In March, the winners of the Windham-Campbell Prizes for literature were announced. First awarded in 2013 and administered by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, prizes are given in the categories of fiction, drama and non-fiction for writers from anywhere in the world whose work is written in English. These prizes are awarded through an anonymous judging process, publishers and writers don’t actually know that their work is being considered. As a result, being informed that you’re a winner of US$150,000 comes as something of a (potentially life-changing) surprise. And so when Melbourne’s very own Helen Garner saw an email telling her she had been awarded the prize in recognition of her non-fiction writing oeuvre, she was understandably sceptical. Happily, the news was 100% legit, and Garner now sits alongside other winners recognised in this category, such as Hilton Als, Geoff Dyer and Edmund de Waal. It is fitting, then, that our book of the month is Garner’s new collection of non-fiction writing, Everywhere I Look (see Managing Director Mark Rubbo’s Q&A with Garner here).

Congratulations Helen Garner!

It’s also fitting that this April is a particularly good month for Australian non-fiction publishing. Henry Reynolds’ Unnecessary Wars questions Australia’s involvement in international conflicts from the Boer War onwards, Thornton McCamish brings Alan Moorehead back from obscurity in Our Man Elsewhere, Damon Young meditates on The Art of Reading, and Bernice Barry uncovers the botanical life of Georgiana Molloy in her biography of the same name. Defending Country details the military service of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Sarah Ferguson offers the companion to her ABC documentary detailing the Rudd–Gillard drama in The Killing Season Uncut, and Black Inc. give us a refreshing collection of writing about AFL in From from the Outer. Meanwhile, Sonya Voumard considers the role of the journalist and the ethics of reporting on the twentieth anniversary of the Port Arthur Massacre in The Media and the Massacre.

Internationally, John Elder Robison writes about neurostimulation in Switched On, Dawn Foster questions the utility of a ‘corporate “1% feminism”’ in Lean Out, her counter to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, Frank Trentmann investigates the cultural history of consumerism in Empire of Things (and what a ‘thing’ this book is – beautiful!), Augusten Burroughs writes another chapter of his memoir, Lust & Wonder, rising star Kiese Laymon writes about life in contemporary USA in How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and A.C. Grayling looks back at the seventeenth century and the making of the modern mind in The Age of Genius.

And in Australian fiction, for which I barely have any room left, we have another bumper crop with work from Georgia Blain, Patrick Holland, Inga Simpson, Emily Maguire, Lynnette Lounsbury, Portland Jones and Debra Jopson. Also out this month are two buzz lit-fic debuts from the US: The Nest (Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney) and The Turner House (Angela Flournoy). Do take note too of The Bricks that Built the Houses, the highly anticipated debut novel from London playwright/poet/rapper Kate Tempest. One last book I can’t wait to read is The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage, another ‘rediscovered classic’ published by Vintage this month. If it’s even half as good as Stoner … Until my May missive, happy reading!

Alison Huber