Cirrus@Austlit

'What would Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of notorious Australian colonist John Macarthur, say if she could set the record straight?'

'For or anyone feeling stir-crazy after weeks cooped up in self-isolation, A Theatre for Dreamers offers an appealing escape, a virtual vacation on the Greek island of Hydra. Dive into these pages and you can swim vicariously in a perfect horseshoe-shaped bay, dry off in the summer sun, admire countless young, scantily clad men and women, and end the day with a glass of retsina while you watch the moon set and listen to a young Leonard Cohen enunciate profundities about life and art.' (Introduction)

'Dervla McTiernan’s third novel consolidates her standing as a star of Irish detective fiction, following her breakout début, The Rúin (2018), and its follow-up, The Scholar (2019), all featuring Detective Sergeant Cormac Reilly.'  (Introduction)

 (Introduction)

'A couple of weeks back I was watching stories appear on social media celebrating the historic win of Melissa Lucashenko in the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Too Much Lip. She became the third Indigenous writer to win the prize in its 62-year history, and the sixteenth woman. One moment I was looking at flowers and champagne for her book, the next I was running across Emmett Stinson’s essay arguing that literary prizes are ‘inherently stupid’, published in this magazine literally days after Lucashenko’s win.' (Introduction)

'The setting is a gorgeous, somewhat decayed, many-roomed Georgian mansion in upstate New York, near the Hudson, in 2012. Nine screens placed around a darkened gallery space each show a room of the house, most of them occupied by a person and a musical instrument: a willowy woman in a slip on a chaise longue, arms wrapped around a cello; a dark-skinned man seated at an ornate desk leaning intently over a bass guitar. There is a man at a grand piano in a room with densely patterned wallpaper, at a drum kit in a kitchen doorway, on a bed with a guitar next to a naked woman. A naked man in a bathtub holds a guitar, not seeming to mind that it dips into the bubbly water. They all wear headphones, listening attentively, mostly unmindful of the camera. One screen shows the front verandah on which a disparate group of people are gathered, standing, sitting, straddling the balcony rail. One by one the musicians take up their instruments.' (Introduction)

'A haunting, hypnotic and enticing novel of grief and desire, by one of Australia's finest, most assured novelists.

'Three years ago, Shelley's lover, Conrad, died in a surfing accident. Now, still in a state of subdued grief, Shelley has just moved into an old Victorian terrace in Paddington with David, her new partner, trying for a new beginning. At home one morning, Shelley discovers a door to a small intriguing room, which is not on the plans. There is a window, a fireplace and a beautiful chandelier. But nothing else.

'When Shelley meets a man who seems to be Conrad's uncanny double, the mysterious room begins to dominate her world, becoming a focus for her secret fantasies and fears, offering an escape which also threatens to become a trap. A waking dream of a novel, HOLD is spellbinding, sensual and unsettling.' (Publication summary)

'These are stories rendered in miniature and moments inscribed with precise focus. Australia's best microwordsmiths offer journeys in words that will take you somewhere surprising. A stolen glimpse of a father dancing alone to music; Gothic landscapes on the New South Wales coast; incredible spectrums in the colours of butterflies; Aussie cricket and climate change; remembrances of an exiled home land or the awkward sexual politics at a funeral. These stories capture delightful and unsettling moments of estrangement, when the new becomes familiar and the ordinary, sublime. ' (Publication summary)

''Here's the money. Look, it's the exact change.' By the time I tuned in, the argument has already been going on for a while...'