Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own…

When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she written out of the story?

Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.

Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.

‘So, she will live writing the letters she did – six to her best friend, and three to her husband. I know where she was when she wrote them. I know that the dishes were frozen in the sink, that she was bleeding, that he was in bed with another woman – and she knew it. . . .I supply only what a film director would, directing an actor on set – the wiping of spectacles, the ash on the carpet, a cat pouring itself off her lap.’

Australians will soon be faced with an important choice. Will they vote Yes to change our nation’s Constitution to introduce an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice? Or will they vote No and bring the recognition process to a halt and, along with it, the aspirations of an overwhelming number of Australia’s first peoples? The stakes could not be higher.

In late 2023 Australians will vote in a referendum on enshrining an Indigenous Voice to parliament and government in the Constitution. What benefits will it bring? And what was the journey to this point?

Everything You Need to Know about the Voice, written by co-author of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Cobble Cobble woman Megan Davis, and fellow constitutional expert George Williams, is essential reading on the Voice to parliament and government, how our Constitution was drafted, what the 1967 referendum achieved, what it left unfinished and the Uluru Statement. This updated edition charts the journey of this nation-building reform from the earliest stages of Indigenous advocacy, explores myths and misconceptions and, importantly, explains how the Voice offers change that will benefit the whole nation.

‘…a vitally important book written for all Australians who have accepted the Uluru invitation and are walking with us in a journey of the Australian people for a better future.’ — Patricia Anderson AO Alyawarre woman

‘… if you want to cut-through the rhetoric, Everything You Need to Know About The Voice will briskly give context to it all.’ — Tasmanian Times

WINNER OF THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD

‘This is an engaging story that feels both urgent and necessary. It is also a terrific read.’ – The Daily Telegraph

Welcome to Cinnamon Gardens, a home for those who are lost and the stories they treasure.

Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney – populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights – a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule.

But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents’ existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided.

Aspiring singer-songwriter Eva has one last chance to enter Triple J Unearthed High and break into the music industry. But after three failed attempts, she needs some help.

Cue the band: perfectionist Eva, charismatic Cooper, easy-going Ant and moody Ruby. Plus fly-on-the-wall Mim, who’s filming them for her school Media project. Five people who have nothing in common but music. One emotionally and creatively charged weekend.

Can they record the most important song of their lives?

A.J. Betts is a Fremantle-based author, speaker, teacher, columnist and cyclist. Her last work was the two-book speculative fiction series comprising Hive and Rogue. A.J.’s award-winning third novel, Zac & Mia, is available in 14 countries, and its American television adaptation won two Emmys in 2018. Her earlier novels are Wavelength and Shutterspeed.

From two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead comes the thrilling and entertaining sequel to Harlem Shuffle

‘Whether in high literary form or entertaining, page-turner mode, the man is simply incapable of writing a bad book’ IAN WILLIAMS, GUARDIAN

‘Crook Manifesto gave me something I had missed in recent reading: joy’ TELEGRAPH

‘A masterpiece’ PEOPLE MAGAZINE

1971, New York City. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is going bankrupt, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney is trying to keep his head down, his business up and his life straight. But then he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up an old police contact, who wants favours in return. For Ray, staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

1973. The old ways are being overthrown by the thriving counterculture, but Pepper, Carney’s enduringly violent partner in crime, is a constant. In these difficult times, Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem, finding himself in a world of Hollywood stars and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, while the country gears up for the Bicentennial. Carney is trying to come up with a celebratory July 4th advertisement he can actually live with, while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire seriously injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it, navigating a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent and the utterly corrupt.

In scalpel-sharp prose and with unnerving clarity and wit, Colson Whitehead writes about a city that runs on cronyism, threats, ego, ambition, incompetence and even, sometimes, pride. Crook Manifesto is a kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem, and a searching portrait of how families work in the face of chaos and hostility.

At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by the internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus-what they call Will-to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

Luka is currently reading this…

I wasn’t intending on starting yet another door stopper of a fantasy novel, but the truly incredible prose hooked me from the first page; I couldn’t resist. At 640 pages, it’s not a light read, but boy is it fast! With prose reminiscent of Name of the Wind, a plot that recalls the Red Rising series, and the character complexity of Robin Hobb’s works, I am tearing through this. I will definitely check out the author’s Licanius trilogy after this. The quality of prose is very, very high. – Luka

‘History is made up of myths,’ writes the renowned Russian dissident journalist Mikhail Zygar. ‘Alas, our myths led us to the fascism of 2022. It is time to expose them.’

Drawing from his perilous career investigating the frontiers of the Russian empire, Zygar reveals how 350 years of propaganda, bad historical scholarship, folk tales and fantasy spurred his nation into war with Ukraine.

How did a German monk’s fear of the Ottoman Empire drive him to invent the fiction of a united Russian world? How did corny spy novels about a ‘Soviet James Bond’ inspire Vladimir Putin to join the KGB? How did Alexander Pushkin’s admiration for a poem by Lord Byron end with him slandering the legendary chief of the Cossacks? And how did Putin underestimate a rising TV comic named Volodymyr Zelensky, failing to see that his satire had become deadly serious, and that his country would be a joke no longer?

A noted expert on the Kremlin with unparalleled access to hundreds of players in the current conflict – from politicians to oligarchs, gangsters to comedians (not least Zelensky himself) – Zygar chronicles the power struggles from which today’s politics grew, and digs out the essential truths from behind layers of seductive legend. By surveying the strange, complex record of Russo-Ukrainian relations, War and Punishment reveals exactly how the largest nation on Earth lost its senses. A work of history can’t undo the past or transform the present, but sometimes it can shape the future.

In fact, that’s how the story begins.

We are thrilled to have our poetry-loving paws all over the Sunline Press’ collection Cuttlefish: Western Australian Poets filled with over 80 poems by WA poets.

“… a volume I hope will be read by an eclectic range of readers, offering a glimpse into contemporary poetry and its forms and concerns but also a reading experience guided by the very aesthetic of the book itself. It is a book to be read in a single sitting, or one or two poems savoured in a brief interlude found in the day. It is a small volume, a book that can be carried around, read on a train, a couch, a beach. It is not an anthology that needs to read formally at a desk, nor is it to be read and never picked up again. These are short poems that invite you to go back as many times as possible.” Roland Leach, editor.

Written out of distinctively Western Australian settings, Spore or Seed is a narrative of pregnancy, birth and the early years of motherhood.

Spore or Seed is a beautifully written and deeply moving exploration of the loss of self and the discovery of a new, expanded self. It traces themes of pregnancy, birth and childrearing against the backdrop of environmental threat, addressing the intersections of environmental care and caretaking. What does it mean to become a parent in a time of climate crisis? How do we decide whether or not to have children in a time of constant uncertainty amplified by the pandemic years? And how does motherhood change us? These are the questions that Spore or Seed raises and uses all the tools of poetry to explore.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

‘Absolutely incredible. Beautiful, powerful writing. These pages will stay with me forever’ – CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS

A THING IS MIGHTY BIG WHEN TIME AND DISTANCE CANNOT SHRINK IT

It was a quote by Zora Neale Hurston. Malaya liked the words. The message was a mouthful of meaning, and it changed each time she read it. At first it had seemed ominous, but now she looked at it differently. She wondered for the first time if there could be something good about bigness, something mighty about not shrinking, after all.

Growing up in rapidly gentrifying 90s Harlem, Malaya struggles to fit into a world that makes no room for her. She’s funny, creative and smart, but all people see – even those who love her – is her size. At eight, her mother takes her to Weight Watchers; at twelve, her parents fear she’ll be taken from them; by sixteen, a gastric bypass is discussed.

On good days, Malaya braids bright colours into her hair, turns up Biggie Smalls on her Walkman, and strides through Harlem, his words galvanising her; on bad days, she doesn’t leave her bed other than for furtive trips for the forbidden food that will comfort her – for a while.

Compelling and compassionate, Big Girl is an unforgettable portrait of a queer Black girl as she learns to take up space in the world on her own terms.