Tony Birch
Common People
UQP
Your book in your words: Common People is a collection of short fiction. I am interested in writing stories involving characters who either live on the margins of society or find themselves challenged by the difficulties of life. My characters are often in conflict with those around them or themselves, sometimes through no choice of their own. My aim in writing short stories is to provide readers with an emotional investment in people, common people, doing the best they can in an often tough world. These characters include young children and teenagers conveying love for each other or a parent in distress; women courageously engaged in small acts of courage in order to survive; and men who, finding themselves alone and at times lost, attempt to reconnect with the world.
After reading Common People I would hope readers are reminded that we are at our best when we look to each other rather than turn away.
What you were reading when you wrote it: I continually returned to Island: The Collected Stories by Canadian author Alistair MacLeod. MacLeod was a particularly literary writer. While I had no wish to mimic his style, I have always looked to his stories when I need reminding that we learn best about ourselves and others when we are faced with the challenges of life.
The next Australian book you’ll read: I’m looking forward to reading Kim Scott’s new novel, Taboo. Scott, a two-time winner of the Miles Franklin award, is a remarkable writer. He intelligently and creatively interrogates the history of colonialism in Australia through the art of great storytelling, and through an ensemble cast of unforgettable characters.
Julian Burnside
Watching Out: Reflections on Justice and Injustice
Scribe
Your book in your words: I was always interested in justice. Having become a lawyer largely by accident, it seemed like a good place to pursue justice. We think we have a justice system. In fact we have a legal system, the declared aim of which is to deliver justice. But it fails too often. Of course it is inevitable that a system run by human beings will not operate perfectly. But the greatest failings of our legal system can be fixed, if we are willing to fix them.
The start of the problem is that justice, as seen by big business, is one thing. It is not the same as justice, as experienced by the unpopular, the despised minorities, the homeless, the unemployed, or those suffering from mental disability. But fixing it depends on government support, and governments generally see the views of big business as more important than the views of the unpopular, the despised minorities and so on. Justice should mean justice for all. That’s the purpose of the justice system. We ignore that at our peril.
What you were reading when you wrote it: Sapiens by Yuval Harari; A Just Society by John Rawls. Did they affect my book? Take a lucky guess.
The next Australian book you’ll read: The Beauty of Wind Farms by Tony Abbott. I might have to wait a while.
Rachel Leary
Bridget Crack
Allen and Unwin
Your book in your words: Set in 1820s Van Diemen’s Land, Bridget Crack is the story of a young convict woman who flees her master’s isolated property only to find herself lost in the bush. In escaping starvation and exposure she falls in with bad company, namely the possessive and volatile Matt Sheedy – a man on the run. Condemned now to the fringes of the colony, she must contend with a madman and with a wild and alien landscape, and survive.
In the colony she soon becomes known as a bushranger’s woman and is judged accordingly. Captain Richard Marshall, Bridget’s first master in the colony, is a man grappling with himself and the place he has found himself in, trying to determine right from wrong. He is perhaps the only person who can save her and in doing so, maybe save himself.
What you were reading when you wrote it: The Life and Times of Michael K by JM Coetzee helped me in my writing; it’s unusual in terms of its structure. I also found the main character intriguing, in that there’s not a lot of interiority from him.
The next Australian book you’ll read: The Last Garden by Eva Hornung. I read the first page in a bookshop the other day and was immediately taken in by the directness of her writing. I really enjoyed Dog Boy and Hiam too.
Tim Flannery
Sunlight and Seaweed
Text Publishing
Your book in your words: Sunlight and Seaweed is an investigation of two of the most promising technologies in terms of climate change. Concentrator Solar technologies use the energy of the sun to create very high temperatures and to store energy. They are an essential part of low impact food production, such as at Sundrop farms in South Australia, where they provide heat, fresh water and electricity. And they can unlock a way to carry out heavy duty industrial process much more cleanly than fossil fuels.
The other technology is seaweed aquaculture. It offers a huge opportunity to grow food, draw CO2 out of the air and store it, and de-acidify the oceans. It might even help save the Great Barrier Reef.
What you were reading when you wrote it: I was reading lots of books, but the one that’s stayed with me is Jurgen Randers’s 2052 – a terrifyingly grim assessment of our future.
The next Australian book you’ll read: I’m reading a draft of Kate Holden’s Mouth of Truth. Kate is my partner so I’m biased. But its brilliant. Just can’t put it down.
Tex Perkins with Stuart Coupe
Tex
Pan MacMillan
Your book in your words (answered by Stuart Coupe): Tex is a memoir by Tex Perkins – he of the Beasts Of Bourbon and Cruel Sea fame. It’s racy, chatty, insightful and full of great stories and a whole lunch of laughs.
Tex and I worked closely on the book for a good year and when we needed a break we played a lot of table tennis. I’m not bad at table tennis. Tex is better. I chatted with Tex, recorded it all, wrote drafts of the chapters and then he added all the great little bits of detail and nuance that I couldn’t begin to know.
Along the way I think Tex discovered another talent in terms of prose writing, and actually enjoyed the process. We laughed a lot and spent a heap of time working out how to carefully word certain sections. You can work out which ones when you read it.
What you were reading when you wrote it: I read David Ritz’s book Brother Ray which they collaborated on just to get the feel of how you write with another person. It was inspiring, and taught me heaps about capturing the voice of your subject.
The next Australian book you’ll read: I’m looking forward to reading Tim Rogers’ memoir Detours. Tex and I said nice things about Tim in our book, and I want to see if it’s reciprocated! If not we’ll have to look at some revisions when Tex is reprinted... Just kidding.
Kim Scott
Taboo
Picador Australia
Your book in your words: Taboo is a story of recovery and, I hope, of transformation. Tilly, a young woman recovering from an abusive relationship, joins a struggling Aboriginal group as they return to ancestral country. Most of their families haven’t been to this area since a 19th century massacre resulted in it being labeled “taboo”. The town is planning a Peace Park ceremony and the owner of the massacre property wants them to visit.
It is a situation that should simmer with anger, an emotion Christos Tsiolkas eloquently discusses in a recent essay The Second Coming. His essay references WB Yeats’ poem, but Taboo – to my mind at least – features something with more grace and wonder than any rough beast slouching into town at a time of change.
Cooking up Taboo required a pinch of fairy tale, a touch of gothic, a sufficiency of social realism and just a tease of creation story.
What you were reading when you wrote it: At one stage it was Dracula, which I partly used for Tilly’s bus trip. It takes me while to write a novel, and over that long time I was avidly reading – and editing – six books in the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project series, from Mamang to Noorn.
The next Australian book you’ll read: Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe. I’ve had it recommended by so very many people from diverse backgrounds – and I respect and admire a lot of Bruce’s work.
Amanda Dunn
The New Puberty
MUP
Your book in your words: Have you noticed that kids seem to be starting puberty earlier these days? That boobs and pubes seem to be encroaching more and more into the primary school years? Well I noticed this too, and decided to examine exactly what the research tells us on how puberty is changing, and the implications it will have for our children as they become adults.
I look at big-picture puberty: the physical, social, emotional and – yes – technological environment in which young people are reaching sexual maturity. As the book is written for adults rather than kids, I write about exactly what happens to girls and boys during puberty, including what’s normal and when to seek medical help. But most importantly, I argue for sexuality education to be earlier, better, and compulsory from primary school. We are way behind on this.
What you were reading when you wrote it: Zadie Smith’s Swing Time, which I absolutely loved and I think is her finest novel. She is such a masterful writer, and the story of the two friends’ very different paths through life was utterly compelling. Like Helen Garner (who I also read at the time), Smith makes me want to be a better writer.
The next Australian book you’ll read: I’m late to this, but I’m really looking forward to reading Heather Rose’s Museum of Modern Love. I’m intrigued to learn more about how she has handled the fiction and non-fiction simultaneously, and I also just think it’s a fabulous idea for a novel from a gifted writer.
Shaun Prescott
The Town
The Lifted Brow
Your book in your words: The book is about a town in the central west of New South Wales, and someone who arrives in it. The townspeople of the nominal town believe they have no history. Or at least it has never occurred to them that they might. None of them know why they are there and few of them really care. Meanwhile, this arriver is writing a book about towns he believes have disappeared in the region, towns that haven’t deteriorated or become depopulated: they’ve just vanished.
Based on the title people might assume that The Town is a realistic depiction of small towns in Australia, but it is not a realistic book. Or at least that wasn’t my goal, though there are some details that may be familiar to someone who grew up in the central west, and I hope there are some larger details that will be familiar to anyone who lives in this country.
What you were reading when you wrote it: I started reading Gerald Murnane shortly after finishing the first, aborted version of what would become the The Town. By the time I had finished one of the final drafts, I’d read every Murnane in print. Landscape with Landscape was my favourite. It’s his strangest and most lucid; the one that shook me the most. I think most readers of my book will notice his influence, even though I break many Murnane-ian rules.
The next Australian book you’ll read: Vanessa Berry has a special instinct for discovering mysteries and stories in places most people don’t notice. For example, through her writing I learned that there were things worth knowing about the Tempe Salvation Army. Her forthcoming book Mirror Sydney will draw from her blog of the same name, which is one of my favourite websites. Her book Ninety9 is also one of my favourite recent books. Her dedication to self-publishing and thoroughly exploring her own obsessions is inspiring and I’m very grateful she writes.
Garry Disher
Her
Hachette
Your book in your words: I need to push at my boundaries to stay fresh as a writer –alternate single with multiple viewpoints in my crime novels, for example, or standalone with series characters. And employ a heightened prose style in a “literary” novel such as my new title, Her.
I made several attempts to start Her, over many years, often getting no further than the epilogue. In effect I was waiting for the main character to “talk” to me – a character shrewd, compassionate and indomitable despite the appalling circumstances of her life.
While researching Australian history school texts early in my career, I found mention of poor families relinquishing a child so there’d be one less mouth to feed. In my story, a three-year-old from the rural backblocks of early 1900s Victoria is sold to a travelling tinker for a few shillings. She’s so insignificant he doesn’t even name her, and yet she proves vital as his world unravels with the coming of the Great War and the 1919 influenza epidemic.
What you were reading when you wrote it: I read Ron Rash novels and story collections, including The Cove and Burning Bright. Beautifully written, Rash’s fiction evokes hardscrabble lives in the mountains, farms and small towns of past and present Appalachia — a world not so far removed from that of my new novel.
The next Australian book you’ll read: Michael Robotham’s new standalone psychological crime thriller, The Secrets She Keeps. Robotham’s international standing is well deserved, for he has the ability to create and sustain a sense of urgency with sinuous plotting and compelling, intriguingly complex and imperfect characters.
Peter Chudd (as shouted down the phone line to James Colley)
Too Right
Allen & Unwin
Your book in your words: Without exaggeration, this is the most important book ever written. At last, we have finally given voice to the outraged white male.
Too Right is a collection of my incredibly important thoughts and opinions devoid of the tyrannous censorship of the Human Rights Commission, left-wing media and basic fact checking. It’s an outsider’s account of the state of Australia – and by an outsider, I mean someone who has dominated just about every form of Australian culture for the last 200 years but is slowly being forced to cede absolute control and will not stand for it.
It’s a defiant declaration of my free speech against those who wish to silence me by critically analysing my works and holding me accountable for the things I say. You should and must buy 10 copies or you too are silencing me.
What you were reading when you wrote it: The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 by Alfred Deakin was a real inspiration to me. Back then you could say whatever you want, unlike now when my incredibly racist immigration policy suggestions get me in all sorts of trouble on Twitter when in truth I’m just upholding an Australian tradition.
The next Australian book you’ll read: I’m eagerly anticipating the wonderful cookbook of my contemporary Mark Latham. If there’s one person in this nation who knows a thing or two about being thoroughly cooked it’s that man. I’ll also be flicking through Sam Dastyari’s One Halal Of A Story, as I look for more information to report to ASIO on his activities.
Anna George
The Lone Child
Viking
Your book in your words: The Lone Child is framed around one Easter long weekend when well-to-do architect Neve Ayres discovers a young child playing alone at the beach. The unkempt girl looks to be in need of some love and Neve, who is a new mother herself, grapples with how to help her.
The girl’s mother, Leah Chalmers, is an aged care worker, struggling with caring for her two young daughters. Both women are parenting on their own and grappling with motherhood albeit with very different resources. The book is about parenting and judgement, class and mothering. It also touches on hallucinations and life after death.
What you were reading when you wrote it: Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman gave me invaluable insight into what it means to lose your mother, particularly as a child but even as an adult. Both Neve and Leah have lost their mothers and I wanted to explore mothering without having a mother – or any other real support.
Fire in the Brain by Ronald Siegel provides a fascinating account of hallucinations experienced by a range of ordinary people subjected to extraordinary conditions. A thread in my book is around life after death, and ghosts. And I wanted to understand what a scientist makes of those visions.
The next Australian book you’ll read: Breaking the Mould by Angela Pippos: an exploration of the trials and triumphs of women in sport. I’m collecting contemporary stories of everyday sexism; it’s all grist for the mill.
