This reading list is a contribution to the sharing of books. All sorts of books make their way to my bedside table. Some are sent, some recommended, some given as gifts or lent by someone who has enjoyed reading them.
Others (let’s be frank – many) I see on a bookstore shelf, find irresistible and bring home. A few of these become family members who may not leave my bookshelf, but can be read by guests who stay. Some wander on to other homes and hearts.
If you have books you’d like to talk about contact me via the web contact form.
Allen & Unwin, Australia 2026
Cover design Hazel Lam
Cover image iStock
Gabbie Stroud cleverly packs this book with levity and larrikinism, but this a veneer for the very dark matter that is actually the story here.
Scholastic Press, Australia, 2026
Illustrations by A. Yi
Book design Nae Shiowaza-West
In Our Family Zoo by Maura Pierlot, we follow, in lilting rhyme, the conversation of a mum and her small son as he begs for another pet to add to their considerable menagerie, all living in a small family home.
The Improbable Life of Anzac Chaplain Walter Dexter
Signs Publishing, Australia, 2026
Cover design Shane Winfield
Drawing on diaries, letters and family held documents, as well as a conversation with one of Walter Dexter’s sons, historian Daniel Reynaud has created a detailed and highly appealing portrait of his subject from boyhood to end of life.
Independently published through FairFarren Press, Australia 2025
Cover design Laura Boyle
The Last Pieces of Me is a fictional memoir told as a first-person narrative by elderly Elise Harrington in her final days. Its time setting is from 1938, the year of Elise’s birth in Bakersfield, Victoria, to the present. Elise refers to her early life as days of ‘love and innocence’, presaging the disillusionment and sadness to follow.
Stories of Resilience, Recovery and Renewal, Personal Reflections from Canberra
Independently published, 2026
Editor Angela Martin
Design Andrew Rankine
Publication coordinator Megan Flynn
Under the leadership of Megan Flynn, Angela Martin and Andrew Rankine, Cyclone Tracy 50 Years On has delivered a collection of poignant and articulate memoirs by people who were there when the cyclone hit and by members of various rescue and recovery teams.
Affirm Press, Australia 2026
Cover design Luke Causby/Blue Cork
Cover image Alexwise/Getty Images
Old Games is an interesting mix of slapstick and pathos. The author has given us two female leads who are actually minor criminals engaged in somewhat questionable private detective work. Their activities have an air of larrikinism with undertones of violence.
Allen & Unwin, Australia 2026
Cover design Luke Causby/Blue Cork
Cover images Adobe Stock Images
The setting for Click is 2020 Melbourne, and this is crucial for a number of reasons. It is a time when changes in the delivery of media are accelerating, social media is on the rise and the Dark Web is becoming an increasingly known and troubling entity.
Allen & Unwin, Australia 2026
Cover design Christabella Design
Cover images Arcangel; iStockphoto; Stratfieldsaye by Lady Sophia Augusta C. Wellesley, 1845
Aficionados of historical romance will love Sue Williams’ dual timeline love stories in this novel – the contemporary Australian story and the 18th century British one.
How the Internet Works and How to Make it Work for You
University of Queensland Press Australia 2026
Cover design and illustrations by Aśka
Review by Richard Scherer
Towards the end of Behind the Screens, subtitled How the Internet Works and How to Make it Work for You, Nij Lal, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, reminds us that much of the early internet was built by high-minded volunteers with the principles of freedom of access, equality of data and openness.
Continue Reading“Niraj Lal: Behind the Screens “
Zibby Books, USA and Atlantic Books, an imprint of Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2026
Cover design Emma Rogers
Cover photographs Jane Khomi/Moment via Getty Images
The umbrella for this book is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which states (simply, for us lay people) that time and space are not absolute, but are interconnected as ‘spacetime’ (thank you Reddit and Wiki).
Café Stepping Stone, Strathnairn Homestead
90 Stockdill Drive Holt ACT
2pm to 4pm Thursday 16 April 2026
A Heritage Week event
Artist Irina Bastrakova invites you to join her, editors/publishers Barbara Baikie OAM and Barbie Robinson along with women writers whose stories are published in Write around the World – Women’s Voices for Peace for an informal book gathering and afternoon tea.
Continue Reading“Write Around the World – a book afternoon tea”
Shelley Dark Publications, Australia 2025
Cover design Rony Dhar
The historian in Shelley Dark could not resist following the trail, when she discovered an unexpected family connection with an Australian Greek convict, hailing from the island of Hydra.
A Lothian Children’s Book, Hachette Australia 2026
Cover design Astred Hicks, Design Cherry
Cover art Timba Smits
You don’t have to be a teenage schoolboy, or even a teacher at an expensive private school with an antiquated system of values and rules for Poster Boys to strike a chord. After all, we’ve all been to school, and some of us may have been the nerdy outsiders depicted in the hero/anti-hero roles – Edward Heffernan and his would-be friend Nolan Li.
Next Chapter, Australia 2025
Design by Next Chapter
Cover art: Lordan June Pinote
Sandi Wallace moves into the arena of the psychological thriller with this latest novel. Its principal themes are grief and guilt and how we respond to major life dramas.
Fremantle Press, Australia 2026
Design Lisa White
Cover image Two Hares by William Bell Scott, met.museum.org
This profoundly affecting work of beautifully crafted literary fiction is the story of a Cormish life in the 1600s, a time when women possessing the healing arts were hunted down as witches and burnt or drowned for their knowledge.
