AustLit

'Although set a hundred years ago, John Clanchy's new novel powerfully captures the devastating and persistent reality of a fundamental flaw in the role of our major institutions. Central to In Whom We Trust is James Pearse, an essentially good but circumstantially weak man, who is forced to examine his role at the St Barnabas Home for Children, an orphanage that has betrayed the individuals entrusted to its care. He must face the devastating wider consequences of a life of moral equivocation.' (Publication summary)

'Call Me is Julian Davies’ seventh novel. Tangentially related to his previous social satire, Crow Mellow, this is a contemporary Australian story of thwarted young love, and an ambitious attempt to take us deep within the lives and experience of two perceptive yet conflicted teenagers in their last year of school. If love beset by complication is a familiar pattern in fiction, then, in this story, complication dances beguilingly between reality and absurdity.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Afterwards, she couldn’t remember actually making a decision to steal from him. It was as if it had already been made, a long time ago, and simply awaited the opportunity.

'She didn’t, of course, call it stealing. As she slid the fifty dollar note into the pocket of her own jeans, and dropped the shirt into the washing machine—carried on, in fact, as if nothing had happened—she told herself that someone had to take some responsibility.

'The role of silence in the relationships of the people who populate this richly varied collection of stories is mirrored in the restraint of the writing that captures them. While the characters have all the difficulties communicating that we can recognise in our own lives, Buckle’s deceptively understated style reveals them with startling cumulative power.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Hartmann Wallis, who has a wild and somewhat incestuous relationship with the well-known author and artist Robin Wallace-Crabbe, has a punchy new collection of poetry released by Finlay Lloyd on 13 August. Hartmann is something of an enigma, but Wallace-Crabbe has had many books published both here and overseas, including literary works, crime fiction novels (as Robert Wallace) and non-fiction essays. The book is richly illustrated by Phil Day, including two colour watercolours.' (Publication summary)

'This collection of prose poetry from Cassandra Atherton creates a naturally intimate world while, at the same time, fluidly examining complex connections between popular and high culture.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This long essay is an engagingly personal, playful and thoughtful examination of the arrival in 1832 in Tasmania of a shipload of women, sent to redress the imbalance of genders in that colonial settlement.' (Publication summary)

'This collection of linked essays from Timothy Morrell explores, with a deft ironic touch, our obsession with travel, in the process taking us to some places that perhaps only the author would want to visit.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This long lively essay from Phillip Stamatellis portrays the ‘biography’ of a café in Goulburn in the 1970s and 80s. We witness the café’s passing parade of motley customers through the eyes of the youngest son of the Greek immigrants who run it.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This wonderfully illustrated collection from Paul McDermott contains a haunting parable about a boy and a goat, and a series of poems that are both fiercely ironic and strangely moving.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Julian Davies’ sixth and most unusual novel, is a contemporary social satire closely based on Aldous Huxley’s first novel (from 1921), Crome Yellow. This playful response to another book is startlingly furthered by the text being surrounded by almost 400 drawings by Phil Day, whose hand-made books are collected by many state and university libraries, including The National Library of Australia. In this lively collaboration between words and pictures, the illustrations form a closely related parallel visual text that weave around and interact with the unfolding story. Set in multi-millionaire Mitchell Rimbush’s bush retreat, where artists and writers on the make gather with their wealthy admirers, conversation is the one constant prerequisite.' (Publication abstract)

'A collection of richly varied long stories by John Clanchy. These stories reveal the disguised impulses and motivations, the telling switch-points of modern life. With humour, insight and compassion, Clanchy draws us deep within the world of his characters.' (Publication summary)

'Nothing Ventured contains several comics. The drawing is fresh and the stories quiet yet enlivened by playfully dark humour. ' (Publication summary)

'NY takes its author to Manhattan where she has encounters that surprise and deeply affect her. ' (Publication summary)

'The Dark Days of Matty Lang is a powerful story of friendship, love and betrayal.' (Publication summary)

'Bruno Kramzer is an intriguing and disturbing story of evasion and betrayal. ' (Publication summary)

'Anxiety Soup is a vital and intimate collection of poetry' (Publication summary)

'When Professor Blinks and his blended family arrive in Touraine, ‘the Garden of France’, for a sabbatical year, they begin to discover that their lodgings will offer experiences more unforeseen than old-world grandeur and blocked drains. Their landlady Mme de Monzets-Merveylles, will confound their expectations, test their powers of comprehension and, quite possibly, their hold on reality.' (Publication summary)

'Who are they? What do we really know about them? What do our interactions with them tell us about ourselves? The contributors (some with person stories, other with challenging insights or expertise in their field) combine to make this collection a many faceted examination of the other animals and our complex relationship with them.' (Publication summary)