A Study in Drowning

Ava Reid     Recommended by    

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE WOLF AND THE WOODSMAN

If the monsters are real, so are the women who defeat them.

Effy has always believed in fairy tales. She’s had no choice. Since childhood, she’s been haunted by visions of the Fairy King. She’s found solace only in the pages of Angharad – a beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, and then destroys him.

Effy’s tattered copy is all that’s keeping her afloat through her stifling first term her prestigious architecture college. So when the late author’s family announces a contest to design his house, Effy fells certain this is her destiny.

But Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task- a musty, decrepit estate on the brink of crumbling into a hungry sea. And when Effy arrives, she finds she isn’t the only one who’s made a temporary home there. Preston Heloury, a stodgy young literature scholar, is studying Myrddin’s papers and is determined to prove her favourite author is a fraud.

As the two rival students investigate the reclusive author’s legacy, piecing together clues through his letters, books, and diaries, they discover that the house’s foundation isn’t the only thing that can’t be trusted. There are dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspiring against them – and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

Bite Back: Feminism, media, politics, and our power to change it all

Hannah Ferguson     Recommended by    

 This is a book of opinions and ideas with bite. It’s news that talks back.

Founded in 2020, Cheek Media Co. quickly established itself as the go-to platform for daring feminist opinions on everything from right-wing politics to overcoming taboos around sex and pleasure. In Bite Back, Cheek co-founder Hannah Ferguson turns her sharp, progressive perspective on the issues that matter. Her bold ideas will provoke you to think, spark important conversations and inspire meaningful social change.


‘A sharp-witted, whip-smart gift to the stale national media landscape. This book will revolutionise the discourse and readers’ souls simultaneously.’ Grace Tame

‘Brace yourself for an engaging, heart-stirring read that challenges and inspires. It’s a powerful call to action for a fairer world – an absolute must-read!’ Chantelle Otten

‘Intersectional feminist cheek, underscored by incisive intellectual commentary. It’s great. Read it!’ Tarang Chawla

‘Hannah Ferguson doesn’t take a backward step in flaying what underscores the inequality at the heart of our society while at the same time offering humour, heart and tangible solutions for fixing the mess we’ve left new generations.’ A searing, devastating and unflinching view of what’s gone wrong – and most importantly, how we take back power.’ Amy Remeikis

Storytellers: Questions, Answers and the Craft of Journalism

Leigh Sales     Recommended by    

Highly respected ABC anchor, bestselling author and hit podcaster Leigh Sales interviews the cream of Australian journalists about their craft – how (and why) they bring us the stories that inform our lives.

Leigh Sales is one of Australia’s most accomplished journalists, having anchored the ABC’s flagship 7.30 program for twelve years. She has been a foreign correspondent, hosted Lateline and anchored numerous elections for the ABC. In this book, she turns her interviewing skills onto her own profession, those usually asking the questions: the journalists.

In ten sections – from News Reporting to Editing, via Investigative, Commentary and of course Interviewing – Sales takes us on a tour of the profession, letting the leaders in their field talk direct to us about how they get their leads, survive in war zones, write a profile, tell a story with pictures, and keep the show on the road. A who’s-who of Australian journalism – including Lisa Millar, Kate McClymont, Hedley Thomas, Trent Dalton, Benjamin Law, Tracy Grimshaw, Richard Fidler, David Speers, Stan Grant, Niki Savva, Waleed Aly, Annabel Crabb, Karl Stefanovic and Mia Freedman – talk candidly about their greatest lessons and their trade secrets.

A fascinating insight into a vital and much-misunderstood profession, Storytellers is a book for anyone who’s ever wanted to be a journalist, or even just wondered how the news gets made.

Starter Villain

John Scalzi     Recommended by    

Following the bestselling The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi returns with another unique sci-fi caper set in the strangest of all worlds: present-day Earth.

Inheriting your mysterious uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might imagine.

Sure, there are the things you’d expect. The undersea volcano lairs. The minions. The plots to take over the world. The international networks of rivals who want you dead. Much harder to get used to are the the sentient, language-using, computer-savvy cats.

And the fact that in the overall organization, they’re management…

The Vaster Wilds

Lauren Groff     Recommended by    

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Lauren Groff just reinvented the adventure novel.”—Los Angeles Times

“Glorious… surroundings come alive in prose that lives and breathes upon the page.” —Boston Globe

“I know of few other writers whose sentences are so beautiful and so propulsive.” —New York Times Book Review


A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive…

A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

Game Changers: The Video Game Revolution

Phaidon Editors     Recommended by    

An A to Z of video games – 300 entries showcasing the most influential and celebrated games, consoles, publishers, and more

A visual history of all things video games, this book will provide the reader with an overview of the gaming industry, from the very first game created around the mid-twentieth century, right through to the present day. Particular focus is given to advances within the industry during this time, such as new technologies, innovative gameplay, never-before-seen graphics, and design.

An introduction by Simon Parkin provides an overview of gaming history, and exploring how iconic games have pushed the boundaries of the medium and 300 entries, hand picked by a panel of industry experts, showcase the most influential and celebrated games, consoles, publishers, and more. Each entry is accompanied by text informing the reader about the game and its history, its place in wider popular culture, and including useful information and facts, with exciting and sometimes unexpected pairings provided by the A to Z organisation.

A glossary of key words and select biographies of influential creators and developers provides more context and a system of icons and infographics allows readers to see the connections between the book’s 300 entries. Wider gaming culture, and how it has grown from a niche hobby to a worldwide phenomenon, influencing popular culture, is also explored, making this the widest ranging survey of games and gaming available today.

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Oh God, The Sun Goes

David Connor     Recommended by    

An “indescribable marvel” (Jonathan Lethem) of a debut novel from a brilliant new voice.

The sun has disappeared from the sky. No one can explain where it has gone, but one wayward traveler is determined to try. As our unnamed narrator begins his odyssey across the parched landscapes of the American Southwest, he is drawn into a web of illusion and mystery, a shifting astral mindscape that shimmers with the aftermath of loss-and the promise of redemption.

Oh God, the Sun Goes is a hallucinatory and deadpan picaresque that suddenly swerves into a love story of soaring poignance. Truly “the stuff that dreams are made of” – or maybe nightmares?

Apocalyptic, mesmerizing, and utterly unique, Oh God, the Sun Goes introduces readers to a young and keenly inventive mind.

4 one of a kind illustrations within and on the outside a cool holographic foil stamp cover.


“A highly original and engagingly odd book.” – Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World

“…wondrous…mysterious…Connor lands plenty of stimulating riffs on themes of memory, love, and loss, all in lyrical prose and suffused with surreal imagery.” – Publishers Weekly

Ghost Eaters

Clay McLeod Chapman     Recommended by    

Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab-again-she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin’s world falls apart.

Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “seance.” But the drug has unfathomable side effects-and once you take it, you can never go back.


“A Gothic-punk graveyard tale about what haunts history and what haunts the human soul. An addicting read that draws you into its descent from the first page.” – Chuck Wendig, New York Times best-selling author of The Book of Accidents

One of Vulture’s Best Horror Novels of 2022, this terrifying supernatural page-turner will make you think twice about opening doors to the unknown.

Kafka for Kids

Roee Rosen     Recommended by    

The pilot episode of a TV series that perversely aims to make Kafka’s tales palpable for toddlers.

Roee Rosen’s film Kafka for Kids is set as the pilot episode for a TV series that perversely aims to make Kafka’s tale “The Metamorphosis” palpable for toddlers. In its title, the film Kafka for Kids implies that the intellectual great of modern literature will finally be presented in a way that is generally understandable. Roee Rosen wants to present Franz Kafka, of all people, with his contorted thought constructions, in a way that is even accessible to kids! But unfortunately, that’s not how things turn out- the star writer of the educated middle class is not simplified, but his story becomes much more complex, corresponding to reality, for reality is more complicated than we like to represent using biaxial graphs.

Featuring the original script of the movie, readers are invited to dive into a magical story, followed by essays that give a deeper insight in the literary aspects of Roee Rosen’s oeuvre. A stowaway on the journey, Rosen playfully and with wonderful self-irony does not negate the complexity of the present, but takes it to the next level by exploring how all things are interlinked. Rosen neither doubts the complexity of our reality, nor does he oversimplify to a fault.

Published by Sternberg Press and Kunstmuseum Luzern.

What You Are Looking for is in the Library

Michiko Aoyama     Recommended by    

Inspirational and heartwarming, this bestselling nominee of the Japan Booksellers’ Prize is a celebration of community libraries and the life-changing power of book recommendation.

For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this feel-good Japanese book shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a life.


What are you looking for?

So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi.

But she is no ordinary librarian.

Sensing exactly what someone is searching for in life, she provides just the book recommendation to help them find it.

In this uplifting book, we meet five visitors to the library, each at a different crossroads:

– The restless retail assistant eager to pick up new skills
– The mother faced with a demotion at work after maternity leave
– The conscientious accountant who yearns to open an antique store
– The gifted young manga artist in search of motivation
– The recently retired salaryman on a quest for newfound purpose

Can she help them find what they are looking for?

Already loved by thousands of readers all over the world, What You Are Looking For is in the Library is an inspirational tale of love, life, and the comfort that can be found in good book.

Which book will you recommend?

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