For several years now, my first Monday Musings of the year has focused on “new releases”. As before, it is mostly drawn from the Sydney Morning Herald. Their writers do a wonderful job of surveying publishers large and small, but I have found a few more on my own! Also, remember, this is Monday musings on Australian literature post, so focuses on Australian authors. Do click on the SMH link to see the full list, which includes non-Aussies, Aussies I haven’t selected, and some additional book info.

Links on the authors’ names are to my posts on those authors.

Fiction

Last year, I listed over 30 fiction works, including short story collections, and read very few – though have some on my TBR. Here’s this year’s selection:

• Robbie Arnott, Limberlost (October, Text)
• Jessica Au, Cold enough for snow (February, Giramondo): Brona’s advanced review. 
• Mandy Beaumont, The furies (February, Hachette)
• Geraldine Brooks, Horse (June, Hachette)
• Michelle Cahill, Daisy and Woolf (April, Hachette)
• Jay Carmichael, Marlo, 1953 (August, Scribe)
• Steven Carroll, Goodnight, Vivienne, Goodnight (March, 4th Estate): final in the Eliot Quartet
• Shankari Chandran, Chai time at Cinnamon Gardens (January, Ultimo Press)
• Claire G. Coleman, Enclave (July, Hachette) 
• Gregory Day, The bell in the world (December, Transit Lounge)
• Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell, Mothertongues (April, PRH): “experimental book of bio-autofiction about early motherhood”, a genre-bender?
• Robert Drewe, Nimblefoot (June, PRH)
• Nigel Featherstone, My heart is a little wild thing (no date, Ultimo Press)
• Victoria Hannan, Marshmallow (September, Hachette)
• Hilde Hinton, The loudness of unsaid things (April, Hachette)
• Gail Jones, no title yet (November, Text)
• Yumna Kassab, Australiana (March, Ultimo)
• Tom Keneally, Dancing the Liberty Dance (August, PRH)
• Tom Lee, Object coach (November, Upswell)
• Robert Lukins, Loveland (Allen & Unwin, March)  
• Fiona McGregor, Iris (October, Picador)
• Holly Ringland, The seven skins of Esther Wilding (June, 4th Estate) 
• Philip Salom, Sweeney and the bicycles (November, Transit Lounge)
• Wendy Scarfe, One bright morning (March, Wakefield)
• Jock Serong, The settlement (September, Text)
• Craig Sherborne, The Grass Hotel (February, Text)
• Inga Simpson, Willowman (November, Hachette)
• Steve Toltz, Here goes nothing (May, PRH)
• Pip Williams, The bookbinder of Jericho (November, Affirm). 
• Dominique Wilson, Orphan Rock (March, Transit Lounge)
• Alexis Wright, Praiseworthy (October, Giramondo)

SMH lists many books under Thrills and Chills, but this is not my area of expertise. So, I’m going to leave you to check SMH’s link if you are interested, and just bring a couple to your attention:

• Shelley Burr, Wake (June, Hachette: see my Blogging Highlights post)
• Angela Meyer, Moon sugar (October, Transit Lounge)

SMH also lists Debut Australian fiction. Most of these names are, by definition, unknown, so I’m sharing them by publisher:

• Affirm: Omar Sakr, Son of Sin (February: poet moving into fiction)
• Allen & Unwin (A&U): Isobel Beech, Sunbathing (May); Emily Brugman, The Islands (February)
• Finlay Lloyd: Sandy Gordon, Leaving Owl Creek (February: on my TBR)
• Fremantle Press: Brooke Dunnell, The glass house (November: Fogarty Literary Award winner)
• Hachette: Megan Albany, The very last list of Vivian Walker (February: First Nations); Rhett Davis, Hovering (February: won the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript)
• Harper/Collins: Kimberley Allsopp, Love and other puzzles (February)
• Picador: Jessica Stanley, A Great Hope (February)
• Penguin Random House (PRH): Clare Fletcher, Five bush weddings (September); Ashley Goldberg, Abomination (May); Lizzie Pook, Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter (February); Justin Smith, Cooper not out (January)
• S&S: James Weir, The Hemsworth effect (June)
• Scribe: Sam Wallman, Our members be unlimited (May: graphic novel)
• Transit Lounge: Brendan Colley, The signal line (May); Alan Fyfe (T, September); Adriane Howell, Hydra (August)
• Ultimo: Pirooz Jafari, Forty nights (July)
• UQP: Al Campbell, The keepers (February); George Haddad, Losing face (May)

Short stories

• Ennis Cehic, Sadvertising (March, PRH)
• lse Fitzgerald, Everything feels like the end of the world (April, A&U)
• Chris Flynn, Here be Leviathans (second half, UQP)
• Kat Gibson, Women I know (May, Scribner)
• Mirandi Riwoe,The burnished sun (April, UQP)
• Andrew Roff, The teeth of a slow machine (March, Wakefield Press) 
• Maria Samuela, Beats of the Pa’u (March, Victoria University Press)

Non-fiction

SMH provides a long, long list of new non-fiction books covering a huge range of topics, so my lists here are highly selective.

Life-writing (loosely defined, and focused mainly on the arts and activism)

• Carmel Bird, Telltale: Reading, writing, remembering (July, Transit Lounge): need I say more?
• Nick Cave, Faith, hope and carnage (October, Text): reflection on son Arthur’s death
• Jessie Cole, Desire (August, Text): memoir
• Jim Davidson, Emperors in Liliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland (October, MUP): on these two literary journals and their editors. 
• Aaron Fa’Aoso, So far, so good, (September, Pantera Press): memoir of Black Comedy star
• Anna Funder, Wifedom (September, PRH): on George Orwell’s first wife; billed as a “blazing feminist masterpiece”
• Hannah Gadsby, Ten steps to Nanette (April, A&U): memoir
• Kate Grenville, A room made of leaves: Elizabeth Macarthur’s letters (April, Text): non-fiction accompaniment to the novel 
• Brittany Higgins, no title (October, PRH): memoir of activist
• Nathan Hobby, The red witch (May, MUP): biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard (been waiting for this) 
• Anita Jacoby, Secrets beyond the screen, May, Ventura): television producer’s memoir
• Lee Kofman, The writer laid bare (March, Ventura)
• Wendy McCarthy, Don’t be too polite, girls (March, A&U): activist/feminist’s memoir
• Paddy Manning, Sly fox (November, Black Inc): unauthorised biography of Lachlan Murdoch
• Patti Miller,True Friends (April, UQP): memoir
• Brenda Niall, My accidental career (March, Text): biographer’s memoir 
• Rick Morton (ed), Growing up in country Australia (April, Black Inc)
• Ann-Marie Priest, My tongue is my own (May, La Trobe University Press): biography of poet Gwen Harwood
• Magda Szubanski, no title (second half, Text): memoir
• Simon Tedeschi, Fugitive (May, Upswell): pianist, “straddles the borders of poetry and prose, fiction and fact, trauma and testimony”
• Tom Tilley, Speaking in tongues (September, ABC Books): broadcaster’s memoir

SMH also lists several biographies and memoirs on/by politicians, past and present, but, as last year, I’m taking a break from parliamentary politics. (Do check SMH’s link, if you are interested.)

Essay collections

• Eda Gunaydin, Root and branch (May, NewSouth): race, genre and migration
• Eliza Hull (ed), We’ve got this (March, Black Inc): by parents who identify as deaf, disabled or chronically ill
• Kim Mahood, Wandering with Intent (October, Scribe)
• Pantera Press anthology of Liminal and Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize longlist (August)

History and other non-fiction

• Anna Clark, Making Australian history (February, PRH)
• David Duffy, Nabbing Ned Kelly (March, A&U)
• Meg Foster, Boundary crossers (November, NewSouth): Aboriginal, African-American, Chinese and female bushrangers
• Duane Hamacher, The first astronomers (March, A&U): First Peoples’ knowledge of the stars; Hamacher is not First Nations, but did I believe work closely with Indigenous elders
• Leah Lui-Chivizhe, Masked histories: Turtle shell masks and Torres Straight Islander People (July, MUP): First Nations author
• David Marr, A family business (November, Black Inc): our colonial past
• Elizabeth Tynan, The secret of Emu Field (May, NewSouth): the first British atomic test site, South Australia
• Don Watson, The passion of Private White (October, Scribner): the 50-year-old relationship between anthropologist and veteran Neville White and Aboriginal clans of remote northern Australia

Some current-interest topics being written about, include:

• Women and the “home-front”: Tabitha Carvan, This is not a book about Benedict Cumberbatch (March, HarperCollins: joy in women’s lives); Eloise Grills, Big beautiful female theory (July, Affirm); Sonia Orchard, The female of the species (September, Affirm: the “science of womanhood”); Sian Prior, Childless (April, Text: living without children); Gina Rushton, The most important job in the world (April, Pan Macmillan: choosing motherhood).
• Politics and current affairs: Allan Behm, No enemies, no friends (March, Upswell: on Australia’s diplomatic relationships); Ed Coper, Facts and other lies (February, A&U: on disinformation); Jo Dyer, Burning down the house (February, Monash University Press: rethinking our political system); Osman Faruqi, The racist country (August, PRH); Samantha Maiden, Open secrets (no date, HarperCollins: on the Canberra bubble); Andrew Quilty, Fall of Kabul (August, MUP); Matthew Ricketson and Patrick Mullins, Who needs the ABC? (April, Scribe).

Interestingly, I see little this year on COVID-19 and climate change, compared with last year. Nor much about our big women’s issue of 2021, except for Brittany Higgins’ memoir coming out. Why?

Poetry

Finally, if you love poetry, do check the link, but these might whet your appetite:

• Lisa Gorton, Mirabilia (August, Giramondo)
• Sarah Holland-Batt, The Jaguar (May, UQP)
• John Kinsella and Charmaine Papertalk Green, Art (June, Magabala Books)
• Les Murray, Continous creation (March, Black Inc): final posthumous collection
• Tracy Ryan, Rose interior (April, Giramondo)

New publisher Upswell and the established Fremantle Press also have poetry collections coming …

Anything here grab your attention?