- The Breeding Season – Amanda Niehaus
The rains come to Brisbane just as couple Dan and Elise descend into grief. Each turns to their work to survive. Elise, a scientist, struggles to find solid ground in academia and heads north to undertake punishing fieldwork on marsupial species that breed and then die. Dan, a writer, becomes entangled in his famous uncle’s art world and with the artist’s long-time muse, Hannah Wallace. Again and again, Dan and Elise come together and pull apart, protecting themselves and each other. But when their future is threatened, Dan and Elise must focus on the time they have left. Together. An astounding debut novel that forensically explores the wild, beating heart at the intersection of art and science, love and loss, human and animal, fear and hope, and birth and death.
- Ghost Fire – Wilbur Smith and Tom Harper
Inseparable since birth and growing up in India, Theo and Connie Courtney are torn apart by the tragic death of their parents. Theo, wracked with guilt, seeks salvation in combat, joining the British in the war against the French and Indian army. Connie, believing herself abandoned by her brother, and abused by a series of corrupt guardians, makes her way to France, where she is welcomed into high society. Once again, she finds herself at the mercy of vicious men, whose appetite for war and glory lead her to the frontlines of the French battlefield in North America. As the siblings find their destinies converging, they realise the vengeance and redemption they both seek could cost them their lives. An epic story of tragedy, loss, betrayal and courage that brings the reader deep into the seething heart of the French Indian War.
- The Bird King – G. Willow Wilson
An epic journey set during the reign of the last sultan in the Iberian Peninsula at the height of the Spanish Inquisition, The Bird King tells the story of Fatima, a concubine in the last emirate of Muslim Spain, and Hassan, the palace mapmaker who can draw maps of places he’s never seen. When representatives of the Spanish monarchy see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule, what will Fatima risk to save him and escape the palace walls?
- Year of the Monkey – Patti Smith
Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Always inveterately curious, exploring, tracking thoughts writing and year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment. But as Patti Smith heads towards a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye and above all a rugged hope of a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humourous and illustrated by Smith’s signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.
- Urban Aviary – Stephen Moss
From bowerbirds displaying in the suburbs of Canberra to flocks of starlings roosting around the Colosseum in Rome, the world’s cities are home to a remarkable array of feathered citizens. Urban Aviary provides a beautiful guide to some of the most extraordinary species of city birds that have become native, including helpful spotting hints and fact boxes for each bird, all brought to life by distinctive and beautiful watercolours.
- The Brilliance of Birds – Skye Wishart and Edin Whitehead
Who knew that the morepork, our only surviving native owl, can turn its head 270 degrees? Or that the bar-tailed godwit triples its body weight before undertaking an epic and continuous migration of 11,000 kilometres? Or that the tui has two voiceboxes, enabling it to duet with itself, and one producing sounds too high-frequency for humans to hear?
Zany, off-kilter, wondrous and wild, The Brilliance of Birds gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of some of New Zealand’s feathered friends.
- Wolfe Island – Lucy Treloar
Kitty Hawke, the last inhabitant of a dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay, has resigned herself to annihilation, until one night her pregnant granddaughter rows ashore, desperate, begging for sanctuary.
For years, Kitty has kept herself to herself, with only the company of her wolfdog, Girl; unconcerned by the world outside, or perhaps merely avoiding its worst excesses. But blood cannot be turned away in times like these. And when trouble comes following the children, no one is more surprised than Kitty to find she will protect them as fiercely as her name suggests.
- Our Dogs, Ourselves – Alexandra Horowitz
In this book, Alexandra Horowitz examines what’s called the ‘dog-human bond’: examining all aspects of the complexity of this unique interspecies pairing. She goes beyond the cognitive science to consider the culture, laws, and human dynamics that reveal and restrict this bond between two disparate species.
