Cirrus@Austlit

'In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her.

'When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back.

'In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women's eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.'  (Publication summary)

'Hannah Gadsby always dreamt of being a cool kid, but she had to accept that, just like her childhood dream of being a dog, 'normal' isn't always possible. In the vein of David Sedaris, Hannah's memoir is a series of interlinked stories that draw together the varied funny and sometimes dark events of her life. The result is a deeply personal, astutely observed, sometimes devastating but frequently hysterically funny book.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.

'Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.' (Publication summary) 

'This is the story of a love song . . . And like any good love song, it has two parts.

'In Australia, Arie Johnson waits impatiently for classical pianist Diana Clare to return from a world tour, hopeful that after seven years together she'll finally agree to marry him.

'On her travels, Diana composes a song for Arie. It's the perfect way to express her love, knowing they'll spend their lives together . . . Won't they?

'Then late one night, her love song is overheard, and begins its own journey across the world.

'In Scotland, Evie Greenlees is drifting. It's been years since she left Australia with a backpack, a one-way ticket and a dream of becoming a poet. Now she spends her days making coffee and her nights serving beer. And she's not even sure whether the guy she lives with is really her boyfriend or just a flatmate.

'Then one day she hears an exquisite love song. One that will connect her to a man with a broken heart . . .' (Publication summary)

'A highly adorable and addictive love story that explores whether "the stars" can or should be a guide through life and what happens when one woman tries to give "the stars" a little help. 

'When childhood sweethearts Justine (Sagittarius and serious skeptic) and Nick (Aquarius and true believer) randomly bump into each other as adults, a life-changing love affair seems inevitable. To Justine anyway. True, she hasn't seen Nick in thirteen years, one month and three weeks, but who's counting? She's pined after him all the same, and now that Nick lives in the same town, a struggling actor to her struggling magazine reporter, he'll surely realize his own unchanged feelings, take the reins and jump at the chance to rekindle their relationship. Right? Well, no. Nick, she learns, is an astrological devotee, and his decision-making, romantic and professional, is guided solely by the infallible horoscopes in his favourite magazine. The magazine Justine happens to work at. Perhaps the stars' guiding forces could use a little journalistic reimagining?

'It's only a few tweaks to the Aquarius column, just a little push to get him to realize they're meant for one another. It's nonsense in the first place, what could possibly happen? Aquarians everywhere are about to find out, when the doctored horoscopes, ostensibly published to steer Nick and Nick alone, end up reverberating in the lives of the column's devoted readers, showing the ripple effects of what can happen when one woman decides to take the horoscopes, and Fate itself, into her own hands.

'Spanning exactly one year, as the earth moves through all twelve stars signs, Star-Crossed is a delicious, intelligent and affecting love story about fate, chance and how we all navigate the kinds of choices that are hard to face alone.' (Publication summary)

'When the Templeton family from England takes up residence in a stately home in country Australia, they set the locals talking - and with good reason. From the outside, the seven Templetons seem so bohemian, unusual... peculiar even.

No one is more intrigued by the family than their neighbours, single mother Nina Donovan and her young son Tom. Before long, the two families' lives become entwined in unexpected ways, to the delight of Gracie, the sweetest of the Templeton children.

In the years that follow, the relationships between the Templetons and the two Donovans twist and turn in unpredictable and life-changing directions, until a tragedy tears them all apart. What will it take to bring them together again?' (From the publisher's website.)

'It's almost Halloween in Pico Mundo, and that means time for the annual Safe Halloween Party, hosted by Police Chief Porter. All seems perfectly normal - until Odd catches sight of the ghost of a young girl who seems to be trying to join in the festivities.' (Source: Trove)

'Our world went to hell on March 14, 2003.

Four years after an inexplicable wave of energy decimated the American mainland, and then just as inexplicably disappeared a year later, US President James Kipper is no closer to explaining the catastrophe to the traumatised survivors.

In a decaying New York City, an assassination attempt on the President prompts the suspicion that the looters overrunning Manhattan may be more organised and sinister than previously thought.

Working on a farm in Texas to earn his citizenship, Miguel Pieraro believes in the promise of the New America. That is until tragedy cuts through his family.

In the English countryside, Echelon agent Caitlin Monroe must once again fight for her life, a sharp reminder that her nemesis is active again.

Then out of the smoking ruin of the Middle East comes an enemy that will be Kipper's toughest challenge yet. The battle for the Wild East is just beginning, but does this New America, and its gun-shy President, have the strength of will to destroy the past in order to save the future?' (Publisher's blurb)

'2003: In Paris, an assassin wakes from a coma. In Kuwait, American forces are assembled for their invasion of Iraq. In the pristine forest of the Cascades, a lone hiker watches a plane fly into the side of a mountain. And just north of the Equator, a modern-day pirate, a rogue Tasmanian, is witness to the unspeakable. A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into America. And destroyed it. In one instant, all around the world, from Cairo to Canberra, things will never be the same.

'Now, allied soldiers are fighting a war without command; a correspondent files a story for a newspaper that no longer exists. The line of Presidential succession is in tatters; the functioning remnants of government are in Pearl Harbor, Guantanamo Bay, and one desperate, isolated corner of the Pacific Northwest.

'For the jihadists, Allah has performed a miracle. For Sadaam, it is a chance for revenge. Iran declares war, but on an America that doesn't exist, except in the hearts and souls of the men and women who want it to. For US allies, Armageddon has arrived. Israel acts. Australasia, far from the noxious waste darkening Europe's skies, beckons as a possible oasis.' (Publisher's blurb)

'From Del Rey Books and award-winning editor Ellen Datlow comes a collection of fifteen all-new short stories, plus a science fiction novella. Here you will find slyly twisted alternate histories, fractured fairy tales, topical science fiction, and edgy urban fantasy' (Libraries Australia).

'The overthrow of the Republic is complete. The Separatist forces have been smashed, the Jedi Council nearly decimated, and the rest of the Order all but destroyed. Now absolute power rests in the iron fist of Darth Sidious - the cunning Sith lord better known as the former Senator, now Emperor, Palpatine. But more remains to be done. Pockets of resistance in the galaxy must still be defeated and missing Jedi accounted for ... and dealt with. These crucial tasks fall to the Emperor's ruthless enforcer, Darth Vader. In turn, the Dark Lord has groomed a lethal apprentice entrusted with a top-secret mission: to comb the galaxy and dispatch the last of his masters' enemies, thereby punctuating the dark side's victory with the Jedi's doom.

Since childhood, Vader's nameless agent has known only the cold, mercenary creed of the Sith. His past is a void; his present, the carrying out of his deadly orders. But his future beckons like a glistening black jewel with the ultimate promise: to stand beside the only father he has ever known, with the galaxy at their feet. It is a destiny he can realize only by rising to the greatest challenge of his discipleship: destroying Emperor Palpatine.

The apprentice's journeys will take him across the far reaches of the galaxy, from the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk to the junkyard planet of Raxus Prime. On these missions, the young Sith acolyte will forge an unlikely alliance with a ruined Jedi Master seeking redemption and wrestle with forbidden feelings for his beautiful comrade, Juno Eclipse. And he will be tested as never before - by shattering revelations that strike at the very heart of all he believes and stir within him long-forgotten hopes of reclaiming his name ... and changing his destiny.

Set between Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope.'

(Source: Book jacket)

'Tour guide Harriet Turner knows all about journeys. She's arranged hundreds of them for the travel agency her family runs. But when her work colleague and foster sister Lara disappears on the eve of a big overseas trip, Harriet finds herself in uncharted territory. Left in charge of a coachload of eccentric tourists on a themed tour based on the English TV detective series Willoughby, Harriet soon has her hands full. But as the bus wends its way through the picturesque countryside of Devon and Cornwall, the tour becomes another kind of journey for her. She finds herself facing big questions about her family, her childhood and her feelings for the guest of honour on the tour, the charming star of Willoughby, Patrick Shawcross. And the biggest puzzle of all: what has happened to Lara?' (Publication summary)

'Old soldiers never die. They just come back for more.

'Three terrorist missiles have struck three jetliners filled with innocent people. America knows this shock all too well. But unlike 9/11, the nation is already on a war footing. The White House and Pentagon are primed. All they need now is a target and someone bold–and expendable–enough to strike it.

'That someone is retired Gen. Douglas Freeman, the infamous warrior who has proved his courage, made his enemies, and built his legend from body-strewn battlegrounds to the snake pits of Washington. Using a team of “retired” Special Forces operatives and a top-secret, still-unproven stealth attack craft, Freeman sets off to obliterate the source of the missiles, a weapons stockpile in North Korea. Some desktop warriors expect Freeman to fail–especially when an unexpected foe meets his team on the Sea of Japan. But Freeman won’t turn back even as his plan explodes in his face and the Pacific Rim roils over–because this old soldier can taste his ultimate reward. . . .' (Publication summary)

'The harrowing search for Zonama Sekot is finally over for Luke Skywalker, Jacen Solo, and the others aboard the Jade Shadow. But joy turns to alarm when the living planet sends a defiant message: it refuses to follow them back to a galaxy full of war, exploitation, and misery.

'While Luke works feverishly to persuade the elusive planet to reconsider, the Yuuzhan Vong launches a full-scale attack aimed at the heart of the new alliance. Sent to defend a major communications base, Han and Leia find themselves hopelessly outnumbered. Reinforcements are just too far away to help before everything is destroyed. So the courageous pair must now fight an unrelenting battle against staggering odds. Whether they actually survive is another matter . . .'.

Source: bookseller's website.

'From the ashes of the New Republic—torn to shreds by the savage Yuuzhan Vong forces—the newly formed Galactic Alliance has risen, determined to bring peace to the entire galaxy. But first the Yuuzhan Vong must be contained once and for all. And so Luke Skywalker seeks a world long lost to legend: Zonama Sekot, a sentient planet believed to have repelled an invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong decades ago. Deciphering the enigmatic secrets of Zonama Sekot just might turn the tides of a relentless war.

'Aboard the Jade Shadow, Luke, his wife Mara, Jacen Solo, and other Jedi head off into the Unknown Regions, where rumors and clues suggest Zonama Sekot might be found. Yet the mission has barely begun when the searchers stumble into a horrific battle. The Imperial Remnant, in retreat from the mighty Yuuzhan Vong, is about to be destroyed. It would seem those aboard the Jade Shadow have little choice but to leave the Empire to its fate. But these are no ordinary space travelers, they are Jedi. . . .'.

Source: bookseller's website.