Fiction
The Australian fiction for this summer’s reading revival is fresh, trope-free and has something real to say about the world. Add to your to-be-read pile ASAP.
Nock Loose by Patrick Marlborough
Fun. Riotous fucking fun. That’s the best way to describe Patrick Marlborough’s absurd and hilarious fantasy-satire. Nock Loose follows Joy, a retired stuntwoman and former Olympian archer, whose life is burned to the ground by the generationally entitled pricks who run her hometown of Bodkins Point in southwest WA. When it’s time for Agincourt, an annual medieval festival that’s recklessly violent, what’s a girl to do but plot revenge?
The Rot by Evelyn Araluen
Don’t read Sylvia Plath — read Evelyn Araluen. The poems in The Rot are a study of modern girlhood collapsing under the weight of late-stage capitalism and genocide livestreamed into your palm. It’s dark, sharp and funny, inserting the language of the zeitgeist into literature. The Rot grapples with the fading illusion of a ‘normal’ life, and the brutality of realising that not everyone else around you notices (or cares about) the world in decay.
Learned Behaviours by Zeynab Gamieldien
Zaid Saban is on the up. He’s about to become a barrister at a prominent law firm, and inhabits a world far removed from his tough childhood in Western Sydney. But when the sister of his high school best friend Hass — who was arrested for murder when the boys were about to graduate — asks Zaid to read Hass’ diary, it threatens to upend everything. What will it cost to uncover the truth?
Non-fiction
Ambitious ideas to challenge your brain, by some of the most intelligent writers in the nation. Your summer assignment: read, process, discuss.
Not Quite White in the Head by Melissa Lucashenko
Melissa Lucashenko is one of Australia’s best writers. And while she is arguably best known for her literary and historical fiction works, Not Quite White in the Head is a collection of her journalism and essays spanning two decades. The topics span Aboriginal identity, reflections on writing and storytelling, politics, history, and insightful snapshots into the lives of ‘ordinary’ people.
Fearless Beatrice Faust by Judith Brett
Many of Australia’s historical feminist figures who secured important freedoms for women were, to put it bluntly, awful. How do we situate their beliefs and achievements in the modern day? Political historian Judith Brett tackles the big, contentious legacy of Beatrice Faust — an abortion advocate with extreme views on sexual freedom, and a civil rights campaigner skeptical of the feminist movement.
Conspiracy Nation by Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson
We don’t need QAnon — we’ve got conspiracy theories at home. Journalists Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson investigate Australia’s homegrown conspiracy theorists and the people who believe in them. From the Port Arthur massacre to Pete Evans’ anti-vax agenda, the way conspiracy theories spread and the stories contained within them reveal a lot about Australian identity.
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