• no friend but the mountains

    no friend but the mountains

    no friend but the mountains

    Behrouz Boochani
    Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Prize for Non-fiction (Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2019) this book has been compiled from hundreds of Farsi texts sent by Kurdish poet and journalist from Manus Island, where he has been illegally detained since 2013. Translated by Omid Tofighian, Boochani’s account bears witness to the horrors and inhumanity of the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers.

  • bridge of clay

    bridge of clay

    Markus Zusak – Bridge of Clay

    Markus Zusak
    The first few chapters of this vast and beautiful novel were hard to get into, and I struggled to orient myself, but then the story opened up into a narrative of such emotional depth. ‘Bridge of Clay’ is the story of five brothers (and one in particular) who grapple as best they know how with the vicissitudes of life. As I turned the pages, this book quietly found a place on my shelf of all-time favourite reads.

  • i wish i wish

    i wish i wish

    i wish i wish

    Zirk van den Berg
    Winner of the Hofmeyr Prize for the Afrikaans edition, this gem of a book is the tale of how a terminally-ill young lad, close to death and fascinated with caskets, impacts on the life of a jaded mortician.

  • know my name

    know my name

    know my name

    Chanel Miller
    An articulate and devastating account of sexual-assault-survivor Chanel Miller’s journey through a flawed legal system towards recovery and reclamation of herself. Her words have inspired and provoked change.

  • lab girl

    lab girl

    lab girl

    Hope Jahren
    This memoir by scientist Hope Jahren makes for a fascinating and affecting read. With a fierce intellect and disarming honesty, Jahren seamlessly marries the story of her scientific research with her own very human story.

  • born a crime

    born a crime

    born a crime

    Trevor Noah
    Trevor Noah’s memoir – a mix of humour and heartache in Noah’s portrayal of his childhood, as a person of mixed-race growing up in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.

  • insomniac city

    insomniac city

    insomniac city

    Bill Hayes
    This is a beautiful book – beautiful in its tenderness, humanity, observations, and writing. It offers Bill Hayes’ reflections on his relationship with the inimitable Oliver Sacks and his relationship with New York City. If you read one book this year, read this seminal work of non-fiction.

  • the narrow road to the deep north

    the narrow road to the deep north

    the narrow road to the deep north

    Richard Flanagan
    This often overwhelming commentary on humanity is set against the backdrop of the Burma Death Railway. A masterpiece. Winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.