This month’s top novels and nonfiction includes works by Liza Minnelli, Lionel Shriver, Bob Carr, Louise Milligan, M.L. Stedman

In Shakespeare’s play, a soothsayer told Julius Caesar to pay attention to the months of March. But book lovers need not fear this month: the publishing industry is back in full swing, and here’s just a selection of its many new offerings.

something new
Alex Sarkis
Ultimo Press, $34.99
out now
The broadcaster likens him to Alex Sarkis second novel with I’m looking for Alibrandi for a new generation, and given its concerns about family, identity, and the many different forces that push and pull its main character, Lebanese-Australian Nicole, you can see why. He appeared in Sarkis’ first novel. something bluebut she is now in her early 30s, escaping COVID in London in August 2021 to head to her hometown of Sydney, leaving her footballer boyfriend Jamie behind. As Nicole says, at its core, it’s all about place and love.

A Better Life
Lionel Shriver
Borough Press, $34.99
The controversial Lionel Shriver enjoys prodding liberal sensibilities with his iconoclastic satires that both infuriate and amuse. LatestNico is a slacker; no job, no girlfriend, still living at home a few years out of college. His life and that of his divorced mother, Gloria, and his two sisters are turned upside down when Gloria takes in a Honduran immigrant as part of a “Big Apple, Big Heart” social program in New York. You know things are going to go horribly wrong, but there are some narrative surprises as Shriver rather subtly skewers well-intentioned New Yorkers.

On Not Climbing Mountains
Claire Thomas
Hachette, $32.99
Claire Thomas is the sequel to her two previous novels: Illegal Blue And Performancewith a nice bit of editing – auto-edit? – It’s about a woman named Beatrice Angst visiting her late father’s hometown in Switzerland. As he wanders through various cantons, he meditates on the writers, artists, and performers (Nabokov, Chaplin, Mansfield, Baldwin, and von Arnim) who embraced the mountainous landscapes through which he traveled. This is a book of images, echoes, memory and the blending of art and life into something beautiful and delicate.

The Library That Made Me: 200 Years of the State Library of NSW
Eds., Richard Neville and Phillipa McGuinness
UNSW Press, $49.99
The State Library of NSW turns 200 this year. This is quite a spectacular achievement; To point this out, the editors of this impressive hardcover book We have included an insightful article by Damien Webb, director of the Indigenous Participation Branch, and a history by Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville. There are also personal essays on the importance of the library from curious users such as Anna Funder, Cressida Campbell, Tom Keneally, Glenn Murcutt, Suzie Miller, and more. As State Librarian Caroline Butler-Bowdon puts it in her foreword, libraries provide “a defense against social ‘demagogy’.”

Raven Mother
Jane Messer
NewSouth, $34.99
Jane Messer investigates in depth A group of three generations of a German Jewish Australian family examine the life of their grandmother Bella; “it is part of the history of parents being forced to send their children elsewhere to safety to ensure their survival”. Bella left Messer’s father, Michael, now 99, at school in England in 1935; From the next year he never saw her again. Bella escaped from Germany and went to Israel, where she committed suicide in 1949. Messer writes with care and compassion about refugees, history, memories, and family traumas.

House of Blue Glass: The Life of Penelope Lucas
Alan Atkinson
NewSouth, $39.99
How do you write? someone’s biography Who left little trace in history? Alan Atkinson says, “Predicting is what goes into these pages, but there are limits to useful predictions.” Having written brilliantly about the Macarthurs, the author now focuses on the woman that pastoralist John Macarthur brought with him from his brief sojourn in England in 1805. They bonded through conversation and, like him, were “open-minded and optimistic in temperament”. Intelligent and educated, Penelope Lucas had her own money, came as governess to the Macarthurs’ daughter, and became a “live-in partner in the family business” and a close friend of his wife.

Fourteen Ways to Look
Erin Vincent
Ascension, $32.99
March 3
Erin Vincent was 14 years old when her mother and father were hit by a truck while trying to cross the highway. Frankly this is brilliant, creative reflection of his grief When he loses his mother – his feelings towards his father are more ambivalent – ​​he uses the number 14 as a Perec-like structure to interrogate this pain. At one point he mournfully asks the world: “When will the sorrow end?” The answer, of course, is not, but you suspect that Vincent goes a long way to calming this situation somewhat with his sharp, analytical, personal and deeply moving work.

shellybanks
Louise Milligan
Allen and Unwin, $34.99
March 3
Louise Milligan returns The pains and traumas experienced by journalist Kate Delaney, the protagonist of her first novel, Pheasant Nest. Kate is drawn to her spiritual home of Ireland, and is soon intrigued by the facts of her aunt Dolores’ confusing past and grief. Milligan, although with a more comprehensive narrative, is somewhat in Claire Keegan territory. Milligan’s stellar career as a journalist features clearly in this riveting book, and he has created some disturbingly chilling characters.

Life Drawing
Emily Lighezzolo
UQP, $34.99
March 3
“You think seeing me naked gives you the right to make such an assumption?” Maisie says to Charlie, who first encounters her at a life drawing class where Maisie is a model. While at university, they became flatmates in a sharing house in Brisbane and later became more than friends. But their relationship is far from smooth. Emily Lighezzolo first novel It’s about body image, self-esteem and confidence. Written in three parts, each set several years apart, the book takes on a darker tone when the black dog starts barking and a major crisis emerges.

Bring Back Yesterday
Bob Carr
Allen and Unwin, $32.99
March 3
It caused Bob Carr’s wife, Helena, to die of an aneurysm in a Vienna hotel after a night at the opera. They met in January 1971 at a tourist hotel outside Papeete while returning from separate trips to the United States. He asked what she was studying and with that she said, “I was starting a relationship that would sustain us both for half a century.” This intimate moment It chronicles the life of this compassionate, intelligent woman and describes how Carr overcomes her grief after “death befell her without warning.” Written in both first and third person and diary form, Carr’s book is inspired by nostalgia.

The Mother of All Disasters
Lisa Moule
Allen and Unwin, $34.99
March 3
Lisa Moule has had much success with her short stories and is now disseminating her writing widely. first novel It reveals the ups and downs of suburban parenting during an eventful school year. Here are families that seem – at least from the outside – to be in perfect harmony with each other. But as we all know, behind the scenes lurk the unseen realities of contemporary life, the tensions and tears, and we see them from the perspectives of four women – Jenny, Estelle, Chrissy and Viv.

A Far-Spanning Life
M.L. Stedman
Penguin, $34.99
March 3
If you’re one of the millions of readers who devour ML Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans 10 years ago you would have been dying to get your hands on it second novel. It all begins in 1958 on a vast pastoral station in Western Australia, but moves back and forth in time following a fatal accident that shatters the lives of the MacBride family. This is a sweeping epic that invites gripping reading. Central to the drama is the concept of “oblivion”, which Stedman uses as the opposite of memory, most importantly for things that have been forgotten.

Dog Left
Tammy Forster and Margeaux Davis
Allen and Unwin, $24.99
March 3
This cuteness has a Raymond Briggs vibe picture book For kids (and adults), it’s about an elderly widower struggling after the death of his wife. Mr. Hindbottom has turned into a grumpy man and does not welcome people, memories or animals. But he can’t get rid of Dog, the shabby dog ​​who appears one day and slowly enters Mr. H’s heart. Life slowly takes its toll anyway, and the moral of this deceptively simple story, beautifully illustrated with attention to detail, is the endurance of love.

Guys, Wait Until You Hear This!
Liza Minnelli
Hodder and Stoughton, $55
March 10
Liza Minnelli, the only child of Judy Garland and film director Vincent Minnelli, said: his story to musical collaborator Michael Feinstein. Minnelli, who grew up with Garland’s addiction and was devastated by her early death, won an Oscar for Bob Fosse’s film. Cabaret − “the most exciting time of my life”. Her memoirs are “not just about the good times. My struggle with addiction has been as much a part of my story as my life as a performing artist.” Minnelli, who will turn 80 two days after the book’s publication, doesn’t have much left untold.

Look what you made me do
John Lanchester
Faber and Faber, $34.99
March 17
It’s been 30 years since John Lanchester’s magnificent first novel. Debt of Pleasureappeared. Since then, he has demonstrated his remarkable versatility by writing stunning novels. Capital city And WallBooks about the GFC and the London Underground, and a memoir with a surprising secret at its heart. Not to mention his extensive journalism, especially London Book Review. This is London revenge comedy It pits Kate against Phoebe, a TV writer whose show is based on clips from Kate’s marriage. How and why? Lanchester is an enjoyable author and this one made me laugh out loud.

bards
Eva Hornung
Text, $34.99
March 24
A. new novel By South Australia-based author Dog Boy It’s always something to look forward to; They don’t come very often. Inside bardsClose siblings Gem and Will live in drought-stricken Dunriver, near the eponymous Bards, a gorge and “the site of various legends, some suicides, accidental deaths and many pregnancies”. A terrible event during the “lovers’ escape” is the catalyst for an equally terrible outcome. Gem’s immersion in local Indigenous culture expands the ideas of time at the heart of an engaging and powerful novel.

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