The Sydney Writers Festival kicks off on 18 May, and the program is chock-full of exciting authors. To celebrate the line-up of international guests, we’ve put together ten books to read if you want to get into the festival spirit. (And we’ve made a note if the international guest is also appearing in Melbourne…)

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

What it’s about: As a child, Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer, learning the arcane terminology and reading all the classic books. Years later, when her father died and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. This memoir is an unflinchingly honest account of her struggle during the difficult process of the hawk’s taming.

What people are saying: “I never thought a goshawk playing with paper would make me burst into tears and it was a wonderful surprise that it did.” – Bronte Coates, Readings review

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

What it’s about: One drowsy summer’s day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for ‘asylum’. Decades will pass before Holly understands exactly what sort of asylum the woman was seeking…

What people are saying: Mitchell’s mastery of narrative voice really shines here; each of his characters is unique in tone, thought and action, and no character fails to draw the reader into their own private world of intrigue. – Samuel Zifchak, Readings review

David Mitchell is coming coming to Melbourne. Find out more

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

What it’s about: One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in North America. The world will never be the same again.

What people are saying: “Smart, haunting and inventive, Station Eleven is highly recommended.” – Nina Kenwood, Readings review

Emily St. John Mandel is coming coming to Melbourne. Find out more

Not My Father’s Son: A Family Memoir by Alan Cumming

What it’s about: A star of stage and screen, Alan Cumming’s life and career have been shaped by a complex and dark family past – full of troubled memories, kept buried away. But then an unexpected phone call unravelled everything he thought he knew about himself.

What people are saying: “Cleverly structured, I would have to agree with the growing number of reviewers that liken this to a thriller – it is gripping, page-turning stuff.” – Amanda Raynor, Readings review

One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad (translated by Sarah Death)

What it’s about: On 22 July 2011 Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 of his fellow Norwegians in a terrorist atrocity that shocked the world. Many were teenagers, just beginning their adult lives. Based on extensive testimonies and interviews, One of Us is the definitive account of the massacres and the subsequent trial.

What people are saying: “ One of Us is a chilling and harrowing book and, like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, is destined to become a classic account of evil. It should be compulsory reading.” – Mark Rubbo, Readings review

Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life by Paul Dolan

What it’s about: As a Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics, Dolan conducts original research into the measurement of happiness and its causes and consequences, including the effects of our behaviour. Here he creates a new outlook on the pursuit of happiness - it’s not just how you feel, it’s how you act.

What people are saying: “(This book) will serve as a prophylactic against the alternative, to which it’s dangerously easy to succumb: becoming a hardened shell of habits, with not much left inside.” – Guardian

In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman

What it’s about: An investment banker approaching forty, in the midst of his career collapsing and marriage unravelling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London townhouse. Confronting the dishevelled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack, the banker recognizes a long-lost college friend.

What people are saying: “…an intricate account of the audacity of world-making and a eulogy to our steadfast desire to understand and be understood.” – Lucy Van, Readings review

Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem

What it’s about: For over forty years Rose Zimmer pounds the streets of Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, terrorising the neighbourhood, and her family, with the implacability of her beliefs, the sheer force of her grudge. And the generations that follow Rose will not easily escape her influence. This is a radical family epic.

What people are saying: “…with this novel Jonathan Lethem has inhabited the vacated position among the first rank of American realists.” – Telegraph

Jonathan Lethem is coming coming to Melbourne. Find out more

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematorium by Caitlin Doughty

What it’s about: From her very first day at Westwind Cremation & Burial, twenty-three-year-old Caitlin Doughty threw herself into the gruesome daily tasks of her curious new profession. Now a licensed mortician, Caitlin tells the story of her fumbling apprenticeship with the dead.

What people are saying: “A book as graphic and morbid as this one could easily suck its readers into a bout of sorrow, but Doughty – a trustworthy tour guide through the repulsive and wondrous world of death – keeps us laughing.” – The Washington Post

In the Company of Cowards: Bush, Howard and Injustice at Guantanamo by Michael Mori

What it’s about: Former US Marine lawyer Michael Mori describes the four years he spent defending David Hicks who had been detained in Guantanamo Bay. Mori’s exposition of an unfair system changed the way we saw the War on Terror.

What people are saying: ‘A compelling and sobering account of a western democratic government losing its head and sacrificing principles in the cause of national security.’ – Australian Financial Review