months fall away to winter and the hardships of rural life force the household to work side by side, Agnes’ ill-fated tale of longing and betrayal begins to emerge. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn’t she?<\/p>\n Based on a true story, Burial Rites<\/em> is a deeply moving novel about personal freedom: who we are seen to be versus who we believe ourselves to be, and the ways in which we will risk everything for love. In beautiful, cut-glass prose, Hannah Kent portrays Iceland’s formidable landscape, where every day is a battle for survival, and asks, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?<\/p>\n Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. As a teenager she travelled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange, where she first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir. Hannah is the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. Burial Rites<\/em> is her first novel.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of Burial Rites<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n ‘The Pies beat the Saints and the city of Melbourne was still cloaked in black and white crepe paper when the rumour of a pack rape by celebrating footballers began to surface. By morning, the head of the sexual crimes squad confirmed to journalists that they were preparing to question two Collingwood players … And so, as police were confiscating bed sheets from a townhouse in Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, the trial by media began.’<\/p>\n In the tradition of Helen Garner’s The First Stone<\/em> comes another closely observed, controversial book about sex, consent and power. At the centre of it is Anna Krien’s account of the rape trial of a footballer.<\/p>\n Krien offers a balanced and fearless look at the dark side of footy culture \u2013 the world of Sam Newman, Ricky Nixon, Matty Johns, the Cronulla Sharks and more. What does a young footballer do to cut loose? At night, some play what they think of as pranks, or games. Night games involving women. These games sometimes involve consensual sex, but sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they fall into a grey area.<\/p>\n Both a courtroom drama and a riveting piece of first-person narrative journalism, this is a breakthrough book from one of the young leading lights of Australian writing.<\/p>\n Anna Krien is the author of Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania’s Forests<\/em> and Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals<\/em> (Quarterly Essay 45)<\/em>.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of Night Games <\/em>here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n When Jo Breen uses her divorce settlement to buy a neglected property in the Byron Bay hinterland, she is hoping for a tree change, and a blossoming connection to the land of her Aboriginal ancestors. What she discovers instead is sharp dissent from her teenage daughter Ellen, trouble brewing from unimpressed white neighbours, and a looming Native Title war among the local Bundjalung families. When Jo stumbles into love on one side of the Native Title divide she quickly learns that living on country is only part of the recipe for the Good Life.<\/p>\n Told with humour and a sharp satirical eye, Mullumbimby<\/em> is a modern novel set against an ancient land.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of Mullumbimby here<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n One morning Ruth wakes thinking a tiger has been in her seaside house. Later that day a formidable woman called Frida arrives, looking as if she’s blown in from the sea. In fact she’s come to care for Ruth. Frida and the tiger: both are here to stay, and neither is what they seem.<\/p>\n Which of them can Ruth trust? And as memories of her childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency, can she even trust herself?<\/p>\n The Night Guest<\/em> is mesmerising novel about love, dependence, and the fear that the things you know best can become the things you’re least certain about. It introduces a writer who comes to us fully formed, working wonders with language, renewing our faith in the power of fiction to tap the mysterious workings of our minds, and keeping us spellbound<\/p>\n Fiona McFarlane was born in Sydney, and has degrees in English from Sydney University and Cambridge University, and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a Michener Fellow. Her work has been published in Zoetrope: All-Story, Southerly, the Best Australian Stories and the New Yorker, and she has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Phillips Exeter Academy and the Australia Council for the Arts. The Night Guest<\/em>, her debut novel, has sold into fifteen territories around the world. She lives in Sydney.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of The Night Guest<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Kristina Olsson’s mother lost her infant son, Peter, when he was snatched from her arms as she boarded a train in the hot summer of 1950. Yvonne was young and frightened, trying to escape a brutal marriage, but despite the violence and cruelty she’d endured, she was not prepared for this final blow, this breathtaking punishment. Yvonne would not see her son again for nearly forty years.<\/p>\n Kristina was the first child of her mother’s subsequent, much gentler marriage and, like her siblings, grew up unaware of the reasons behind her mother’s sorrow, though Peter’s absence resounded through the family, marking each one. Yvonne dreamt of her son by day and by night, while Peter grew up a thousand miles and a lifetime away, dreaming of his missing mother.<\/p>\n Boy, Lost<\/em> tells how their lives proceeded from that shattering moment, the grief and shame that stalked them, what they lost and what they salvaged. But it is also the story of a family, the cascade of grief and guilt through generations, and the endurance of memory and faith<\/p>\n Kristina was born in 1956 and raised in Brisbane of Swedish and Australian heritage. She studied journalism at the University of Queensland and went on to write for The Australian, The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail, the Sydney Sunday Telegraph and Griffith Review.<\/p>\n She has also worked as an advisor to government and as a teacher of creative writing and journalism University of Queensland Press published her first novel, In One Skin, in 2001. This was\u00a0 followed by Kilroy Was Here<\/em> (Random) in 2005 and The China Garden<\/em> in 2009. Boy, Lost<\/em>, a family memoir, was published by UQP in March 2013.<\/p>\n Kristina has two adult children, as well as three grandchildren. She lives in Brisbane.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of Boy, Lost<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n In 2012, Anne Summers gave two landmark speeches about women in Australia, attracting more than 120,000 visits to her website. Within weeks of their delivery Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s own speech about misogyny and sexism went viral and was celebrated around the world. Summers makes the case that Australia, the land of the fair go, still hasn’t figured out how to make equality between men and women work. She shows how uncomfortable we are with the idea of women with political and financial power, let alone the reality. Summers dismisses the idea that we should celebrate progress for women as opposed to outright success. She shows what success will look like.<\/p>\n Anne Summers PhD AO (born 12 March 1945) is a writer and columnist, is best known as a leading feminist, editor and publisher. She was formerly Australia’s First Assistant Secretary of the Office of the Status of Women. Her long-term partner is Chip Rolley, the 2010 Creative Director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of\u00a0The Misogyny Factor<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n At the age of fifteen Madeleine saw herself as a painter and pianist, but Ms Medway peered down at Madeleine during her entrance interview in 1957 and announced: \u2018You know dear, I think you might write.\u2019<\/p>\n Madeleine would write. But not for some time. The Women in Black<\/em>, a sparkling gem that belied the difficulties that had dogged her own life, was published when Madeleine St John was in her fifties. Her third novel, The Essence of the Thing<\/em>, was shortlisted for the 1997 Booker Prize, and she continued to write until her death in 2006.<\/p>\n Helen Trinca has captured the troubled life of Madeleine St John in this moving account of a remarkable writer. After the death of her mother when Madeleine was just twelve, she struggled to find her place in the world. Estranging herself from her family, and from Australia, she lived for a time in the US before moving to London where Robert Hughes, Germaine Greer, Bruce Beresford, Barry Humphries and Clive James were making their mark. In 1993, when The Women in Black<\/em> was published, it became clear what a marvellous writer Madeleine St John was.<\/p>\n Helen Trinca has co-written two previous books: Waterfront: The Battle that Changed Australia<\/em> and Better than Sex: How a Whole Generation Got Hooked on Work<\/em>. She has held senior reporting and editing roles in Australian journalism, including a stint as the Australian\u2019s London correspondent, and is currently Managing Editor of the Australian.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of\u00a0Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The new novel by Alexis Wright, whose previous novel Carpentaria<\/em> won the Miles Franklin Award and four other major prizes including the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award. The Swan Book<\/em> is set in the future, with Aboriginals still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute teenager called Oblivia, the victim of gang-rape by petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she lives in a hulk, in a swamp filled with rusting boats, and thousands of black swans driven from other parts of the country, to her marriage to Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia, and her elevation to the position of First Lady, confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city. The Swan Book<\/em> has all the qualities which made Wright’s previous novel, Carpentaria<\/em>, a prize-winning best-seller. It offers an intimate awareness of the realities facing Aboriginal people; the wild energy and humour in her writing finds hope in the bleakest situations; and the remarkable combination of storytelling elements, drawn from myth and legend and fairy tale. Alexis Wright (born 25 November 1950) is an Indigenous Australian writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria<\/em>.<\/p>\n Grab a copy of The Swan Book<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The Eureka Stockade. The story is one of Australia\u2019s foundation legends, but until now it has been told as though only half the participants were there.<\/p>\n What if the hot-tempered, free-wheeling gold miners we learnt about in school were actually husbands and fathers, brothers and sons? And what if there were women and children inside the Eureka Stockade, defending their rights while defending themselves against a barrage of bullets?<\/p>\n As Clare Wright reveals, there were thousands of women on the goldfields and many of them were active in pivotal roles. The stories of how they arrived there, why they came and how they sustained themselves make for fascinating reading in their own right. But it is in the rebellion itself that the unbiddable women of Ballarat come into their own.<\/p>\n Groundbreaking, absorbing, crucially important\u2014The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka<\/em> is the uncut story of the day the Australian people found their voice.<\/p>\n About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n Clare Wright is an historian who has worked as a political speechwriter, university lecturer, historical consultant and radio and television broadcaster. Her first book, Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia\u2019s Female Publicans<\/em>, garnered both critical and popular acclaim. She researched, wrote and presented the ABC television documentary Utopia Girls and is currently writing a four-part series to commemorate the centenary of WWI for ABC1. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and three children. <\/strong><\/p>\n Grab a copy of\u00a0The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Who or what is watching Jake Whyte from the woods?<\/p>\n Jake Whyte is the sole resident of an old farmhouse on an unnamed island, a place of ceaseless rains and battering winds. It’s just her, her untamed companion, Dog, and a flock of sheep. Which is how she wanted it to be. But something is coming for the sheep \u2013 every few nights it picks one off, leaves it in rags.<\/p>\n It could be anything. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, rumours of an obscure, formidable beast. And there is Jake’s unknown past, perhaps breaking into the present, a story hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, in a landscape of different colour and sound, a story held in the scars that stripe her back.<\/p>\n Set between Australia and a remote English island, All the Birds<\/em>, Singing is the story of one how one woman’s present comes from a terrible past. It is the second novel from the award-winning author of After the Fire, A Still Small Voice<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"DebraAdelaide01-239x300\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/debraadelaide01-239x300.jpg\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"9780702249921\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/9780702249921.jpg?w=193\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>Moving Among Strangers<\/h1>\nby Gabrielle Carey<\/h2>\n
![\"Gabrielle](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/gabrielle_carey_wideweb__470x3130.jpg?w=300\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"burial-rites\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/burial-rites.jpg?w=198\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>Burial Rites<\/h1>\nby Hannah Kent<\/h2>\n
![\"HK-Draft-Author-Image-v2\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/hk-draft-author-image-v2.png?w=300\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"night-games\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/night-games.jpg?w=196\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>Night Games<\/h1>\nby Anna Krien<\/h2>\n
![\"annakrien\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/annakrien.gif\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"mullumbimby\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/mullumbimby.jpg?w=199\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>Mullumbimby<\/h1>\nby Melissa Lucashenko<\/h2>\n
![\"index\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/index.jpg\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author
\n<\/b>
\nMelissa Lucashenko is an Australian writer of mixed European and Murri (Aboriginal) heritage. She was born in Brisbane in 1967, and attended public primary and secondary schools there. Melissa received an honours degree in public policy from Griffith University, graduating in 1990. She lives between Brisbane and the Bundjalung nation.<\/p>\n
\n![\"the-night-guest\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/the-night-guest.jpg?w=198\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>The Night Guest<\/h1>\nby Fiona McFarlane<\/h2>\n
![\"0000007167\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/0000007167.png\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"boy-lost\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/boy-lost.jpg?w=195\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>Boy, Lost<\/h1>\nby Kristina Olsson<\/h2>\n
![\"kristina-olsson\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/kristina-olsson.png\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\nat tertiary and community level. She supervises and mentors several post-graduate writing students and also works as a manuscript assessor and editor.<\/p>\n
\n![\"the-misogyny-factor\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/the-misogyny-factor.jpg?w=195\" "\\"Click")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Misogyny Factor<\/h1>\n
by Anne Summers<\/h2>\n
![\"annesummers\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/annesummers.jpg?w=252\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"madeleine\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/madeleine.jpg?w=196\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John<\/h1>\nby Helen Trinca<\/h2>\n
![\"HelenTrinca_20credit_20NickCubbin_regular\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/helentrinca_20credit_20nickcubbin_regular.jpg\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"the-swan-book\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/the-swan-book.jpg?w=195\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>The Swan Book<\/h1>\nby Alexis Wright<\/h2>\n
\n![\"art-wright-620x349\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/art-wright-620x349.jpg?w=300\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n
\n![\"the-forgotten-rebels-of-eureka\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/the-forgotten-rebels-of-eureka.jpg?w=198\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka<\/h1>\nby Clare Wright<\/h2>\n
![\"catsml\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/catsml.png\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n![\"all-the-birds-singing\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/all-the-birds-singing.jpg?w=194\" "\\"Click")
<\/a>All the Birds, Singing<\/h1>\nby Evie Wyld<\/h2>\n
![\"evie-wyld\"](\"https:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/evie-wyld.jpg\" "\\"Author:")
<\/a>About the Author<\/b><\/p>\n