From gripping novels to moreish nonfiction, memoir and poetry, Guardian Australia staff and critics have rounded up the best Australian books of 2025. There’s Helen Garner’s award-winning diaries, Geraldine Brooks’ probing memoir of loss and grief, and a portrait of Erin Patterson’s triple murder trial – by three of Australia’s most celebrated nonfiction writers. There’s also fantasy, sex and a sprinkle of recipe books to keep you well fed over the holidays. Bon appétit.
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I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena
Fiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99
What responsibilities haunt a writer? What roles do they inhabit? What moral murk does one wade through in the pursuit of success and storytelling? In this remarkably shrewd and compelling debut novel, a white lie of an unnamed aspiring writer unravels. So too does the complex past of the woman he comes to write about after inveigling his way into her life, the famous author Brenda Shales – a fictional amalgam of Australian greats, with Helen Garner the most overt comparison. Deception and ambition deliciously intertwine in this probing work. – Jack Callil
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The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana
Fiction, Ultimo, $34.99
The setup is bare-bones: two teenagers, a borrowed car, a long quiet road. But the dread ratchets up with every kilometre. Former Triple J presenter Vijay Khurana’s debut novel is magnificently unnerving: the violence ambient, the loneliness immense; a razor-sharp study of adolescence at a moment when we don’t know what we expect boys to become, or how. “Teddy is not thrilled by the prospect of manhood,” Khurana writes of the kid riding shotgun, “but he has not yet settled on an alternative. He is shopping for shortcuts”. So are we. That’s the deep terror of this book. And its tenderness. – Beejay Silcox
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The Underworld by Sofie Laguna
Fiction, Penguin, $34.99
This novel from Miles Franklin-winning author Sofie Laguna is the one that has lingered most with me all year. Opening in 1974, we meet teenager Martha, who has fallen in love with the classics at her elite private school. She is fascinated by ancient cultures’ understanding of the underworld, “a realm invisible to the living and deeper than any ocean … underneath all human life”. It is an unshowy but captivating novel; the plot is, essentially, Martha’s intellectual and sexual awakening through adolescence and into adulthood. But credit to Laguna, for Martha has a wonderfully realised interiority and you will miss her company once you’re done. – Sian Cain
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How to End a Story: Collected Diaries 1978-1998 by Helen Garner
Memoir, Text, $59.99
The wonder and joy of entering the machinations of Helen Garner’s mind is wrapped up in one single volume of her diaries, newly released this year now Garner has found international acclaim. Semi-autobiographical novels such as Monkey Grip are one thing, but unfiltered daily observations that range from the banal to the glorious minutiae of nature to the big personal dramas of life – initially written only for herself – are a different order of intrigue. Everything we have come to value in one of our greatest writers – wincing honesty, intense clarity, absolutely meticulous sentence construction – are all here with that peculiar Garner magic. What a privilege to have this book. – Lucy Clark
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Fierceland by Omar Musa
Fiction, Penguin, $34.99
In Omar Musa’s second novel, Fierceland, the forest of Malaysian Borneo speaks. Its voice is strange, lyrical, mesmerising – both of and beyond the world – standing in contrast with the very human siblings Rozana and Harun, who are reckoning with its destruction and their family history. Their father, Yusuf, made his fortune in palm oil and logging; when he dies, the estranged siblings return to Malaysia and are faced with the reality of Yusuf’s legacy. Dreamlike in some parts, furious in others, Fierceland is a thoughtful and timely novel that sees polymath Musa in fine form, with poetry, prose and even music making its way into these pages. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
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Nock Loose by Patrick Marlborough
Fiction, Fremantle Press, $34.99
A Pynchon-esque whirlwind of zany characters meets Wake In Fright and Kill Bill at a medieval fair in this immensely funny and blood-soaked debut novel. At its centre is Joy, a world-champion archer in her mid-60s seeking revenge after losing her granddaughter to a fire that’s swept Bodkins Point, a fictional town south of Marlborough’s home in Perth. With the town’s annual medieval fair deemed a “blood year”, Joy legally takes aim at Australia’s ills, from despotic politicians to venture capitalists and profiteers of colonial violence. Refreshingly unpredictable and fun, with emotional weight building quietly in the chaos. – Jared Richards
Read more: After 10 years talking to knights, squires and wizards, I understand why ren fairs are booming
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The Rot by Evelyn Araluen
Poetry, UQP, $24.99
Some books go through you like a tempest – at once terrifying and thrilling. Evelyn Araluen’s electrifying second collection of poems, The Rot, is one of those books. An experiential account of living through the Holocene, as seen through the lens of 200 years of occupation on this continent, it feels at once timeless, like an instant classic, and unnervingly of the present moment. This is a function of Araluen’s lyrical control, as much as of the passion and pain that drive the poems; these are poems of an unafraid beauty that shocks you to life. – Alison Croggon
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Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts
Fiction, Hardie Grant, $34.99
As my dreams of a dreamy US road trip fall further out of reach, I’ve been thinking a lot about Watts’s captivating second novel about a couple, Eloise and Lewis, who rent a car in Las Vegas to wind their way through four states as the 2018 wildfires blaze on. Lewis is there as an arts worker, to check on the progress of an epic piece of conceptual land art in the desert; Eloise, meanwhile, is writing a dissertation on the history of the colonised and ravaged Colorado River, whose path they trace on the drive. The grief of the climate catastrophe weighs heavy, yes, but the novel also left me in awe: at the landscapes so vividly captured by Watts, and at our capacity to find love and hope when we need them most. – Steph Harmon
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Secret Sauce by Rosheen Kaul
Recipes, Murdoch Books, $39.99
Chef and cookery writer Rosheen Kaul starts at the finishing touch with Secret Sauce, a compendium of condiments with recipes that make good use of them. This book is clever because it gives home cooks much more than just the dishes within it. The beauty of a good sauce is that it makes even simple cooking sing. All of Kaul’s sauces – arranged by colour – have multiple applications, many of them as easy as steaming rice and frying an egg. It is also beautifully presented – no small achievement when so many pages are devoted to white, beige and brown liquids. Kaul’s many creative manicures while hand modelling are a particularly playful flourish, and may well inspire experimentation beyond the kitchen. – Alyx Gorman
Read more: Rosheen Kaul’s recipe for cheesy, spicy tuna sambal melt
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The Mushroom Tapes by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein
Nonfiction, Text, $36.99
Of the many books, podcasts and documentaries that have sprung up about the trial of Erin Patterson, The Mushroom Tapes – a collaboration between Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein – is arguably the most arresting. The book largely comprises edited conversation transcripts, in which the celebrated writers discuss the world’s morbid fascination with the case, and qualms about their own part in the media maelstrom. It’s an illuminating read even for those who followed the murder trial closely, with insightful focus on, as Krasnostein puts it, “little things, quiet details, that can reveal the human weight of the story”. – Donna Lu
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Eros by Zoe Terakes
Short stories, Hachette, $29.99 (hardback)
This debut collection by actor Zoe Terakes took me by surprise. Not so much the eroticism or queering of Greek myths, which it wears on its sleeve, but the vivid, unsettling, seductive horror of the imagery and the warm, sweaty, lived-in quality of descriptions of experience and place – ranging from Cretan immigrants living in northern rivers NSW, to the gay subcultures of Aids-era Kings Cross and inner west Sydney. It plunges into the muck of life, in all its sensual pleasure, joy, tragedy and violence. This is a book that made me feel – and that kept surprising me. – Dee Jefferson
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Wait Here by Lucy Nelson
Short stories, Simon & Schuster, $32.99
Lucy Nelson’s poetic sensibilities are evident in her debut collection of short fiction. Spare, but full of life, Nelson invites us into the lives of women who have found themselves childless – some by choice and others not. The variety of ways in which Nelson approaches her subject matter is what makes this collection so exciting; that, and the vitality of her language, and the even-handedness of her approach. The women in this collection are afforded a respect that many childless women in the world aren’t, making this a thought-provoking and timely piece of writing. – Bec Kavanagh
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The Leap by Paul Daley
Fiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99
I usually wouldn’t pick up an outback thriller but since I’ve long enjoyed (and at times edited) my colleague Paul Daley’s writing, I gave this book a crack – and I couldn’t put it down until I’d finished. I loved its cleverness and humour, following a middle-aged English diplomat with a jaded-but-slightly-clueless outlook on life, who tries to do the right thing. We follow him to The Leap, a town in the outback with characters who are sharp, menacing and scared. Some want revenge for the murder of the daughter of a prominent grazier, but Benedict must try to sell them on mercy. – Bridie Jabour
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Stinkbug by Sinéad Stubbins
Fiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99
We tell ourselves stories in order to work: maybe the right pitch deck will land the right client; maybe pandering to your fascistic CEO will secure another 30-40 years of pandering to your fascistic CEO. Sinéad Stubbins’ debut novel, Stinkbug, bottles all the anxiety and aspiration of corporate politics into one twitchy work retreat, where the employees of a newly restructured advertising agency fight for their jobs with coded pleasantries and team-bonding exercises. The world of this book is not unlike a tuna melt in an office microwave: it’s horrifying, there’s no escape, and it lingers long after it’s over. – Michael Sun
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Pictures of You by Tony Birch
Short stories, UQP, $45.00 (hardback)
What a cliche but Pictures of You is a gift. Birch’s writing is so full of heart and this collection, which reaches all the way from his early work to his most recent, feels deeply personal in its portrayals of love and family. What made this really stand out for me is the care taken in its composition: the expression of male violence in the earlier works gives way to an alternative masculinity, found in the gentleness and care of the men and boys who populate his later writing. To see the evolution is powerful and precious. – BK
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The Immigrants by Moreno Giovannoni
Fiction/memoir, Black Inc, $36.99
Tracing the journey from Italy to Australia of the author’s parents, Moreno Giovannoni’s The Immigrants is a deeply moving history of love and labour which examines a key part of the rich fabric of Australian post-second world war life. Growing tobacco in rural northern Victoria, we see Ugo and Morena embedded in a vibrant community of fellow immigrants. Giovannoni writes about the hardships of life on the land – the betrayals, the bad seasons, the accidents, and physical and mental illness. He also writes of his own childhood and adolescence, in a blending of fiction and memoir that contains immense heartache and suffering, but also joy. – Joseph Cummins
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The Strength of the Few by James Islington
Fiction, Text, $34.99
If you’ve been searching for your latest fantasy doorstopper tome, chock full of unpronounceable names and bewildering landscapes, look no further than James Islington’s Hierarchy series. Set in a world not unlike the Roman empire but for a fiendish (and ingeniously simple) system of social control, it concerns a young man’s steely determination to invade and then destroy the republic of Caten. The second volume after last year’s The Will of the Many, The Strength of the Few sees our hero Vis literally split in three, with increasingly fraught consequences. Mind-boggling pop entertainment with a compulsive energy and characters worth cheering. – Tim Byrne
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All Women Want by Alyx Gorman
Nonfiction, HarperCollins, $35.99
Yes, Alyx Gorman is a colleague (Guardian Australia’s lifestyle editor) – but this isn’t nepotism; her debut is a genuinely impressive work of journalism, shortlisted for a Walkley prize no less. Gorman interviewed more than 130 people to explore “the orgasm gap”: the discrepancy between how often straight women orgasm during sex compared with straight men. In Australia, the orgasm gap is at 26% for straight women – far higher than women who have sex with women, and men who have sex with men. Gorman delves into the why, through interviews with regular people about their sex lives, as well as sex workers, sex therapists, scientists and academics. I’ve given this book to multiple women in my life – and a couple of men too. – SC
Read more: Am I doing this right?’: how to master the lost art of flirting
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Secrets by Judi Morison
Fiction, Simon & Schuster, $34.99
Judi Morison’s debut novel, Secrets, is an epic saga of the impact of colonisation as it manifests multi-generationally in the trauma, racism, incarceration and addiction experienced by the family of matriarch Ruth. Morison, of Gamileroi and Celtic heritage, brings a seamless narrative, elegant prose and deftly drawn characters to this story about dying Ruth’s determination to reconcile the past (its shame and, yes, its secrets) with her family’s dysfunction. With a grandson in jail, and determined to keep her homestead Cora in family hands, Ruth’s end-of-life quest drives this compassionate, touching story of familial complexity and truth-telling. – Paul Daley
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Baking & the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh
Recipes, Murdoch Books, $55.00
Helen Goh used to run Mortar & Pestle cafe in east Melbourne before she was whisked away to London to work in Ottolenghi’s kitchens, becoming the genius behind many of the sweet treats in his shops and books. This is already a must-have in my kitchen for several reasons (Lao Gan Ma cheese biscuits?), but the main one is her “Chocolate Cake for Everyone” recipe. We have had this book for two months and we have made that cake three times. It is somehow vegan and the fluffiest, most indulgent cake you have ever eaten. We have confounded people with how good this cake is; we have already had requests to make it again. Buy it for that cake alone. – SC
Read more: Helen Goh’s recipe for edible Christmas baubles
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Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
Memoir, Hachette, $32.99 (hardback)
Award-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks opens her most intimate book with the gut-punching news that her husband, Tony Horwitz, has died from cardiac arrest while on a book tour. When she retreats from her US home to the solitude of Flinders Island, she can at last examine her grief, her marriage, her husband’s character and her divided Australian-American self with tender but forensic attention. Brooks’ talents as a wise, ethical storyteller and reporter expand her memoir of loss into a critique of the US medical system and an observation of nature’s fragile beauty. – Susan Wyndham
Read more: ‘I felt like I was faking my life’: an interview with Geraldine Brooks
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We Speak of Flowers by Eileen Chong
Poetry, UQP, $24.99
Eileen Chong’s sixth full-length poetry collection is a study in ephemerality. An elegy to Chong’s ancestors, the 101 fragments can be read in any order. “Each reading will construct the poem anew,” Chong writes, and there is much to come back to here. Her collection brings remarkable richness of form and meaning to its reflection on grief, history, time and lineage. Each fragment is a memory surfacing, a petal falling, a moment held briefly to the light. And in the poems’ infinite permutations, a new cycle is created; regenerative. – Seren Heyman-Griffiths
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Chameleon by Robert Dessaix
Memoir, Text Publishing, $36.99
Most people become more curmudgeonly and intractable as they age (or is it just me?) but the wonderful Robert Dessaix grows suppler and more erudite with each passing year. His latest work of memoir ranges freely and compassionately across a life, touching on sexuality, masculinity, orientalism – where he disagrees with Edward Said’s stricture and absolutism in favour of something liberating and self-actualising about the Arab world – and much more. The delicacy of Dessaix’s thought, his serpentine exploration of his abiding passions, is as thrilling and thoughtful as anything you’ll get from younger, hungrier writers. – TB
Read more: A dazzlingly beautiful mix of sex, travel and intimacy: Chameleon reviewed by Joseph Cummins
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The Sun Was Electric Light by Rachel Morton
Fiction, UQP, $34.99
In this meditative novel, Ruth – depressed and disillusioned – leaves New York and returns to a lake town in Guatemala where she was once happy. There she forms intense relationships with two very different women: solid, sensible Emilie, and wild, unstable Carmen. To Ruth, these women represent something more than themselves; they are “two ways of being in the world … both ways were inside me, and I had to choose”. What follows is a reckoning with transience, isolation and belonging; a compelling exploration of a life in flux, and the act of coming to terms with oneself. – SHG
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Viet Kieu: Recipes Remembered from Vietnam by Thi Le
Recipes, Murdoch Books, $55
Viet Kieu is a confronting “cookbook” in many ways. Melbourne-based chef and restaurateur Thi Le interleaves her encyclopaedic knowledge of Vietnamese food with her stories of childhood trauma, dalliances with drugs, and a once “tortured” relationship with her mother; the chapter titled “Birds” opens with a close-up photo of a bloodied duck. It is also darkly funny in parts: “A disgruntled customer once asked me why our bánh mì shop only sold Vietnamese filter coffee and not espresso,” Le writes. “I said it was because Vietnam was colonised by the French and not the Italians.” I might not ever pickle shore crabs or make my own fish sauce like Le, but some cookbooks are made not for everyday use but as repositories for memories, beautiful and disturbing, ugly and delicious. – Yvonne C Lam
Read more: ‘Your own Viet-Cajun party’: Thi Le’s spicy seafood boil-up recipe
