Killing Time: Short Stories From the Long Road Home by Jimmy Barnes

$40.50 AUD

$45.00 (10% off)

Category: TOP 50

From the rock legend turned master storyteller, this collection of non-fiction short stories is vintage Jimmy. Stories of adventure, misadventure, love and loss from the #1 bestselling author of the critically acclaimed memoirs Working Class Boy and Working Class Man. Outrageous, witty, warm and wise, K illing Time shares more than 40 yarns from an epic life - a dazzling collection of tall tales, out-takes and B-sides from one of Australia's finest storytellers. ...Show more

The Survivors by Jane Harper

$32.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50 | Reading Level: very good

The compelling new novel from Jane Harper, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry. Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal town he on ce called home. Kieran's parents are struggling in a community which is bound, for better or worse, to the sea, that is both a lifeline and a threat. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away... ...Show more

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

$32.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50 | Reading Level: Adult

Booker Prize Winner 2020. It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abando ned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother's sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no' right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place. Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara. It is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist with a powerful and important story to tell.     ...Show more

The Sentinel (#25 Jack Reacher) by Lee Child

$19.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50 | Series: Jack Reacher Ser.

The edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-mouth new Jack Reacher thriller for 2020 - his 25th adventure. No one's bigger than Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher gets off the bus in a sleepy no-name town outside Nashville, Tennessee. He plans to grab a cup of coffee and move right along. Not going to happen. The town has been shut down by a cyber attack. At the centre of it all, whether he likes it or not, is Rusty Rutherford. He's an average IT guy, but he knows more than he thinks. As the bad guys move in on Rusty, Reacher moves in on them . . . And now Rusty knows he's protected, he's never going to leave the big man's side. Reacher might just have to stick around and find out what the hell's gone wrong . . . and then put it right, like only he can. *** 'Jack Reacher is today's James Bond, a thriller hero we can't get enough of.' Ken Follett 'If you haven't read any Jack Reacher, you have a treat in store . . . a hitchhiker without a phone, a one-man force for good.' - The Times 'A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review 'Jack Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero; tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable... Irresistible.' People 'Jack Reacher has long since earned his prominent place in the pantheon of cool, smart-talking American heroes.' New York Times ...Show more

The Yield by Tara June Winch

$19.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

Winner of the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was eve r remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land - a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river. Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch's The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity. ...Show more

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

$19.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

DON'T MISS THE STANDALONE NEW NOVEL FROM JOJO MOYES, THE NO. 1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ME BEFORE YOU, AFTER YOU AND STILL ME ' Alice had come halfway across the world to find that, yet again, she was considered wanting. Well, she thought, if that was what everyone thought, she might as well live up to it .' England, late 1930s, and Alice Wright - restless, stifled - makes an impulsive decision to marry wealthy American Bennett Van Cleve and leave her home and family behind. But stuffy, disapproving Baileyville, Kentucky, where her husband favours work over his wife and is dominated by his overbearing father, is not the adventure - or the escape - that she hoped for. That is, until she meets Margery O'Hare, a troublesome woman - and daughter of a notorious felon - the town wishes to forget. Margery's on a mission to spread the wonder of books and reading to the poor and lost - and she needs Alice's help. Trekking alone under big open skies, through wild mountain forests, Alice, Margery and their fellow sisters of the trail discover freedom, friendship - and a life to call their own. But when Baileyville turns against them, will their belief in one another - and the power of the written word - be enough to save them? Inspired by a remarkable true story, The Giver of Stars features five incredible women who will prove to be every bit as beloved as Lou Clark, the unforgettable heroine of Me Before You. AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW Praise for Jojo Moyes: 'Moyes somehow manages to break your heart before restoring your faith in love' Sunday Express 'Storytelling at its best' Marie Claire 'A triumph' Heat 'A deeply satisfying book full of big emotions' Good Housekeeping 'Britain's best contemporary female author' Sun on Sunday ...Show more

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

$32.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become bett er at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. We know, for example, that there are a few core truths to science of happiness. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. So, when we are exposed to, or learn, good things, how do we continue to burn with them? And more than that, when our world goes dark, when we're overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom? In the muck and grit of a daily existence full of disappointments and a disturbing lack of control over many of the things that matter most - finite relationships, fragile health, fraying economies, a planet in peril - how do we find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light - a light to ward off the darkness? Absorbing, achingly beautiful, inspiring and deeply moving, Julia Baird has written exactly the book we need for these times. ...Show more

All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton

$32.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, returns with All Our Shimmering Skies - a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic. Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain overhead, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, turns once again to the sky for gui dance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot. 'Run, Molly, run,' says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia's wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the graverobber's coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him. So run, Molly, run. All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger; of darkness and light; of bones and blue skies. A buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder, a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.     ...Show more

The Dressmaker's Secret by Rosalie Ham

$32.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

Rosalie Ham's dressmaker returns in the sequel to the beloved #1 bestseller and the box office sensation, The Dressmaker. It is 1953 and Melbourne society is looking forward to coronation season, the grand balls and celebrations for the young queen-to-be. Tilly Dunnage is, however, working for a pittanc e in a second-rate Collins Street salon. Her talents go unappreciated, and the madame is a bully and a cheat, but Tilly has a past she is desperate to escape and good reason to prefer anonymity. Meanwhile, Sergeant Farrat and the McSwiney clan have been searching for their resident dressmaker ever since she left Dungatar in flames. And they aren't the only ones. The inhabitants of the town are still out for revenge (or at least someone to foot the bill for the new high street). So when Tilly's name starts to feature in the fashion pages, the jig is up. Along with Tilly's hopes of keeping her secrets hidden... ...Show more

The Yield by Tara June Winch

$32.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50 | Reading Level: very good

Winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2020. Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction 2020. Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020. Just tell the truth and someone will hear it eventually. The Yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the langu age of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert ‘Poppy’ Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.   ...Show more

The Golden Maze: A Biography of Prague (HB) by Richard Fidler

$39.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

ABC broadcaster and bestselling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague. In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution bro ke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human, moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him. Thirty years later Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe's most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth Century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot, and the world's biggest statue of Stalin, a behemoth that killed almost everyone who touched it. Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world's most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the Nazi SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague's mythic past, he finds the city's founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars. Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive, and the best storyteller you could have as your companion.  ...Show more

Is the Moon Upside Down? by Greg Quicke

$29.99 AUD

Category: TOP 50

During his younger days working as a bush mechanic and pearl diver in remote WA, Greg Quick spent countless nights lying in a swag and staring at the stars. That daily distraction grew into a passion that has seen him become one of Australia's best known and most engaging astronomers. In recent years Gr eg - aka 'Space Gandalf' - has taken on cult status among audiences via his appearances alongside Professor Brian Cox in the hit TV series Stargazing Live. Greg's practical explanations of the complexities of space have also earned him respect from astronomers around the world. Is The Moon Upside Down? is an absorbing guided tour of the cosmos as seen through Greg's eyes. Unlike many of his peers who studied at university he offers a unique and refreshing perspective on astronomy that was instead forged on cliff tops outside Alice Springs, in the endless expanse of the Great Sandy Desert, on the floor of the Indian Ocean and in his own front yard in Broome. No matter what mysteries you've pondered about Earth's astral dance with the Sun, planets, Moon and the stars, it's guaranteed Greg has thought about them too, and the answers can be found in the pages of this book.   ...Show more