Cirrus@Austlit

'Once a year, in early October, about 60 people gather at the City of Whittlesea’s Fountain View Room in the northern fringes of Melbourne to begin 10 weeks of rehearsal for a single concert.'

'Gravity Well is about Lotte and Eve, two intelligent women who start out as friends and whose relationship, over time, develops into something harsher, deeper and odder, as they both swerve between a number of diverging plans and desires. It’s only the second novel by Melanie Joosten, whose Berlin Syndrome was recently adapted into a film, but it achieves a textured and realistic quality that for some writers takes a lifetime.' (Introduction)

'If anyone is qualified to give a firsthand account of the ways addiction, treatment and recovery are deeply gendered experiences, it’s certainly Jenny Valentish, who has more than enough knowledge of addiction to fill any number of memoirs. Fortunately, Valentish also has the mind of a journalist, and in her new book, Woman of Substances, she combines investigative rigour with illustrative snippets from her own life. The book accomplishes its balancing act well, being both gripping memoir and an illuminating investigation into the specific experiences of women with addiction. Valentish uses her own story of early trauma, teenage rebellion, alcoholism and addiction as a case study for understanding the latest research into how addiction functions. In straightforward, lively prose she relates even her darkest moments without self-pity or aggrandisement, and often with a streak of gallows humour, leading to more laugh-out-loud lines than you might expect.' (Introduction)

'“Fictionalised biographies – novels based on the life of a famous person – are ten-a-penny,” wrote the novelist Jonathan Gibbs in 2014. “And why not? ... Other people – the actual biographers – have done the hard work.” Gibbs’s sentiment may be largely true, but it doesn’t apply to Half Wild, Pip Smith’s hugely entertaining debut novel based on the life of Jean Ford. ' (Introduction)