Hawke PM: The Making of a Legend by David Day<\/p>\n
Biography, HarperCollins, $49.99<\/p>\n
Part two of David Day\u2019s biography of Bob Hawke, chronicling his years as Labor\u2019s longest-serving prime minister, is no less forensic and revealing than the first instalment which traced him from birth to the precipice of the top job.<\/p>\n
Hawke, given all the reform that he and his long-serving (and -suffering) treasurer Paul Keating oversaw is rightly remembered as a \u201cgreat\u201d prime minister \u2013 a \u201clegend\u201d, as Day puts it. He quit the grog. And apparently gave up the women. But Day reveals a PM beset by familial turmoil while presenting a newly curated public persona. This is a must if you read the compelling first volume. \u2013 Paul Daley<\/p>\n
The Last Days of Zane Grey by Vicki Hastrich<\/p>\n
Nonfiction, Allen & Unwin, $34.99<\/p>\n
Shark. Camera. Action! Decades before the fin\u2011flashing brilliance of Jaws, pulp novelist Zane Grey sailed into Australia<\/a> chasing a great white for his ill\u2011fated 1936 film White Death. In The Last Days of Zane Grey, the acclaimed nature writer Vicki Hastrich charts the arc of that quest \u2013 the role Australia played in Grey\u2019s restless final chapter, and the unlikely mark he left on the national imagination.<\/p>\n This swashbuckling tale has it all: encrypted letters, love quadrangles, high\u2011society hi-jinks, very big fish, cinematic fiascos and a man in a duel with death itself. Proof that sometimes the wildest thing in the water is the human ego. \u2013 Beejay Silcox<\/p>\n The Visitor by Rebecca Starford<\/p>\n Fiction, Allen & Unwin, $32.99<\/p>\n Rebecca Starford is rapidly becoming one of our most gripping writers: first there was Bad Behaviour, her memoir of bullying at an elite country boarding school, then her second world war thriller The Imitator, about a female MI5 spy tasked with infiltrating a Nazi ring in London.<\/p>\n Her third book, The Visitor, is quieter but just as riveting: Laura, an Australian living in the UK, returns home to Brisbane to sell her parents\u2019 house after they mysteriously die in the outback. That mystery is part of the appeal but its gothic quality, its spooky sense of the uncanny, are what sets The Visitor apart \u2013 and the ending is a cracker. \u2013 Sian Cain<\/p>\n My Father Bryce by Adam Courtenay<\/p>\n Biography, Hachette, $32.99<\/p>\n The late Bryce Courtenay was a mainstay in Australian publishing: every 18 months or so he would release a new novel and dads everywhere would reliably buy his latest doorstopper about brave young men navigating wartime or the winds of history, making him one of the country\u2019s bestselling authors.<\/p>\n But the version of his life that he shared with the public was largely untrue, according to his son Adam, who reveals that his father was a fabulist who lied about being an orphan, that he escaped orphanages by winning a prestigious scholarship, that his lawyer father had fought apartheid in South Africa and that he himself had to flee the country due to his activism. This is a truly revelatory biography, unflinching and unsentimental, which shows how Bryce became a man who wouldn\u2019t let truth ruin a good story. \u2013 SC<\/p>\n Learned Behaviours by Zeynab Gemieldien<\/p>\n Fiction, Ultimo, $34.99<\/p>\n Zaid is a prospective barrister who has broken through the glass ceiling, as a Muslim man from western Sydney. He\u2019s well-travelled, owns a luxury car, and attends swanky soirees with wealthy colleagues. But when he is pulled into a murky murder committed by his now-dead best friend, he\u2019s forced to reckon with his choices and the way they have shaped his life.<\/p>\n Zeynab Gamieldien\u2019s second novel is a subtle social commentary about belonging and social mobility. Compelling and pacy, it demonstrates an acute awareness of experiences of privilege and subordination, without being preachy. \u2013 Sarah Ayoub<\/p>\n Hailstones Fell Without Rain by Natalia Figueroa Barroso<\/p>\n Fiction, UQP, $34.99<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Saved for Later<\/p>\n Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia’s culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Natalia Figueroa Barroso\u2019s debut follows the unforgettable Graciela: a single mother who\u2019s late on rent, struggling to hold her family together and hiding a new couch she can\u2019t afford. As her bonds with her daughter, Rita, and her Aunt Chula stretch, fray, and threaten to snap, she grasps for connections that might still be mended.<\/p>\n Moving between Uruguay and western Sydney, this bold and compassionate novel celebrates matrilineal connection and cultural inheritance with humour and tenderness. \u2013 Seren Heyman-Griffiths<\/p>\n The Leap by Paul Daley<\/p>\n Fiction, Summit Books, $34.99<\/p>\n There\u2019s a crime, but it\u2019s not a crime novel as such; the pace is thrilling, but it\u2019s not a thriller \u2026 as such. Paul Daley\u2019s fine literary sensibilities foreground his genre-defying third novel about a stranger in a strange land<\/a>. Ben Fotheringham-Gaskill, a British diplomat who has had his fair share of traumatic postings, believes his move to Canberra with his family will be a late-career cruise. But when his boss sends him to the outback town The Leap, things take a dangerous turn as he wrestles with a dilemma involving the possible murder of one of the town\u2019s favourite daughters.<\/p>\n