Read a master of the form in Dark as Last Night by Tony Birch
Dark as Last Night confirms, once again, that Tony Birch is a master of the short story. These exceptional stories capture the importance of human connection at pivotal moments in our lives, whether those occur because of the loss of a loved one or the uncertainties of childhood.
In this collection we witness a young girl struggling to protect her mother from her father’s violence, two teenagers clumsily getting to know one another by way of a shared love of music, and a man mourning the death of his younger brother. Throughout this powerful collection, Birch’s concern for the humanity of those who are often marginalised or overlooked shines bright. Read our review here.
Read the epic fantasy everyone is talking about in She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty plain, a seer shows two children their fates. For a family’s eighth-born son, there’s greatness. For the second daughter, nothing.
In 1345, China lies restless under harsh Mongol rule. And when a bandit raid wipes out their home, the two children must somehow survive. Zhu Chongba despairs and gives in. But the girl resolves to overcome her destiny. So she takes her dead brother’s identity and begins her journey. Can Zhu escape what’s written in the stars, as rebellion sweeps the land? Or can she claim her brother’s greatness - and rise as high as she can dream? Read our review here.
Read a slice of how we live now in Roots by various
Roots brings us thirty of the best short memoirs chosen from more than 2000 entries in the inaugural SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition.
Offering a snapshot of contemporary Australia, this diverse collection of stories explores love, family, loss, culture, sexual awakening and the abiding connections to people and place that make us who we are. Told with utterly fresh perspectives and a rich vein of literary talent, these stories are an invitation into the unique and intimate worlds of everyday Australians.
Read a thrilling mediation on madness and revenge in Mrs March by Virginia Feito
George March’s latest novel is a smash hit. None could be prouder than Mrs. March, his dutiful wife. A creature of routine and decorum, Mrs. March lives an exquisitely controlled existence on the Upper East Side. Every morning begins the same way, with a visit to her favourite patisserie to buy a loaf of olive bread, but her latest trip proves to be her last when she suffers an indignity from which she may never recover.
One casual remark robs Mrs. March not only of her beloved olive bread but of the belief that she knew everything about her husband - and herself - sending her on an increasingly paranoid journey, one that starts within the pages of a book but may very well uncover both a killer and the long-buried secrets of Mrs. March’s past. Read our review here.
Read yourselves to somewhere else in Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives - a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.
An exquisitely-crafted debut, this is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation.
Read about our possible futures in 12 BYTES by Jeanette Winterson
An original, and entertaining new book from Jeanette Winterson, drawing on her years of thinking about and reading about Artificial Intelligence in its bewildering manifestations. She looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and of course, computing science, to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.
With wit, compassion and curiosity, Winterson tackles AI’s most interesting talking points, from the algorithms that data-dossier your whole life, to the weirdness of backing up your brain.
Read a bright yet unflinching memoir in Muddy People by Sara El Sayed
At the turn of the millennium, Soos is growing up in an eccentric household with a lot of rules. No bikinis, despite the South-East Queensland heat. No boys, unless he’s Muslim. And no life insurance, not even when her father gets cancer.
Soos is trying to discover how to balance her parents’ strict decrees with having friendships, crushes and the freedom to develop her own values. With each rule Soos comes up against, she is forced to choose between doing what her parents say is right and following her instincts. When her family collapses, she comes to see her parents as flawed, their morals based on a muddy logic. But she will also learn that they are her strongest defenders. Read our review here.
Read a novel of heartbreak and renewal in The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret. In the taverna’s centre, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. The fig tree witnesses their hushed, happy meetings; their silent, surreptitious departures. The fig tree is there, too, when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish.
Decades later, Kostas returns - a botanist, looking for native species - looking, really, for Defne. The two lovers return to the taverna to take a clipping from the fig tree and smuggle it into their suitcase, bound for London. Years later, the fig tree in the garden is their daughter Ada’s only knowledge of a home she has never visited… Read our review here.
Read about how lives turn on a dime in Small joys of Real Life by Allee Richards
The night Eva shared a smile with Pat, something started. Two weeks later, lying together in her bed, Pat said, ‘You can’t live your life saying you’ll get around to doing something you know will make you happy. You just have to do it.’
Eva didn’t know how devastating those words would turn out to be. Pat dies and the aftershock leaves Eva on unsteady ground. She is pregnant. And she has to make a choice. Suddenly, the world that she at times already questioned, her career, her roommates and friends, and life in the inner-city are all even harder to navigate. A novel about friendship, desire, loss, and how the life you have can change in an instant. Read our review here.
