Cirrus@Austlit

'A black comedy, set in suburbia, about one woman’s struggle to be free.

'When Winona Dalloway begins her day — in the peaceful early hours before her children, that ‘tiny tornado of little hands and feet’, wake up — she doesn’t know that by the end of it, everything in her world will have changed.

'On the outside, Winona is a seemingly unremarkable young mother: unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks. But within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices — a mind both wild and precise.

'And meanwhile, a storm is brewing …' (Publication summary)

'A wickedly funny and genuinely moving novel about memory, language and love, perfect for fans of Richard Osman and The One-Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Jumped Out the Window.

'In the beginning is the whatsitsname. The woman in the car park. She wears a nightgown and lies on her back, looking up at the sky. The nightgown is white and embroidered at the neck with blue . . . what do you call them? Forget-me-nots. A small crowd is gathered around her. All in their unicorns. Uniforms. All younger than the woman, much younger. They look at each other. They look up at the sky. They look down at the woman. They whisper.

'Rose is in her eighties and has dementia, but she's not done with life just yet. Alternately sharp as a tack and spectacularly forgetful, she spends her days roaming the corridors of her aged-care facility, ruminating on the staff and residents and enduring visits from her emotionally distant children and grand-daughters. But when her friend is found dead?after an apparent fall from a window, Rose embarks on an eccentric and deeply personal investigation to discover the truth and exposes all manner of secrets - even some from her own past.

'All the Words We Know is a wickedly funny and genuinely moving story about loneliness, language and how we make sense of the world.'  (Publication summary)

'In 1939, as Hitler's troops march on Prague, a Jewish couple makes a heartbreaking decision that will save their eight-year-old son's life but change their family forever.

'Australian journalist Juliet Rieden grew up in England in the 1960s and 70s always sensing that her family was different in some way. She longed to have relatives and knew precious little about her Czech father's childhood as a refugee.

'On the night before Juliet's father died, in 2006, Juliet's father suddenly looked up and said: 'The plane is in the hangar.' In the years after his death, Juliet comes to truly understand the significance of these words.

'On a trip to Prague she is shocked to see the Rieden name written many times over on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue memorial. These names become the catalyst for a life-changing journey that uncovers a personal Holocaust tragedy of epic proportions.

'Juliet traces the grim fate of her father's cousins, aunts and uncles on visits to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps and learns about the extremes of cruelty, courage and kindness.

'Then in a locked box in Britain's National Archives, she discovers a stash of documents including letters from her father that reveal intimate details of his struggle.

'Meticulously researched and beautifully told, this is the moving story of a woman's quest to piece together the hidden parts of her father's life and the unimaginable losses he was determined to protect his children from.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.