The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

In 1901, the word bondmaid was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others - that words and meanings relating to women's experiences often go unrecorded. She begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set when the women's suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men.   ...Show more

The Mirror and the Light (#3 Thomas Cromwell) by Hilary Mantel

$15.00 AUD

$45.00 (66% off)

Category: Fiction | Series: The Wolf Hall Trilogy | Reading Level: very good

The long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies; the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Thomas Cromwell trilogy. ‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’. England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves. Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him? With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.     ...Show more

All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton

$29.99 AUD

$32.99 (9% off)

Category: Fiction

The bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton, returns with All Our Shimmering Skies - a glorious novel destined to become another Australian classic. Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain overhead, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, turns once again to the sky for gui dance. She carries a stone heart inside a duffel bag next to the map that leads to Longcoat Bob, the deep country sorcerer who put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot. 'Run, Molly, run,' says the daytime sky. Run to the vine forests. Run to northern Australia's wild and magical monsoon lands. Run to friendship. Run to love. Run. Because the graverobber's coming, Molly, and the night-time sky is coming with him. So run, Molly, run. All Our Shimmering Skies is a story about gifts that fall from the sky, curses we dig from the earth and the secrets we bury inside ourselves. It is an odyssey of true love and grave danger; of darkness and light; of bones and blue skies. A buoyant, beautiful and magical novel abrim with warmth, wit and wonder, a love letter to Australia and the art of looking up.     ...Show more

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

$32.99 AUD

Category: Fiction | Series: The Tattooist of Auschwitz #2 | Reading Level: very good

The sequel to the International Number One Bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz, based on a true story of love and resilience. In 1942 Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, notices her long beautiful hair, a nd forces her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly given, equals survival. After liberation, Cilka is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a desolate, brutal prison camp in Siberia known as Vorkuta, inside the Arctic Circle.  Innocent and imprisoned once again, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar. When she makes an impression on a female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under unimaginable conditions. Cilka finds endless resources within herself as she confronts death and faces terror, each day a battle for survival. And when she nurses a man called Aleksandr, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love. Based on what is known of Cilka’s time in Auschwitz, and on the experience of women in Siberian prison camps, Cilka’s Journey is the breathtaking sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz. A powerful testament to the triumph of the human will in adversity, Cilka’s Journey will make you weep, but it will also leave you with the remarkable story of one woman’s fierce determination to survive, against all odds. 'She was the bravest person I ever met' - Lale Sokolov, The Tattooist of Auschwitz   ...Show more

Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

$29.99 AUD

$32.99 (9% off)

Category: Fiction

Lucia's fingers found her own. She gazed at Caro as if from a distance. Her lips parted, her words a whisper: 'He knows.'London, 1782. Desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, Caroline 'Caro' Corsham is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wo unded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely. But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thieftaker, Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives.But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman and Caro's own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder and more treacherous than she can know ... ...Show more

Honeybee by Craig Silvey

$32.99 AUD

Category: Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

The highly anticipated new novel by the bestselling author of Jasper Jones. 'Find out who you are, and live that life.' Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other. Honeybee is a heartbreaking, life-affirming novel that throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show. At the heart of Honeybee is Sam: a solitary, resilient young person battling to navigate the world as their true self; ensnared by loyalty to a troubled mother, scarred by the volatility of a domineering stepfather, and confounded by the kindness of new alliances. Honeybee is a tender, profoundly moving novel, brimming with vivid characters and luminous words. It's about two lives forever changed by a chance encounter - one offering hope, the other redemption. It's about when to persevere, and when to be merciful, as Sam learns when to let go, and when to hold on. ...Show more

Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

$29.99 AUD

Category: Fiction | Reading Level: very good

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on the true story of Lale and Gita Sokolov, two Slovakian Jews, who survived Auschwitz and eventually made their home in Australia. In that terrible place, Lale was given the job of tattooing the prisoners marked for survival-literally scratching numbers into his fell ow victims' arms in indelible ink to create what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust. Lale used the infinitesimal freedom of movement that this position awarded him to exchange jewels and money taken from murdered Jews for food to keep others alive. If he had been caught he would have been killed; many owed him their survival. There have been many books about the Holocaust-and there will be many more. What makes this one so memorable is Lale Sokolov's incredible zest for life. He understood exactly what was in store for him and his fellow prisoners and he was determined to survive-not just to survive, but to leave the camp with his dignity and integrity intact, to live his life to the full. Terrible though this story is, it is also a story of hope and of courage. It is also-almost unbelievably-a love story. Waiting in line to be tattooed, terrified and shaking, was a young girl. For Lale-a dandy, a jack-the-lad, a bit of a chancer-it was love at first sight, and he determined not only to survive himself but to ensure that Gita did, too. His story-their story-will make you weep, but you will also find it uplifting. It shows the very best of humanity in the very worst of circumstances. Like many survivors, Lale and Gita told few people their story after the war. They eventually made their way to Australia, where they raised a son and had a successful life. But when Gita died, Lale felt he could no longer carry the burden of their past alone. He chose to tell his story. ...Show more

Mammoth by Chris Flynn

$29.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

The original, unforgettable and thought-provoking new novel by award-winning author Chris Flynn that will change how readers understand the world. Narrated by a 13,000-year-old extinct American mastodon, Mammoth is the (mostly) true story of how the skull of a Tyrannosaurus bataar, a pterodactyl, a preh istoric penguin, the severed hand of an Egyptian mummy and the narrator himself came to be on sale at a 2007 natural history auction in Manhattan. Ranging from the Pleistocene Epoch to nineteenth-century America and beyond, including detours to Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, Mammoth illuminates a period of history when ideas about science and religion underwent significant change. By tracing how and when the fossils were unearthed, Mammoth traverses time and place to reveal humanity's role in the inexorable destruction of the natural world. ...Show more

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

$19.99 AUD

Category: Fiction | Series: The Handmaid's Tale | Reading Level: very good

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function- to breed . If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs. . . . . ...Show more

Carry Me Away TPB #2 Blue Wren Shallows by Adamek Dorothy

$29.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

Before the Storm (HB) by Di Morrissey

$34.99 AUD

Category: Fiction

Face her demons? Or run? After being double-crossed by a devious colleague, career woman Ellie Conlan quits her job on principle. With no idea what to do next, she retreats to Storm Harbour, an idyllic Victorian beach town. Ellie's grandfather runs The Storm Harbour Chronicle, the trusted local newspape r. As Ellie is drawn into a story about a development which could split the coastal community - and involves her with the influential O'Neill family - an event she has long suppressed threatens to overwhelm her. Dark clouds gather as rumours fly and tensions mount. And when a violent storm breaks and rages, Ellie will finally have to confront her past. 'There's no denying the beauty and opulence of Morrissey's rendering of place . . . She is a master of the genre.' Weekend Australian ...Show more

Troy by Stephen Fry

$35.00 AUD

Category: Fiction | Series: Stephen Fry's Greek Myths | Reading Level: near fine

Following Top Ten bestsellers Mythos and Heroes, this third volume retells the epic tale of Troy The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whol e years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies. In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today. ...Show more