For book clubs who are fans of Black Mirror …

Every Version of You by Grace Chan

In late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments.

When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future, or an authentic past.

For book clubs interested in fantastic local fiction …

Marlo by Jay Carmichael

It’s the 1950s in conservative Australia, and Christopher, a young gay man, moves to ‘the City’ to escape the repressive atmosphere of his tiny hometown. Once there, however, he finds that it is just as censorial and punitive, in its own way.

Then Christopher meets Morgan, and the two fall in love. But the society around them remains rigid and unchanging, and what begins as a refuge for both men inevitably buckles under the intensity of navigating a world that wants them to refuse what they are. Will their devotion be enough to keep them together?

For book clubs who enjoy a clever reimagining …

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Carlota Moreau: A young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, the only daughter of a genius - or a madman. Montgomery Laughton: An outcast who assists Dr Moreau with his scientific experiments. The hybrids: The fruits of the Doctor’s labour, destined to blindly obey their creator while they remain in the shadows, are a motley group of part-human, part-animal monstrosities.

All of them are living in a perfectly balanced and static world which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau’s patron - who will, unwittingly, begin a dangerous chain-reaction.

For book clubs who love spec-fic short stories …

Everything Feels Like the End of the World by Else Fitzgerald

A collection of short speculative fiction exploring possible futures from an Australia not so different from our present day to one thousands of years into an unrecognisable future.

A young woman is faced with a terrible choice about her pregnancy in a community ravaged by doubt. An engineer working on a solar shield protecting the Earth shares memories of their lover with an AI companion. Two archivists must decide what is worth saving when the world is flooded by rising sea levels. In a heavily policed state that preferences the human and punishes the different, a mother gives herself up to save her transgenic child.

For book clubs taking on the patriarchy …

Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, Lucy North (trans.) & David Boyd (trans.)

Thirty-four-year-old Ms Shibata works for a company manufacturing cardboard tubes and paper cores in Tokyo. Her job is relatively secure but requires working overtime almost every day. Most frustratingly, as the only woman, there’s the unspoken expectation that Ms Shibata will handle all the menial chores: serving coffee during meetings, cleaning the kitchenette, coordinating all the gifts sent to the company, emptying the bins.

One day, exasperated and fed up, Ms Shibata announces that she can’t clear away her colleagues’ dirty cups, because she’s pregnant. She isn’t. But her ‘news’ brings results: a sudden change in the way she’s treated. Immediately a new life begins.

For book clubs ready for a complete change of scenery …

My Father and Other Animals by Sam Vincent

Sam Vincent is a twenty-something writer in the inner suburbs, scrabbling to make ends meet, when he gets a call from his mother: his father has stuck his hand in a woodchipper, but ‘not to worry - it wasn’t like that scene in Fargo or anything’. When Sam returns to the family farm to help out, his life takes a new and unexpected direction.

Sam’s farming apprenticeship is an education in grit and shit. But there are victories, too: nurturing a fig orchard to bloom; learning to read the land; joining forces with Indigenous elders to protect a special site. Slowly, Sam finds himself thinking differently about the farm, about his father and about his relationship with both.

For book clubs interested in the ties that bind …

A Recipe for Family by Tori Haschka

Things are getting slippery for Stella. With her husband away she’s juggling a full-time job, a tricky stepdaughter and a relentless four-year-old. Joining the throng of local mothers, she reluctantly hires an au pair in the hope that it will lighten the load. Stella’s mother-in-law, Elise, thinks this is a rotten idea. An industrial chemist and staunch feminist, she finds the ethical murkiness surrounding the au pair solution difficult to swallow. For Ava, life in Sydney as an au pair could help fill the void left by the loss of her mother.

Three women, drawn together by impossible circumstances, will discover that the greatest comfort can often be found in the mess.

For book clubs exploring societal expectation …

Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

An engaged couple falls out over the husband’s dislike of clothes and objects made from human materials; a young girl finds herself deeply enamoured with the curtain in her childhood bedroom; people honour their dead by eating them and then procreating.

Published in English for the first time, this exclusive edition also includes the story that first brought Sayaka Murata international acclaim: ‘A Clean Marriage’, which tells the story of a happily asexual couple who must submit to some radical medical procedures if they are to conceive a longed-for child.