As 2025 comes to an end, Australian Arts Review takes a look at a number of terrific books to while away the hours over Summer. Click on the links to find out more…
Sofie Laguna: The Underworld
Martha Mullins is a misfit. Her mother is glamorous, aloof and judgemental. Her father, mostly absent. Academic and shy, Martha finds herself fascinated by the underworld, a place she learns about in Roman mythology classes at school.
To Martha, the underworld and its divine inhabitants provide a place of refuge, escape, imagination and desire. But Martha also finds joy in friendship. Connection. Intimacy. It’s Martha’s band of friends who show her the value in spontaneity, fun, laughter. Until things go wrong.
How will Martha find her way in the world where she cannot be herself? Will she ever find a home for the love she feels?
The Underworld is a wondrous novel from an author who wields her considerable powers with assuredness and grace. Funny, brave, insightful and clever, Martha will break your heart – then mend it – many times over.
Christian White: The Long Night
Bold, vivid and heart-racingly intense, The Long Night is the darkest and most exhilarating novel yet from bestselling author Christian White.
Em has lived a quiet life with her complicated mother and is now looking for love and a potential escape from her small hometown. When a masked man kidnaps her in the dark of night, though, she is drawn into a terrifying world.
Jodie has been trying to forget a troubling time in her life, pouring her trauma into her work and out of her mind. Until one night her daughter is kidnapped and Jodie is dragged back into the violence.
As Em and Jodie race into the darkness, the agony of the past rushes up to meet them. It will take all their devotion and courage to escape this night alive.
Di Morrissey: The Endless Sky
A story of friendship, mystery and adventure in outback Australia. Journey with master storyteller Di Morrissey AM to the red, rocky desert in The Endless Sky.
Top-rating TV presenter Nicole and her savvy producer and friend Stacie suddenly find themselves under the rule of a new boss … he’s arrogant, patronising and out to prove he’s in charge.
Their challenge? To create a hit show revealing the hidden heart of outback Australia – a place few from the towns and cities have visited and even fewer people understand. What begins as a career-defining adventure quickly spirals into something far more dangerous and unexpected.
In a land of craggy rocks and vast plains, whispered stories and a history as old as the dinosaurs, Nicole and Stacie uncover secrets – how other lives are lived, fossil treasures deep in the red earth, a missing stranger and a blossoming love story.
Beneath the endless sky this land reveals its magic – and its menace – as the two friends find more than they could ever have imagined.
Trent Dalton: Gravity Let Me Go
Dark, gritty, hilarious and unexpected, Gravity Let Me Go is Trent Dalton’s deeply personal exploration of marriage and ambition; truth-telling and truth-omitting; self-deception and self-preservation.
How will you ever know how the story ends, if you let the story go? Noah Cork has just published the scoop of a lifetime: the white-hot true crime book of the cold-blooded killer who slipped an unfolding murder mystery into his mailbox.
But if this is his moment of triumph, then why is the tin roof being ripped from the walls of his reality? Why are skeletons standing upright in his closet? Why do people want to run him over in the street? And why does his wife keep writing a cryptic message across the bathroom mirror?
As a severe storm cell heads towards Brisbane, Noah is hurtling headfirst into a swirling storm of secrets. He must now cling for dear life to the only story that ever really mattered. He must hold on to the truth. He must hold on to the story. He must hold on to love.
Narelda Jacobs & Karina Natt: If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids…
If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids… is both a satirical picture book for adults and a love letter to rainbow families.
In this age of growing censorship and manufactured moral panics, this book cheekily pokes fun at the conservative cultural warriors by asking questions such as: if queers weren’t meant to have kids, why do lesbians nest after one week? Why are hot gays called daddy? Why are drag queens so maternal?
Written by renowned Indigenous journalist Narelda Jacobs and her communications specialist wife Karina Natt, and illustrated by award-winning First Nations artist Molly Hunt, this beautiful picture book is a loud and proud celebration of chosen family, guncles, the gaybourhood and more.
If Queers Weren’t Meant to Have Kids … is the perfect gift for everyone: those who see themselves and their values reflected in its pages; and, especially, those who don’t!
Dennis Altman: Righting My World
Righting My World is a collection of writings over the past half-century from the acclaimed professor of politics and gay rights activist, Dennis Altman.
From the inauguration of Richard Nixon to Trump’s America, from Gay Liberation to the AIDS crisis and beyond, Dennis Altman has been both a participant in the changing times and an acute observer.
The publication of Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation in 1971 heralded his arrival as an exciting new voice in the movement for gay rights and in Australian writing.
And alongside his longer works, Altman has honed his craft and vision in literary journals, the queer press, academic forums and daily newspapers.
This collection captures the sense of Australia and the wider world as it was and as it is, charting the course of a conversation about civil rights and cultural change, while at the same time highlighting the persistence of prejudice and the value of art.
Interspersed with personal essays reflecting on Altman’s cultural heritage, grief and ageing, Righting My World is a powerful and illuminating chronicle.
James O’Hanlon: Liars, Cheats and Copycats
Meet some of the world’s most dastardly creatures, who lie, cheat and deceive for a living. There’s the deadly praying mantis that looks like an innocent pink flower. The assassin bug that strums spider webs to lure in a tasty snack. The cuttlefish that changes colour to hide its romantic intentions.
To understand how these creatures swindle their way to the top, Liars, Cheats and Copycats reveals the science behind camouflage, mimicry and masquerade. Taking readers on a journey from tropical rainforests to the darkness of deep ocean trenches, James O’Hanlon explores how animals and plants use deception to avoid predators, lure in prey and even reproduce.
From creatures that disappear in front of your eyes to ones that misdirect their foes like masterful magicians, there are endless ways that animals can swindle their way to survival.
The Little Book of Miriam
What do arseholes, apostrophes and aging all have in common? They’re all entries for the informal and idiosyncratic dictionary of Miriam Margolyes.
The Little Book of Miriam is an A-Z collection of wit and wisdom, insights, jokes, stories and aphorisms guaranteed to touch your heart, kickstart your brain, and leave you in stitches.
From Arnie to Dolly, Blackadder to Scorsese, Graham Norton to Harry Potter; the Vagina Monologues to ZOOM, welcome back to the irrepressible and unstoppable world of Miriam Margolyes.
Packed with her wit, wisdom and unfiltered stories, The Little Book of Miriam is a memory palace of Miriam’s extraordinary life’s standout moments, opinions and conclusions.
Deliciously dip-in-able, thought-provoking and mirth-inducing, elegantly designed and always interesting — whether sharing daring declarations, behind-the-scenes antics or talking about the indignities of ageing, this is a book as unique and extraordinary as Miriam herself.
Image: Brighton Bathing Boxes – photo by Polly Alexandra on Unsplash