Cirrus@Austlit

'Even the worst person has a best friend.

'A chilling black comedy, The First Friend imagines a gangster mob in charge of a global superpower.

'The Soviet Union 1938: Lavrentiy Beria, 'The Boss' of the Georgian republic, nervously prepares a Black Sea resort for a visit from 'The Boss of Bosses', his fellow Georgian Josef Stalin. Under escalating pressure from enemies and allies alike, Beria slowly but surely descends into murderous paranoia.

'By his side is Vasil Murtov, Beria's closest friend since childhood. But to be a witness is dangerous; Murtov must protect his family and play his own game of survival while remaining outwardly loyal to an increasingly unstable Beria. The tension ramps up as Stalin's visit and the inevitable bloodbath approaches. Is Murtov playing Beria, or is he being played?

'The First Friend is a novel in a time of autocrats, where reality is a fiction created by those who rule. Reflecting on Putin's Russia, Trump's America, Xi's China and Murdoch's planet Earth, it is at once a satire and a thriller, a survivor's tale in which a father has to walk a tightrope every day to save his family from a monster and a monstrous society. Where safety lies in following official fictions, is a truthful life the ultimate risk?'  (Publication summary)

'A stunning new novel about longing, regret, redemption and the terrible legacy of decades of secrets buried in an Australian beachside suburb.

'A house perched impossibly on a cliff overlooking the stunning, iconic Bluebird Beach. Prime real estate, yet somehow not real estate at all, The Lodge is, like those who live in it, falling apart.

'Gordon Grimes has become the accidental keeper of this last relic of an endangered world. He lives in The Lodge with his wife Kelly who is trying to leave him, their son Ben who will do anything to save him, his goddaughter Lou who is hiding from her own troubles, and Leonie, the family matriarch who has trapped them here for their own good.

'But Gordon has no money and is running out of time to conserve his homeland. His love for this way of life will drive him, and everyone around him, to increasingly desperate risks. In the end, what will it cost them to hang onto their past?

'Acclaimed writer Malcolm Knox has written a classic Australian novel about the myths that come to define families and communities, and the lies that uphold them. It's about a certain kind of Australia that we all recognise, and a certain kind of Australian whose currency is running out. Change is coming to Bluebird, whether they like it or not. And the secrets they've been keeping and the lies they've been telling can't save them now.

'Savage, funny, revelatory and brilliant, Bluebird exposes the hollowness of the stories told to glorify a dying culture and shows how those who seek to preserve these myths end up being crushed by them.' (Publication summary)

'Set in 1985, the series will follow the exploits of Les Norton, a country bloke from outback Queensland. On the run from a troubled past, he blows into Sydney where he lands a job as a bouncer at a notorious illegal casino in Kings Cross. A classic fish out of water who’s desperate to get home, he soon finds himself seduced by the city’s illicit charms and dragged into a web of underground criminality.' (Production summary)

Set twenty-five years after the original film, the series follows the new generation of far-right activists and the anti-fascist groups who oppose them.

'Drawing on almost 100 interviews and featuring scores of images from the Hughes family's personal collection, this is a stirring biography about the life of Phillip Hughes: son, brother, friend, farmer, cricketer, inspiration.

'Phillip Hughes gave his life to cricket.

'And cricket gave Phillip Hughes his life.

'When Hughes scored twin centuries in his second Test - the youngest man in cricket's 135-year history to achieve the feat - the world hailed the arrival of a brilliant new star. Here was a batting prodigy from a tiny country town with a twinkle in his eye and a wizardry with the willow to fill the dreams of a generation. But those dreams were lost in November 2014 when Hughes was felled, playing the game he loved.

'Told through the voices of those who knew him best, Phillip Hughes:­ The Official Biography is the incredible story of the boy from Macksville who became Australian Test cricketer 408. It charts the folkloric rise of the banana grower's son with the axe-handle batting technique, reliving his adventures on and off the field and celebrating his many triumphs and travails.

'And it pays tribute to the fighting spirit and gift for friendship that made this unique young man a hero to millions.' (Publication summary)

'The cricket field is a unique stage, where the player at the centre is the most easily overlooked. Yet the wicketkeeper, always at the heart of the action, knows the game better than almost anyone else on the pitch. Wicketkeepers are able to anticipate a bowler, read a batsman, interpret a pitch, advise on a team's strategy, carry and lift it's spirit and even change the course of play. And in modern times, wicketkeepers have had to hold their place amongst the top six batsmen.

'From the revered Jack Blackham to the determined Brad Haddin, wicketkeepers are a unique breed and something of a club. And more than any other aspect of the game wicketkeeping is steeped in its own history, knowledge passed down from keeper to keeper. Each keeper has built upon honed skills, developed techniques and offered something unique to the game.

'And each keeper has come to represent the spirit of a team, from Marsh's gruff resilience to Healy's combative chippiness to Gilchrist's overabundance of talent. In doing so, our keepers have not only shaped the character of Australian cricket – flinty, determined, world-beating and a little bit larrikin – but have helped shape our national sporting character.

'Wicketkeepers are the closest eyewitnesses to cricket's story. In The Keepers, award-winning journalist and writer Malcolm Knox re-examines the history of Australian cricket through the eyes and narratives of the talented, resilient men at the heart of the play.' (Publication summary)

The compartments in our father's life were not the separations he needed to build to preserve his sanity. They were his sanity. When he fell in love... when he fell to the abjection he deserved, the walls began dissolving. And once the walls came down between all three, or now four, of his lives, so did every other retaining wall - between past and present, present and future, self- and non-self, dream and wakefulness. The walls were his sanity. Love had driven him mad....

'This is the story of John Wonder, a man with three families, each one kept secret from the other, each one containing two children, a boy and a girl, each called Adam and Evie. As he travels from family to family in different cities, he works as an Authenticator, verifying world records, confirming facts, setting things straight, while his own life is a teetering tower of breathtaking lies and betrayals...

'This is a stunning novel that again and spectacularly confirms Malcolm Knox as one of our brightest stars, an imaginative tour de force that ranks alongside the best work of Vladimir Nabokov, Martin Amis, David Ireland and Peter Carey. '

'The Guardian famously wrote of Malcolm, 'If Winton is an aria, Knox is early Rolling Stones', but this time around he's got the orchestra along as well and every single note rings deep and rich and true. This bedtime story told by children to adults is jaw-droppingly original, breathtakingly audacious and dazzlingly accomplished... ' (Publication summary)

Written for the Reading Australia project, this essay serves as an introduction to Anna Funder's Stasiland. Knox discusses the cultural setting in which the work was first published and examines the narrative techniques that Funder uses to depict her subjects. Knox also discusses how Funder's gender and her status as a foreigner affected her telling of the story.