www.wakaticket.com –

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Griefdogg by Michael Winkler

Fiction, Text, $34.99

“I want to be a human, but live as a pet,” declares Jeffrey Watson-Johnson, the Mildura-based hydrologist in Griefdogg, the second novel by Michael Winkler (of Grimmish fame). After receiving a life-altering bequest from an estranged aunt, and drifting in and out of disruptive ponderings about how to now spend his time, Jeffrey decides that he wants to live as a dog – a household pet christened Hubert, free of expectations and obligation. What unfolds is a bizarre, bleakly comic and existentially arresting story, one scratching at philosophical questions of our relationship to responsibility, grief and ecological calamity. – Jack Callil

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Sororicidal by Edwina Preston

Fiction, Picador, $34.99

Edwina Preston’s Sororicidal follows two sisters, Mary and Margot, from their early adolescence in the years after the first world war to their old age, tracing the ever-shifting but always intense dynamic between them, their love and their betrayals. The book is told in four sections, switching between the sisters’ perspectives, and each reversal is a masterful upending of what the reader thinks they know. Preston’s writing is lyrical, sensual and often darkly funny, and the twists and turns in the sister’s shared relationship make for a compelling read. – Fiona Wright

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Circle of Wonders by Kathryn Heyman

Fiction, 4th Estate, $34.99

What Roni, the woman at the centre of Kathryn Heyman’s new novel Circle of Wonders, wants to know is this: “How can I die well, when I haven’t lived well?” The achievement of this novel lies in its acid-etched portrait of a dysfunctional family struggling to put aside their hurts. Roni and the women who form a circle around her deathbed have no idea how to love each other – let alone stare down mortality. And yet, in this novel of magpie spirituality, they learn how to bear witness to a life and a death, and in doing so, are transformed. – Catriona Menzies-Pike

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A Rising of the Lights by Steve Toltz

Fiction, Penguin, $34.99

In his fourth novel, Steve Toltz – Booker-shortlisted for A Fraction Of The Whole – offers an ode to connection despite the odds. Rusty Wilson’s bad lot begins when his parents roll dice to see which of their two children they will keep. From then on, his life is populated by a cast of dysfunctional characters and failed relationships.

Rusty believes that “there’s no true future for human beings”. But when his childhood friend Edwina offers him a job, things begin to change. Bizarre, funny, and sometimes sad, A Rising of the Lights captures the confusion and wonder of figuring out who you are. – Seren Heyman-Griffiths

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The Hair of the Pigeon by Mohammed Massoud Morsi

Fiction, UWAP, $34.99

As the Arab spring sweeps through Syria and the country enters civil war, we follow Ghassan coming of age in Yarmouk – the unofficial refugee camp home to thousands of Palestinians forcibly expelled from their land during the Nakba and after. Tenderly, Morsi pulls us through his protagonist’s imprisonment and torture, treacherous displacement across the Mediterranean, and seeking of asylum in Copenhagen. Through it all is an indestructible love story that captured my heart.

Brutal in places but so artfully handled, the reading experience is haunting in its reflection of reality. – Rafqa Touma

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Kill Your Boomers by Fiona Wright

Fiction, Ultimo, $34.99

How far would you go to get your dream house? That’s the question that writer, editor and Guardian Australia books reviewer Fiona Wright asks in her latest novel: a dark, harsh and absolute ripper takedown of the current housing crisis.

Our thirtysomething protagonist Kiera is desperate to escape her mould-infested share house and hatches a lethal plan to do just that – by any means necessary. For those who have had to deal with a rent increase despite mushrooms growing in the ceiling, this one’s for you. – Eleanor Burnard

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Bonfire of the Murdochs by Gabriel Sherman

Nonfiction, Simon & Schuster, $36.99

The opening scene is straight out of Succession: a fleet of black SUVs arriving at court in Reno, estranged members of the world’s most powerful media family walking into a secret hearing that would determine the future of the dynasty. And so author Gabriel Sherman sets the tone for his forensic excavation of the decades that made Rupert Murdoch – and ultimately tore his family apart. While this is very much a chronological recounting of the rise of Murdoch, Sherman – a long time Murdoch observer – furnishes the history with deep research and extensive interviews. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, this is a blood feud that will never get old. – Lucy Clark

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Once We Were Wildlife by Inga Simpson

Short stories, Hachette, $29.99

Perhaps none understand the volatility of the wilderness better than nature writer and novelist Inga Simpson. Her previous work was the apocalyptic thriller The Thinning, and her newest is a collection of short stories – and one poem – that follows a range of individuals on the edge of change and passion amid oceans, forests and scorched earth.

Melding melancholy with optimism, Simpson proves she is the master of expanding nature’s role within human relationships and societies with Once We Were Wildlife. – Eleanor Burnard

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DeAth Takes a Holiday by Shaun Micallef

Fiction, Ultimo, $34.99

Shaun Micallef brings a sketch-comedy sensibility to the “true story of the first real vampire” – no, not Dracula, but the rather more pragmatic Comte De’Ath: a bloodsucking capitalist who pioneered zombie slave labour. Taking inspiration from the epistolary structure of Stoker’s novel and the satirical bent of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, Micallef unspools his tale through a chaotic collage of episodes and excerpts from different sources and authors, as the world-weary Comte travels through time and space seeking a cure for his immortality. Along the way, he crosses paths with historical figures such as Sigmund Freud, Queen Victoria and Henry Ford, spreading his philosophy like some kind of fanged Forrest Gump. A laugh-out-loud romp with bite. – Dee Jefferson

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Journey to the End of Time by Alex Miller

Short stories, memory and essays, Allen & Unwin, $45

This handsome hardback is a companion of sorts to Alex Miller’s recent and similarly retrospective works The Simplest Words and A Kind of Confession; all three provide a fascinating peek into the mind of one of our best novelists. This volume spans journal entries, letters and essays, with some particularly fine writing on artists including Emily Kame Kngwarray and Sidney Nolan. If you like Miller’s novels – such as The Ancestor Game, Autumn Laing and Journey to the Stone Country – this is a wonderful insight into the man who wrote them. If you haven’t read him yet, this is a contemplative study of inspiration and the fulfilment that comes from a life spent writing. – Sian Cain

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Gold Standard?: Remembering the Hawke Government, edited by Frank Bongiorno, Carolyn Holbrook and Joshua Black

Nonfiction, NewSouth, $39.99

There are few prime ministers whose mythology is as strong as Bob Hawke’s. In this collection of essays, heavyweight journalists, political scientists, historians and economists pick apart the legacy of the Hawke years in making modern Australia. Beyond the policy impact, the writers assess the power of Hawke’s personality: charismatic and collegiate, with a commitment to leading the country through change. It is not light on nostalgia – but after a quarter century of political in-fighting and ‘small target politics’, who doesn’t feel a twinge of longing for the good old days? – Celina Ribeiro

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Aunty Beryl’s Cookbook by Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo

Cookbook, Murdoch, $49.99

You will read this book for the recipes – lemon myrtle butter biscuits, johnnycakes, pastry scrolls of ricotta and warrigal greens. But you will remember it for the voice of Gamilaroi elder, chef and teacher Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo, chronicling her life of quiet determination from Walgett to Sydney, and how cooking nourishing food for community has become her life’s work. Curried sausages are among her most popular menu items at her catering business, while kangaroo goulash – a spin-off of a recipe she learned as a nanny for a Hungarian family – has a special place in her repertoire. Most memorable is Van-Oploo’s visceral joy at being published: “Here I am, I’m a Gamilaroi woman, 83 years of age and I have written a cookbook.” – Yvonne C Lam