This year we start with my first Monday Musings post appearing on Tuesday! This is due to conflicting new year traditions – my Blogging Highlights post on 1 January, and my first Monday Musings being New Releases for the coming year. When 1 January is a Monday, I’m in trouble! I could have left this until next Monday, but I already have a post that’s been waiting to go, and I don’t want it to wait any longer, so Tuesday it is!
As before, I have drawn from the Sydney Morning Herald, where Jane Sullivan and the team has again done a wonderful job of surveying publishers large and small. This year, I have also used The Guardian’s list put together by Canberra Writers Festival director, Beejay Silcox. As always, I have also sussed out a few of my own! Also, this is Monday musings on Australian literature post, so my focus is Australian authors in areas of interest or relevance to me. This means I’ve not included non-Australian writers, nor all the Australian nonfiction. To see those, click on the SMH link.
Now, there are many ways to do this sort of list. Kim (Reading Matters) has posted a list of new releases by publication month, but, as is my wont, I’ve arranged mine by author, under some broad form headings.
Links on the authors’ names are to my posts on those authors.
Fiction
As always, not every book listed last year, ended up being published that year so a couple appear here again. And, also as always, I have read a very small number from last year’s list, but a few more are on my TBR and will be read this year. Here’s this year’s selection:
- Jenny Ackland, Hurdy gurdy (June, A&U)
- Alan Attwood, Houdini unbound (May, Melbourne Books)
- Shirley Barrett, Mrs Hopkins (June, A&U): posthumous
- Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion, The glass house (April, Hachette)
- Donna M Cameron, The rewilding (March, Transit Lounge)
- Brian Castro, Ruins and fragments (late 2024, Giramondo)
- Shankari Chandran, Safe haven (May, Ultimo)
- Melanie Cheng, The burrow (September, Text).
- Chairman Clift, The end of the morning (May, New South): posthumous autobiographical novel
- Miranda Darling, Thunderhead (April, Scribe)
- Michelle de Kretser, Theory and practice (November, Text)
- Francesca de Tores, Saltblood (April, Bloomsbury): pseudonym for Francesca Haig
- Brooke Dunnell, Last best chance (April, Fremantle Press)
- David Dyer, This kingdom of dust (October, Hamish Hamilton)
- Rodney Hall, Vortex (Picador, October)
- Anita Heiss, Dirrayawadha (August, Simon & Schuster): First Nations author
- Julie Janson, Compassion (March, Magabala): First Nations author
- Gail Jones, One another (February, Text)
- Melanie Joosten, Like fire hearted suns (March, Ultimo)
- Yumna Kassab, Politica (January, Ultimo)
- Malcolm Knox, The first friend (October, A&U)
- Siang Lu, Ghost cities (May, UQP)
- Catherine McKinnon, To sing of war (May, Fourth Estate)
- Stephen Orr, Shining like the sun (March, Wakefield Press)
- Liam Pieper, Appreciation (March, PRH)
- Diana Reid, untitled novel (second half of the year, (Ultimo)
- Alice Robinson, If you go (July, Affirm)
- Jock Serong, Cherrywood (September, HarperCollins)
- Jessica Tu, Honeyeater (July, A&U)
- Karen Viggers, Sidelines (January, A&U)
SMH lists many books under Crimes and Thrillers, but this is not my area of expertise or major interest, so, do check SMH’s link if you are interested. I will, though, bring a few to your attention: .
- Steven Carroll, Death of a foreign gentleman (April, HarperCollins): a new genre for Carroll
- Garry Disher, Sanctuary (April, Text)
- Sulari Gentill, The mystery writer (Ultimo, March)
- Louise Milligan, Pheasants nest (March, Allen & Unwin): her first foray into fiction
Most of the sources I checked identified Debut Australian fiction and I think it’s useful to separate them out, so we don’t all wonder why the names don’t seem familiar:
- Sharlene Allsopp, The great undoing (February, Ultimo): First Nations author
- Katherine Allum, The skeleton house (June, Fremantle): Fogarty Literary Award winner
- Susanna Begbie, The deed (May, Hachette): Richell Prize winner
- Amy Brown, My brilliant sister (January or February, Scribner/Simon & Schuster): adult novel debut
- Amanda Creely, Nameless (March, UWA): Dorothy Hewett Award shortlist
- Belinda Cranston, The changing room (May, Transit Lounge)
- Winnie Dunn, Dirt poor Islanders (March, Hachette)
- Kyra Geddes, The story thief (May, Affirm)
- Melissa Goode, Ordinary human love (May, Ultimo)
- Kirsty Iltners, Depth of field (May, UWA): Dorothy Hewett Award winner
- Katrina Kell, Chloe (February, Echo): adult novel debut
- Finegan Kruckemeyer, The end and everything before it (July, Text)
- Abbey Lay, Lead us not (March, PRH)
- Bri Lee, The work (March, A&U): fiction debut
- Murray Middleton, The degenerates (July, Text): full length novel debut
- Deborah Pike, The players (April, Fremantle)
- Raeden Richardson, No Church in the wild (April, Macmillan)
- Linda Margolin Royal, The star on the grave (February, Affirm)
- Jordan Prosser, Big time (June, UQP)
- Helen Signy, Maya’s dance (March, Simon & Schuster)
- Ruby Todd, Bright objects (May, A&U): 2023 Victorian Premier’s unpublished manuscript award shortlist.
Short stories
- Georgia Blain, We all lived in Bondi then (January, Scribe): posthumous
- Ceridwen Dovey, Only the astronauts (July, PRH)
- John Richards, The Gorgon flower (April, UQP)
- Mykaela Saunders, Always will be (March, UQP): First Nations author
- Ouyang Yu, The white cockatoo flowers: Stories (April, Transit Lounge)
Non-fiction
The newspapers include a wide range – and a large number – of new non-fiction books, and I found more in my own research, so I’m sharing a few that particularly caught my eye. Click the newspaper links for more.
Life-writing (very loosely defined, and selected to those focused mainly on the arts and activism)
- Wayne Bergmann with Madelaine Dickie, Some people want to shoot me (March, Fremantle): First Nations memoir, focusing on native title
- Tony Birch on Kim Scott (April, Black Inc “Writers on writers”)
- Brooke Bland, Gulp, swallow: Essays on change (November, Upswell): memoir-in-essays “about family and friends, life and mortality, memory and forgetting”
- Hermina Burns, Barbara Tucker: The art of being (February, MUP)
- Samantha Faulkner (ed.), Growing up Torres Strait Islander in Australia (August, Black Inc)
- Peter Goldsworthy, The Cancer Finishing School (March, PRH): “shares lessons from his incurable cancer diagnosis”
- Jeremy Hill and Ronald Millar, No singing in gum trees: The honest life of Max Martin (no date, Wakefield Press)
- Robert Manne, untitled political memoir (December, Black Inc)
- Brenda Niall, Joan Lindsay: The hidden life of the woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock (October, Text)
- Brigitta Olubas and Susan Wyndham (ed), Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower: The letters (May, NewSouth)
- Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood, Black duck: A year at Yumburra (April, Thames & Hudson): First Nations memoir, about life on their farm
- Magda Szubanski, untitled memoir (October, Text)
- Tara June Winch on Alexis Wright (October, Black Inc “Writers on writers”)
History and other non-fiction (esp. social justice and environmental issues)
- Larissa Behrendt, Weaving with words (November, UQP)
- James Bradley, Deep water (April, PRH): eco-literature
- Clint Bracknell and Kylie Bracknell, Shakespeare on the Noongar stage: Language revival and Hecate (May, Upswell): on Macbeth in Nyoongar language
- Santilla Chingaipe, Black convicts: How slavery shaped colonised Australia (August, Scribner): examines the First Fleet, investigating the place of people of African descent in colonial Australia.
- Simon Cleary, Everything is water (June, UQP): eco-literature
- Anne Coombs, Our familiars: The meaning of animals in our lives (August, Upswell): “meditation on the awe-inspiring responsibility we take on with other living creatures”
- Helen Garner, untitled nonfiction (July, Text): inspired by time spent with a grandson’s football team
- Amy McQuire, Black witness: The power of Indigenous media (June, UQP)
- Jasmin McGaughey and The Poets Voice (ed.), Words to sing the world alive (November, UQP): “leading writers discuss their favourite First Nations words”
- Ellen van Neerven and Jeanine Leane (ed), Shapeshifting (October, UQP)
- Amy Remeikis, The truth about nice (July, Hachette): on “the politics of civility – and its pernicious myths”
- Clare Wright, The Yirrkala Bark Petition (October, Text): third in her Democracy trilogy
Poetry
Finally, for poetry lovers, I’ve sussed out a few more than were listed by the two newspapers, but even then haven’t listed them all. Poetry in Australian is flourishing, it seems:
- Robert Adamson, Birds and fish: Life on the Hawkesbury (February, Upswell): posthumous
- Alison Barton, Not telling (no date, Puncher & Wattmann): First Nations
- Judith Beveridge, Tintinnabulum (August, Giramondo)
- Judith Bishop, Circadia (May, UQP)
- David Brooks, The other side of daylight (March, UQP)
- Bonny Cassidy,
Monument(February, Giramondo) - Nandi Chinna and Anne Poelina, Tossed up by the beak of a cormorant (Fremantle, July)
- Robbie Coburn, Ghost poetry (January, Upswell)
- Lloyd Jones, The empty grandstand (September, Upswell): New Zealander
- John Kinsella, Spirals (March, UWA)
- Jeanine Leane, Gawimarra gathering (February, UQP): First Nations
- Nam Le, 36 ways of writing a Vietnamese poem (March, Scribner)
- Kent McCarter, Fat chance (January, Upswell)
- Kate Middleton, Television (February, Giramondo)
- Jazz Money, The fire inside August, UQP): First Nations
- Roslyn Orlando, Ekhō (February, Upswell)
- Suneeta Peres da Costa, The prodigal (late 2024, Giramondo)
- Nathan Shepherdson, soft meteorites (September, Upswell)
- Elfie Shiosaki, Refugia (July, Magabala)
- Anne-Marie Te Whiu (ed), Woven (February, Magabala/Red Room Poetry)
Anything here interest you?
Whispering Gums 
Christ on a bicycle, ST !! – I could give you an answer only after time spent ploughing through this pretty comprehensive list !!
But I’d like to know about this one:
“Amy Brown, My brilliant sister (January, Scribner OR February, Simon & Schuster)”
Is Scribner an imprint of S&S perhaps ?
Eagle eyes, MR! Yes it is I believe. I had another case (Rodney Hall) where one newspaper said Macmillan and the other Picador, and I decided to go with Picador as the imprint. In this case, there was a different month given as well so I just decided to share what each source had.
PS you could just look at the special crime list! It’s short. Anything there interest you!!
You’ll be ‘disappointed’ to learn that I started Sanctuary but returned it. It was very like The Dry but without the necessary spark, for me .. I will more than likely try out all the rest, and will report back. 🙂
Not disappointed, MR, just interested. I’ve only read one Disher which I liked, and no Harper, so am not in a position to comment. But, hang on, Sanctuary is not supposed to be out until April? Did you have an advance copy?
I’m bonkers. Must be almost beginning to be on the pont of starting to get old !! 😀
I meant Bitter Wash Road. It’s not that he writes like Harper does: it’s that the fact of the outback’s being the setting creates a false feeling of similarity. To someone who’s almost beginning to be on the pont of starting to get old, probably ..
Haha, MR, that makes sense. I loved Bitter Wash Road. Interestingly Bill really dislikes Harper because in his opinion she’s got place all wrong. I don’t know what he thinks about Disher. I wonder if he’ll see this discussion.
I can see more than a few I should read. Whether I will is another matter, though I’ll probably buy the Charmian Clift.
Good idea separating out the first-timers, though I still only recognised about a third of the others.
Exactly my feeling too, Bill, about what I should or would like to read and what I will.
As for the debuts, I know what you are saying. Not quite all were identified as debuts, and I didn’t recognise all the authors so I had to check. A couple of those I didn’t recognise were indeed debuts but some weren’t.
BTW, I didn’t say it because I couldn’t describe the content of all the fiction, but the Amy Brown is about Miles Franklin’s sister. I should probably have included her in the debuts as she’s written 4 children’s novels but this is, I think, her first adult one.
Gosh, this must have taken ages.
The prize for the least enticing title goes to Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser. I will wait to see what the blurb has to say before investing in it…
The ones are really want are the authors I really love: Brian Castro, Rodney Hall, Stephen Orr, Anita Heiss, Alice Robinson and my new Fave author Gail Jones. (Why did I not like her stuff for so long? Fortunately I bought her books even though I didn’t read them, so I have some to catch up on.)
In NF I’ll read the Behrendt and Clare Wright.
BTW (sorry!) Murray Middleton is not a debut author. He won the Vogel in 2015.
Yes, it did take a while, but spread out over several days so it didn’t feel too bad, and I enjoy doing it.
Haha, yes re that title. It sounds like a nonfiction work doesn’t it.
You’ve picked out the authors I’m most keep to read. I’d also add, from the nonfiction, the two eco literature works, the Wayne Bergmann, and the Black Inc writers on writers books.
Thanks re Middleton … that one I didn’t check because the article had it under Debut Trailblazers. Ah, I’ve just checked. The Vogel winner was a collection of short stories. I’ll add the “first novel” comment after it. I should really do that for Amy Brown whom I’ve not put under Debuts.
Oh, and I’d love to read the Clift, the Georgia Blain, the Helen Garner, and the van Neerven/Leane BUT you know me. Eyes way too bigger than my capacity to follow through.
Exactly, I’ve just added all these to my New Releases 2024 file and highlighted all the ones that interest me, and of course there are many more than I identified above.
I would have to clone myself to do them all.
Absolutely …
And I just realised that I forgot Ackland and Viggers. Wah … what am I doing? Why aren’t I reading right now?!
What a fantastic and terrifying list – thank you! I’m drawn to the NF far more than the F. Garner will be on my must read list, and the rest will sit on my probs-will-read list. McQuire’s sounds interesting, as does Remeikis’. Niall is always worth reading, as is Behrendt and Wright. And – full disclosure – Aaron Fa’Aoso and I have co-written a chapter in ‘Growing Up Torres Strait Islander in Australia’ so I’ll definitely be making room for that one on my shelf, lol.
Oh thanks for that disclosure, Michelle. That is such a good series. Not surprisingly I agree with most of your choices too! I haven’t read my last Garner yet but she is a must for me. It might be an interesting companion for Karen Viggers new novel which is about youth sport.
What a list! It’s a little overwhelming really, but I am keen to read the Blain, Clift, Barrett, Dovey, Saunders and the Jones. I will keep an eye out for the Amy Brown book, the premise sounds intriguing.
James Bradley’s NF might appeal to me and the Wright. Both writers on writers books sound great too.
Now I’d better go and read some more so I can fit them all in!!
Exactly, Brona, I spent too much time doing this when I should have been reading. All good choices of yours. And yes, I should have added Dovey and Saunders to my list …
As if it’s not hard enough keeping track of the days when the holidays fall on Mondays and you have to go and try this Tuesday nonsense for your Monday posts. Sheesh. lol
I didn’t have to do it to myself, did I …
Thanks for the link back to my list. Yours is way more comprehensive. I just wanted to make sense of the Guardian piece, which was confusing to follow, then people jumped in the comments and said what about including this book and what about that book, and so I started adding them in. And then I saw the piece in The Age/SMH and added those titles in and it took FOREVER. Never again. 😆 Yours must have taken an AGE.
A pleasure kimbofo. It did take a while, but I’ve been doing this post for quite a few years now, so I have a bit of a template which helped a bit – though, as you know, you still have to fish out the titles and rearrange them in the order you want, and present the authors and titles consistently. Anyhow, people now have a month-by-month and some author-ordered lists to look at!
Oh my GOSH! I don’t know how you managed to gather all of these titles. Will bookmark to refer back to. (I’m especially looking forward to Jenny Ackland’s new novel).
Thanks Kate … yes, I am too. It’s been a while since her previous one hasn’t it.
I, of course, Googled The Skeleton House first, hoping for some Australian horror (do you folks have any of that, or are my Australian blog friends just not looking for it?). It is not horror. In fact, the author’s own website gives the laziest little synopsis about a family that looks perfect, but someone has a secret. That’s pretty much every domestic thriller ever. Here’s hoping the author gives an update with something more appealing.
I Googled Lead Us Not Into Temptation because I was raised Catholic and just finished a Sociology of Religion course, so now my brain is thinking about that. It’s a friend novel, one that gets out of control, so I’m stoked.
I Googled Raeden Richardson’s No Church in the wild….and this blog post came up. Guess the news is still calm since this book comes out in March.
The Anne Coombs book sounds lovely, and I think I will check it out. It is being published posthumously.
I love that you googled these books Melanie, to find out about them. I’m sorry but I can’t answer the question about Australian horror because, I think you’re right, your Australian blog friends just aren’t looking for this genre. Our bad, haha. Australian have made quite a few horror movies so I imagine that we have horror writers as well. In fact, there is a Canberra writer called Kaaron Warren who writes “horror, science fiction, and fantasy short stories and novels” says Wikipedia. I suddenly remembered her and thought she wrote horror so checked Wikipedia. I don’t know how much of her work is horror but some is.
I did know that Anne Coombs was being published posthumously, but I forgot to add that note, so I will do that when I get onto my laptop, as I did write that against other posthumous books didn’t I?
How funny that one of your Google searches took you back here, but you’re right, books published later in the year aren’t going to have many post yet.
Google alerts brought me here, so I thought I’d say hi! I am mostly known as a horror writer, although I have a crime novel out this year called The Underhistory. Haunted house home invasion sort of story!
This list is amazing and I’m going to be referring back to it throughout the year.
Thanks Kaaron, I wondered if somehow you might see this. I thought you were mostly horror, but the site I found didn’t make it completely clear. I hope Melanie – an American midwest blogger and big horror fan – sees this. I’m glad you like the list.
(You may not remember but we had dinner together after an ACT Writers’ Awards night in 2019 – with Sarah StV-W and Penelope Cottier.)
Oh, I do remember! That was one of those excellent spontaneous dinners.
It was … they are often the best, aren’t they.
I’m glad I saw your comment. I live in the U.S., but my library has several of your books. Any suggestions on where to start for a horror fan?
Oh that’s great to hear Melanie, I hope Kaaron Warren responds. (I’m Including her full name just in case she’s still relying on Google Alert to find references to her here.)
There HAVE been a number of Australian horror films lately! I’m not sure what happened, but suddenly, the spooky side of you Aussies is popular in America.
Oh, we Aussies are popular in America, Melanie – haha!
How cool your library has some of my books! They probably have the novellas Into Bones Like Oil and Bitters, you might enjoy either of those. Other great Aussie horror writers they might have are J.S. Bruekelaar, Aaron Dries, Alan Baxter, Kirsten McDermott and J. Ashley-Smith, to name just a few!
Thanks so much for responding kaaron, and for recommending other names, as I know none of those. Great for me to know them too. I hope Melanie finds time to read some.
The one I was most interested in was Slights. I do not see Bitters (unless that is the name Slights was published under in Australia?). Thank you for the recommendations. J. S. Breukelaar’s work in particular looks truly wild!
Slights is Slights! I really hope you like it.
We’ll watch out for Melanie’s review one day…
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