Cirrus@Austlit

'From a bestselling Australian author comes a gripping novel of espionage, passion and sacrifice set in the Middle East during World War I. Based on an astonishing true story, it asks what are you willing to die for? For readers of Geraldine Brooks, Heather Morris and Alli Parker.

'During a train journey across Turkey's Anatolian Plain in 1915 during World War I, Shoshana Adelstein witnesses the slaughter of the Armenians and knows she has just come face to face with her destiny.

'Convinced that her Jewish community in a small outpost of the Ottoman Empire will soon meet a similar fate, she is desperate to save her people. With Turkey and Britain locked in a global conflict, she orchestrates an audacious plan. Enlisting a group of co-conspirators who include her charismatic lover Eli and her impetuous brother Nathan, this young woman forms a clandestine spy ring. Conquering almost insurmountable obstacles, they risk betrayal, torture and death to spy on the Turks and pass on intelligence to the British to help them win the war.

'This epic novel explores the fate of ordinary people whose mission collides with the secret agenda of powerful countries, people ready to risk everything to rescue their communities. But can individuals affect the fate of nations? And when life is at stake, how far will we go to reach the limits of our dreams?' (Publication summary)

'The extraordinary story of Mary Reibey - immortalised on the Australian $20 note, Australia's first female entrepreneur and the most powerful woman in colonial history

'In 1791, teenage runaway and sometime horse thief Mary Reibey narrowly escaped the English gallows with transportation to the brutal new penal colony at Sydney Cove.

'It was the beginning of a 60-plus year story of bravery and tenacity - within two decades Mary would overcome the stigma of her convict past to become the richest woman in colonial Australia.

'Finding love early on her arrival in the new colony, Mary went on to develop a family business which grew to include a fleet of merchant vessels. Widowed at just 33 and with seven children to support, Mary would oversee the growth of that business to an international trading empire and go on to expand what is now Sydney's thriving business district while helping to bankroll many of the colony's first public services.

'Shipping magnate, real estate mogul, working mum and philanthropist - this engaging and meticulously researched portrait by the acclaimed author of bestsellers such as Mrs Kelly, Banks, Banjo and Monash reveals a colourful character of remarkable determination and foresight who became one of Australia's first heroes as a brutal, remote British outpost was transformed into one of the most prosperous places on earth.' (Publication summary)

"The life of 79-year-old pensioner Peggy Smart is as beige as the décor in her retirement village. Her week revolves around aqua aerobics and appointments with her doctor. The highlight of Peggy’s day is watching her neighbour Brian head out for his morning swim. She dreams of inviting the handsome widower to an intimate dinner. But why would an educated man like Brian, look twice at Peggy? As a woman of a certain age, she fears she has become invisible, even to men in their eighties.

"But a chance encounter with an old school friend she hasn’t seen in five decades — the glamorous fashionista Angie Valentine — sets Peggy on an unexpected journey of self-discovery."

Source: Publishers blurb.

'The astonishing life of Ned Kelly's mother

'While we know much about the iconic outlaw Ned Kelly, his mother Ellen Kelly has been largely overlooked by Australian writers and historians -

until now, with this vivid and compelling portrait by Grantlee Kieza, one of Australia's most popular biographers.

'When Ned Kelly's mother, Ellen, arrived in Melbourne in 1841 aged nine, British convict ships were still dumping their unhappy cargo in what was then known as the colony of New South Wales. By the time she died aged ninety-one in 1923, having outlived seven of her twelve children, motor cars plied the highway near her bush home north of Melbourne, and Australia was a modern, sovereign nation.

'Like so many pioneering women, Ellen, the wife of a convict, led a life of great hardship. Born in Ireland during a time of entrenched poverty and sectarian violence, she was a mother of seven when her husband died after months in a police lock-up. She lived through famine and drought, watched her babies die, listened through the prison wall while her eldest son was hanged and saw the charred remains of another of her children who'd died in a shoot-out with police. One son became Australia's most infamous (and ultimately most celebrated) outlaw; another became a highly decorated policeman, an honorary member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a worldwide star on the rodeo circuit. Through it all, 'the notorious Mrs Kelly', as she was dubbed by Victoria's Assistant Police Commissioner, survived as best she could, like so many pioneering women of the time.

'By bestselling biographer Grantlee Kieza, Mrs Kelly is the astonishing story of one of Australia's most notorious women and her wild family, but it's also the story of the making of Australia, from struggling colony and backwater to modern nation.' (Publication summary)

'The Waiting Room captures the sights, sounds, accents and animosities of a country overflowing with stories.

'Dina is a family doctor living in the melting-pot city of Haifa, Israel. Born in Australia in a Jewish enclave of Melbourne to Holocaust survivors, Dina left behind a childhood marred by misery and the tragedies of the past to build a new life for herself in the Promised Land.

'After starting a family of her own, she finds her life falling apart beneath the demands of her eccentric patients, a marriage starting to fray, the ever-present threat of terrorist attack and the ghost of her mother, haunting her with memories that Dina would prefer to leave on the other side of the world.

'Leah Kaminsky plumbs the depths of her characters' memories, both the sweet and the heart-wrenching, reaching back in a single climactic day through six decades and across three continents to uncover a truth that could save Dina's sanity – and her life.' (Publication summary)

'My revenge on Hitler is … a lifetime in which delight has reached me from a hundred sources, and been welcomed.

'A story of courage, unconventionality and lust for life.

'Vera Wasowski was just seven years old when German soldiers marched her and her family into the Lwów Jewish ghetto in Poland. She watched her father take his own life and her mother accede to sexual blackmail in order to ensure their survival. Her story is one of a child surviving hell.

'After the war, Vera studied journalism at Warsaw University, where she threw herself into the bohemian scene. In 1958, she migrated to Australia with her husband and young son, to escape rising anti-Semitism. There she would carve out a bold career as a TV researcher and producer at the ABC on pioneering programs such as This Day Tonight. It was a wild time for politics, arts and the media, and Vera was at the centre of things, mixing with the Hawkes in the eighties, and forming a close friendship with artist Mirka Mora.

'In his inimitable style, acclaimed biographer Robert Hillman captures Vera’s fierce and passionate take on life and tells her amazing story.' (Publication summary)

'In August 1948, 545 passengers boarded an overcrowded, clapped-out vessel in Marseilles to face an uncertain future in Australia and New Zealand. They came from displaced persons camps in Germany, death camps in Poland, labour camps in Hungary, gulags in Siberia and stony Aegean islands. There were those who had been hunted by the Nazis and those who had welcomed them; those who had followed the Communists and those who had fled them. Diane Armstrong set sail on the Derna with her parents when she was nine years old. Like a detective searching for clues, she has located over a hundred of the passengers. Through their recollections and memorabilia, as well as archival documents, she has recreated the voyage and traced what became of their hopes and dreams. The result is the unique portrayal of a migrant ship and its passengers.'  (Publication summary)

'Hetty's family was torn apart following the German invasion of the Netherlands. Rounded up by the Nazis and then separated from their parents, Hetty and her brothers were sent to the Children's House, within Belsen concentration camp. As one of the eldest, Hetty became the 'Little Mother', helping to care for not only her siblings, but the other children as well. In a direct and powerful style, Hetty recalls one of the remarkable, largely untold stories of the Holocaust, the extraordinary struggle and survival of this group of children through these terrible years.' (Publisher's blurb)

'At a time in her life when friends were retiring and spending time with their grandchildren, a night out in Paris while she visited her musician son inspired Elaine Lewis to dream of a daring venture in this most enchanting of cities. Her vision was more than just fanciful. After doing the necessary research and groundwork, Elaine packed her bags and left Australia to open, on the Left Bank, the first Australian bookshop in central Paris.

'Full of incredible energy and enthusiasm, and with the help of locals and visiting Australians, she created her shop in the heart of the St-Germain-des-Pres literary quarter. Situated just around the corner from Notre Dame, her cosy literary haven quickly became an important cultural centre and a home away from home for Australian writers and artists in Paris.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Edith and Frances, living with their mother on a tiny farm in the south-west of Australia, are visited by their cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram. The two young men are taking the long way home after working on an archeological dig in Iraq. It is 1937. The modern world, they say, is waiting to erupt. Among the tales they tell is the story of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk in ancient Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh's great journey of mourning after the death of his friend Enkidu, and his search for the secret of eternal life, is to resonate through all of their lives.In 1939 Edith and her young child set off on an impossible journey of their own, to find themselves trapped by the outbreak of war. The story of this journey is the story of encounters and escapes, of friendship and love, of loss and acceptance.Moving between rural Australia, London, the Caucasus and the Middle East, from the last days of the First World War to the years following the Second, Joan London's stunning novel examines what happens when we strike out into the world, and how, like Gilgamesh, we find our way home. 
(Picador Blurb).

'Gilgamesh is the epic story of a mother's search for the father of her child - from Australia to Armenia via England and Mesopotamia - all under the shadow of the imminent, and soon to be very real, Second World War. Narrated in a clear, poetic voice, it is a portrayal of the different journeys we choose to take through life and what happens when ordinary people get caught up in extraordinary, seismic events.'

(Source: Penguin 2018).

‘Set me as a seal on your heart, for love is stronger than death.'

'Spanning many years, travelling across Australia's vast continent and through some of Europe's great cities, The Submerged Cathedral is a beguiling, heartbreaking story of paradise and the fall, of sacrifice and atonement, and of sisterly love and rivalry. Most of all, however, it is about an enduring and sacred love – a love stronger than death – and the journeys undertaken in its name. Written in spare, haunting prose, this novel is a work of the highest literary merit, as well as a timeless love story that will enthrall readers. The release of Charlotte Wood's acclaimed first novel, Pieces of a Girl, marked her as a young writer of great promise; The Submerged Cathedral thrillingly confirms that promise with astonishing assurance and lyricism.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

In Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons, the eponymous protagonist is a retired author of international literary acclaim, who now spends her time giving guest lectures and interviews at scholarly events around the world. Old age has loosened, rather than reified, her ethical and literary convictions, and swelled her emotional reserves; rather than provide the staid academic wisdom expected of her, Costello offers provocative, unsettling opinions on issues such as animal rights, literary censorship, and the nature of belief - opinions she may or may not believe in herself. Profoundly aware of itself, Coetzee's novel is about human morality and mortality, but above all, about literature itself and the ethical responsibilities of writers and readers.

'Vera has cabin fever. Confined with her thoughts in the concrete tower of a New York hotel, she is haunted by her mother's reminders of what she should have been, and the desperate choices she faced as an unprotected single mother.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Modern Classics ed.).