HELEN GARNER
State of Origin(Puncher&Wattmann) by David Owen Kelly is a memoir of fresh and hilarious modesty:a white,gay call-centre worker goes searching for his lost Aboriginal"brother",who fled as a boy from their brutal foster father. A tribute to the saving imaginations of abandoned children.
Imre Salusinszky'sThe Hilton Bombing (MUP) tells this 1978 Sydney terrorist crime through a biography of the confessed bomber,Evan Pederick:a thrilling story of youth corrupted by fanaticism,of terrible remorse and the making of amends.
Author Charlotte Wood and her novel The Weekend.James Brickwood/Supplied
In Charlotte Wood'sThe Weekend (Allen&Unwin),three once-stylish women of mature years – still amazed and furious to find themselves on the scrapheap – spend a stormy weekend together cleaning out their dead friend's beach house. Sharp,funny,beautiful.
Helen Garner's most recent book,,is published by Text.
MIN JIN LEE
Ann Patchett's new novel,The Dutch House(Bloomsbury),is a gorgeous and moving work. Though the title property is located in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,and the narrative is set in the modern day,The Dutch House serves as a much needed,wonderful old-fashioned story that is deeply immersive and gratifying.
A first-person account,told by Danny,the younger son of a Philadelphia real-estate developer,the reader learns what follows when his father marries a young,selfish woman who is obsessed with his father's beloved mansion. Danny and his sister Maeve,whose mother has left them to serve the poor,face the consequences of their father's second marriage. Danny and Maeve's sibling bond,forged from loss,sacrifice,betrayal and enduring love,is a wonder to behold.
Author Ann Patchett and her novel The Dutch House.The New York Times/Supplied
Reading a new work of Ann Patchett is one of life's consoling pleasures,because we are in the hands of a writer whose wisdom and compassion shines through her pages.
Min Jin Lee's most recent novel,,is published by Head of Zeus.
FAVEL PARRETT
I was lucky enough to get an early proof of Olive,Again (Viking) by Elizabeth Strout and I could not put it down. The characters are so alive and real that I felt as if I was living the book. Funny in moments,darkly sad in others – stories of ordinary life that illuminate what it is to be human.
It's exciting to see Maxine Beneba Clarke publishThe Saturday Portraits (Hachette),a collection of her electric portraits fromThe Saturday Paper.Powerful and fearless,Maxine is one of our best writers and these portraits are refreshing and captivating.
Earlier in the year,I devoured Heart of the Grass Tree (Vintage) by Molly Murn. A beautiful debut about Kangaroo Island and its living history. I loved it.
Favel Parrett's most recent novel,,is published by Hachette.
JANE RAWSON
I usually read literary fiction,but after judging two book prizes this year I can't stomach any more:I'm full! What a relief it was to read J.M. Green'sShoot Through (Scribe),the final book in her Stella Hardy crime series:crisp prose,rocketing pace,a flawed hero and some of the best jokes in fiction.
There are more great jokes in Wayne Macauley's Simpson Returns (Text),a book every Australian should read.
Minnie Darke'sStar-Crossed (Transworld) was a genuine,delicious pleasure,light-hearted but clever and finely crafted.
Mandy Ord'sWhen One Person Dies the Whole World is Over (The Lifted Brow) is a graphic novel that records every day of Ord's life for a year,and accrues into a piercing commentary on how we live.
Author Lucy Treloar and her book Wolfe Island.Supplied
Lucy Treloar's incredibly sophisticated writing inWolfe Island (Picador) is currently luring me back to lit.
Jane Rawson's most recent novel is (Transit Lounge).
ROBERT DREWE
My most enjoyed literary fiction came from Carmel Bird,Peter Goldsworthy and George Saunders. I admired Bird'sField of Poppies (Transit Lounge) for its wit and wisdom and the elegance of her social satire. Hard-boiled page-turner,psychological comedy and ancient myth,Goldsworthy'sMinotaur (Viking) even successfully suspended this reader's disbelief in a blind detective. George Saunders'now-famous Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury) was so emotionally involving,intimate and original in its portrayal of familial love and loss that it expanded the boundaries of literature before my eyes.
The non-fiction book that impressed most wasCastaway (Hachette) by Robert Macklin. The survival story of a cabin boy shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858,and his adoption by Aborigines,it cries out for both wide readership and film treatment.
I must also advocate for James Lee Burke'sThe New Iberia Blues (Orion),my favourite crime writer's latest offering from the Louisiana bayous,without which no summer holiday is complete.
Robert Drewe's latest book, (Hamish Hamilton),won the Colin Roderick Award and the H.T. Priestley Memorial Medal for Australian literature.
SOFIE LAGUNA
The Prettiest Horse in The Glue Factory (Penguin) by Brisbane comedian Corey White is a harrowing memoir about growing up in the foster-care system. It is honest,and raw,and very funny. I cried and laughed in equal measure,and I really admired White for surviving.
The politically chargedBruny (Allen&Unwin) by Heather Rose is deeply unsettling for the truth it tells.
The Cherry Picker's Daughter (Wild Dingo Press),Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert's memoir of growing up Aboriginal,felt like an important historical document in my hands. It made me angry about Australia's history of racism,but it showed me the difference one loyal,fierce,kind woman can make.
Author Heather Rose and her novel Bruny.Jim Rice/Supplied
Beauty (Allen&Unwin),Bri Lee's very personal essay on women's relationship to their appearance,reminded me to question the lies we are sold by the fashion industry and how much power lies in denouncing them.
Sofie Laguna's most recent book,,is published by Allen&Unwin.
HEATHER ROSE
This was an eclectic year. There was Sophie Cunningham'sCity of Trees (Text). Such a beautiful,remarkable memoir.
There was Favel Parrett's beautiful evocation of family inThere Was Still Love (Hachette).
Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women (Vintage) sets out all ways in which the world is not designed for women (i.e. we die in more car accidents because cars are not designed for us).
Author Bruce Pascoe and his book Dark Emu.Justin McManus/Supplied
Rohan Wilson'sDaughter of Bad Times (Allen&Unwin),set in 2075,is both dystopian and prophetic writing.
I discovered Lenny Bartulin's vivid Infamy (Allen&Unwin) and devoured Haruki Murakami'sKilling Commendatore (Vintage) and Margaret Atwood'sThe Testaments (Vintage).
But the most remarkable wasDark Emu (Magabala) by Bruce Pascoe. If you haven't read it yet,please do. This is our most important book of Australian history.
Heather Rose's latest novel is(Allen&Unwin).
TONI JORDAN
My reading year began in style with Carrie Tiffany's astonishingExploded View (Text). It's unlike anything I've read before:the novel as modern art where every precise brushstroke of a sentence is intended,not to move the plot or reveal character,but to elicit feeling from the reader. Tiffany has eliminated the (in her hands) superfluous aspects of fiction in favour of Kafka's adage"the book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside us". It's thrilling and extraordinary.
Author Carrie Tiffany and her novel Exploded View.Chris Hopkins/Supplied
For something lighter,I loved J.M. Green's hilarious third Stella Hardy novel,Shoot Through (Scribe),in which our lefty heroine battles high-tech cattle rustlers,neo-capitalist prison entrepreneurs and her old nemesis,Minister for Justice Marcus Pugh (aka Mucus Pukus).
Toni Jordan's most recent book,, is published by Text.
ALEX MILLER
Fiona Harari'sWe are Here:Talking with Australia's Oldest Holocaust Survivors (Scribe) is a deeply moving collection that sits alongside such works as Jacob Rosenberg's masterpiece,East of Time, and Kitia Altman'sMemories of Ordinary People,as a brilliantly readable example of Holocaust writings. My grandchildren are reading it and are absorbed by it. Harari's interest is in the living,the precious memories of those who are still with us from that other world.
Harari,an award-winning journalist and author of two previous books,reminds us who we are as Australians and how we came to inhabit this culture of ours:"From 1946 to 1961,27,000 Jewish survivors migrated to Australia,more than doubling the size of the country's pre-war community,and irrevocably infusing it with a Central European character."The young,as well as the old,are hungry to be informed about who they are as Australians.
Harari's book is a richly valuable source of cultural understanding for our own and the generations that are to follow us. It is a necessary book,in which the truth of our history remains alive and immediate.
Alex Miller's most recent novel,,is published by Allen&Unwin.
JAMES BRADLEY
It seems fitting that in the year the gathering wave of the climate crisis finally washed over us,two of the best books I read were directly engaged with questions of time,grief and survival. The first,Robert Macfarlane's dazzling,epochalUnderland (Hamish Hamilton),is already one of the essential texts of the Anthropocene,a web of deep thought and unexpected connection.
Sophie Cunningham's wonderfully peripateticCity of Trees (Text) is outwardly more unassuming but similarly immense in its implication.
Author Tony Birch and his novel The White Girl.Joe Armao/Supplied
I also loved Tony Birch's deliberately plain-spoken but ultimately devastating depiction of Aboriginal life in the 1960s,The White Girl (UQP),Charlotte Wood's brutal but deeply empathetic (and very funny)The Weekend (Allen&Unwin),and,although it only just sneaked in under the finish line,Elizabeth Strout'sOlive,Again (Viking).
James Bradley's most recent novel isClade (Hamish Hamilton).
PETER CAREY
In Ninth Street Women (Little,Brown) Mary Gabriel tells the story of Lee Krasner,Elaine de Kooning,Grace Hartigan,Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler,artists whom history has,usually,forced to take a back-seat ride. Here are times so heady,characters so big that one can only sympathise with the author,who must contain them in 900 pages.
It must have been almost impossible to construct a narrative and sometimes it feels over-packed and sometimes it slows to a crawl,but for all of that it earned its place on my list (which should have given equal space to Valeria Luiselli'sLost Children Archive (HarperCollins),Ocean Vuong'sOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Vintage) and Hisham Matar'sA Month in Siena (Viking)).
Author Valeria Luiselli and her novel Lost Children Archive.The New York Times/Supplied
True History of the Kelly Gang (Penguin) is released on January 9.
ABIGAIL ULMAN
In her novelWomen Talking (Faber&Faber),Miriam Toews takes real-life events as her starting point:in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia,a group of women and girls discover they've been drugged and sexually assaulted by men in their community. The novel takes place over the course of two days,in which the women hold secret,urgent meetings to decide whether they should stay and fight or leave forever. This book is smart,incisive,funny,tender,painful and important. It was my favourite this year.
I was deeply moved (and angered) by Tara June Winch'sThe Yield (Hamish Hamilton),a novel about the endless losses endured by a close-knit Indigenous community,whose members are expected to somehow both struggle and thrive under the constant threat of yet more loss and theft – of artefacts,of language,of land.
Author Tara June Winch and her novel The Yield.Supplied
And finally,I took a social media break this year (OK,it was just one month) and curled up with Jenny Slate's sweet,magical essay collection,in which a girl is born as a croissant,haunted by a lovesick sea captain,and dies from rolling her eyes too hard at a guy talking about the #MeToo movement. If you're planning to unplug this summer,I recommend the joyful,hilarious company ofLittle Weirds (Little,Brown).
Abigail Ulman's is published by Hamish Hamilton.
ANNA FUNDER
In May,I visited my NY publisher,a German man now head of a publishing empire. He's watching Trump with a particular horror freighted by the 20th-century history of Germany,and so has been publishing books about fascism. He gave me Timothy Snyder'sOn Tyranny (Tim Duggan Books),a powerful little primer — almost an innoculation — on how to recognise what's going on in this age of resurgent anti-democratic strongmen:"Both fascism and communism were responses to globalisation:to the real and perceived inequalities it created,and the apparent helplessness of the democracies in addressing them."
Also Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt'sHow Democracies Die (Crown) which,these days,is mostly by being white-anted by incumbent leaders,rather than in old-fashioned,red-blooded coups.
Jason Stanley'sHow Fascism Works (Random House) is fascinating,as he so clearly articulates how fascism relies on harking back to a mythological,patriarchal past,in which women and foreigners stayed in their places.
I loved Michelle de Kretser'sOn Shirley Hazzard (Black Inc.),David Malouf's beautiful poems inAn Open Book (UQP),Deborah Levy'sThe Cost of Living (Hamish Hamilton),and was fascinated by Kate Manne'sDown Girl:The Logic of Misogyny,(OUP).
for her novelAll That I Am (Penguin).
MICHAEL MCGIRR
Some terrific novels:Charlotte Wood'sThe Weekend (Allen&Unwin) is a gem,as is Christos Tsiolkas'Damascus (Allen&Unwin). Both authors seem to be setting themselves new challenges and digging deeper all the time.
There is gentle wisdom in both Melanie Cheng'sRoom For a Stranger (Text) and Steven Carroll'sThe Year of the Beast (Fourth Estate),the latter the last book in a monumental series.
Author Melanie Cheng and her book Room For a Stranger.Penny Stephens/Supplied
For non-fiction,Paul Mendes-Flohr'sMartin Buber:A Life of Faith and Dissent (Yale University Press) does superb justice to the intricate ideas of a thinker who is often overlooked these days. John Barton'sA History of the Bible (Allen Lane) may well be my book of the year. Here is 40 years of relentless scholarship piled up against all the self-serving mush of a world that thinks in clichés.
Michael McGirr is the author of (Text).
CHARLOTTE WOOD
Lucinda Holdforth'sLeading Lines:How to Make Speeches that Seize the Moment,Advance your Cause and Lead the Way (HarperCollins) is marketed as a business book,but it's actually a subversive,thoroughly inspiring guide for ordinary people (hello,Greta!) on the power of the speech as a tool for radical change and social cohesion.
My book of the year is Vicki Hastrich's stunning memoir,Night Fishing (Allen&Unwin),a sublimely original,thoughtful account of one woman's life by the water. A kind of Annie Dillard crossed with Tim Winton,Hastrich is the ultimate observer,showing us how deep,serene attention to art and the natural world can teach us to embrace who we are,and where we belong.
Charlotte Wood's most recent novel,,is published by Allen&Unwin.
MICK HERRON
A book I've returned to frequently this year is Zaffar Kunial's debut collection Us (Faber&Faber,2018). It's not unusual – it's probably obligatory – for a poet to delight in words;Kunial seems energised by letters,vowels especially. (I'm not sure that the title isn't the plural of"U".) He's also a cricket fan and his pamphletSix (Faber&Faber) marries two of my favourite things. I suspect he's destined for greatness.
Author Kate Atkinson and her novel Big Sky.Supplied
In fiction,a highlight of 2019 was the return of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie inBig Sky (Doubleday):as chaotic,humane and brilliant as ever. And apparently there's another on the way,which answers the question a previous volume posed –When Will There Be Good News?
,Joe Country,is published by John Murray.
GRAEME SIMSION
I spent a good part of this year doing events with autistic writers,performers and activists — and reading their books. If there's an autistic teenager in your life,give them Michael McCreary'sFunny,You Don't Look Autistic (Annick Press ). After reading it yourself.
If you likedThe Rosie Project,try Helen Hoang'sThe Bride Test (Allen&Unwin):similar premise,completely different story,autistic writer,more sex.
In the broader spirit of walking in others'shoes,Lee Kofman's finely written account of living with physical scars,Imperfect (Affirm) andGrowing up Queer in Australia (Edited by Benjamin Law,Black Inc).
Graeme Simsion's most recent novel,,is published by Text.
HANNAH KENT
Sometimes I read a book that is so accomplished my immediate instinct is to give up all literary ambition and bow low to genius.
This year,that book wasLanny (Faber&Faber) by Max Porter. It is a masterpiece of imagination,a slender,exquisite novel about a village and its inhabitants,including the mythic Green-Man figure of Dead Papa Toothwort. The language is toothsome,the meditations on family,friendship and connection to place delivered with a light touch that nonetheless leaves an indelible mark.
Author Max Porter and his book Lanny.Kate Geraghty/Supplied
In non-fiction,I found unexpected pleasure inHeida (John Murray) by Steinunn Sigurdardóttir (trans. Philip Roughton),the biography of Icelander Heida Ásgeirsdóttir who walked away from a potentially lucrative career in modelling to become a sheep farmer and,latterly,an activist. Heida's fight to prevent the destruction of land through the development of a power plant is a timely reminder of the power of the individual who refuses to back down.
Hannah Kent's most recent novel,,is published by Picador.
LUKE DAVIES
Barry Lopez's long-awaitedHorizon (Vintage) is my book of the year. It's sumptuous,electric,wise and far-ranging. Coming 30 years afterArctic Dreams (Vintage),it dazzlingly picks up the conversation where that masterwork left off:about how a baseline attitude of reverence and wonder,even as the world spirals into ecological and existential crisis,might yet be the start of a Resistance;might save us yet. (Full disclosure:I consider Lopez a friend and make a brief appearance late in the book.)
Martin Hagglund'sThis Life:Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom (Pantheon) feels like it's in a rich dialogue withHorizon. While Lopez's book is overtly about our relationship with the physical world,Hagglund's grapples more with the question of how we are to live — spiritually,so to speak — in the wastelands of unbridled capitalism.
Author Svetlana Alexievich and her book Last Witnesses.EPA/Supplied
Svetlana Alexievich'sLast Witnesses:An Oral History of the Children of World War II (Vintage),has been translated into English for the first time since its publication in Russian in 1985. It's distressing and disturbing but extraordinary. Alexievich weaves together the voices of survivors of the Russian experience,decades after their childhoods. It's like a book-length prose-poem,or a collection of coal-dark fairy tales.
Finally — I'm a little behind on this year's new Australian poetry,though I was very impressed by L.K. Holt'sBirth Plan (Vagabond Press),which is warm,dense and demanding at the same time. And slyly funny,too.
Luke Davies is a novelist,poet and. He was nominated for an.
BENJAMIN LAW
She Said (Bloomsbury) by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey is a dazzling account of how deep collaboration and journalistic rigour brought Harvey Weinstein's victims justice,written as a compelling thriller.
Anna Krien's fiction debut,Act of Grace (Black Inc),is both brilliant novel and story collection,the power of which is on the same level as Maxine Beneba Clarke's and Nam Le's.
Melanie Cheng'sRoom for a Stranger (Text) was an unsentimental,quiet but riveting story of connection and friendship in an era of divisive Australian tribalism.
And thoughThe Great Believers (Little,Brown) by Rebecca Makkai technically came out in mid-2018,it's been the book I've most recommended to people in a reading rut. Set in the height of the AIDS crisis in Chicago,it both broke my heart and reconfigured it.
Author Ocean Vuong and his book On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.The New York Times/Supplied
I also adoredLanny (Faber&Faber) by Max Porter and Ocean Vuong'sOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Vintage),each so unique and powerful – I've never read anything like them.
Benjamin Law is a writer and broadcaster. His bookThe Family Law (Black Inc) was the basis of the.
GREGORY DAY
It's certainly been a bold year online,but Emily Dickinson'sPoems As She Preserved Them (Harvard),edited by Cristanne Miller,is papery,weighty and trustworthy. And full of a joy bereft. For me it proves that,despite what the calendar says,Dickinson is the writer for our times. Up-close to Death,and equally so to Mushroom,Bee&Star,the Amherst recluse shines her sun on narcissism's roots in faithlessness.
As doesUnderland (Hamish Hamilton),British writer Robert Macfarlane's leap from nature writing to human nature writing.Underland takes us to uncomfortable places:deep time caves and starless rivers. We watch the ice melt and feel the future yearn. See it in our children's eyes. A courageous book.
Author Robert Macfarlane and his novel Underland.Alamy/Supplied
Gregory Day's most recent novel, (Picador),was shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Franklin award.
HISHAM MATAR
Two interesting new offers from Iran:Ali Araghi'sThe Immortals of Tehran (Melville House) and Nazanine Hozar'sAria (Viking) are debut novels to be published next year and written in English and set against the passions and pains of the Iranian Revolution. They offer,in their different ways,compellingly intimate portraits of private lives in the shadow of that event.
Another book by a debut author I enjoyed is Nicole Flattery's collection of short stories,Show Them a Good Time (Bloomsbury). It reverberates with a strange tension and fine sentences.
Over the past two years I have been making my way — slowly and with great pleasure — through the nearly 2000 pages of verse that the generous and deeply talented American poet A. R. Ammons left us. He is a hopeful example:an author who seemed to only get better with time.
I am also relishing Carl W. Ernst's new and lively translation of the 10th-century Arabic poet Husayn Ibn Mansur al Hallaj,published by Northwestern University Press.
's latest book isA Month in Siena (Viking).
ADRIAN MCKINTY
The best book I read in 2019 wasMy Year of Rest and Relaxation (Vintage) by Ottessa Moshfegh,a Jewish Iranian novelist who lives in New York. It is that incredibly rare book hyped as being"hilarious"that is actually funny.
It's the story of a troubled,privileged,beautiful Upper East Side young woman who tries to stay in bed for a year as a way of coping with her problems. It's also a devastating satire of WASP culture,psychiatrists and New York – the kind of thing Woody Allen used to do back when he was still amusing.
Author Ottessa Moshfegh and her novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation.Alamy/Supplied
The best book I read in 2019 that was published in 2019 was Robert Macfarlane'sUnderland (Hamish Hamilton) – a series of expeditions into various caves,tunnels,abandoned subway systems and the like that Macfarlane has been undertaking for the past five years or so.
What makes the book so special isn't just the originality of the subject matter but Macfarlane's depth of learning and the quality of his prose,which you feel has also been hewn carefully out of some occult seam of literary marble by a master craftsman.
Adrian McKinty's most recent book,,is published by Hachette.
LISA GORTON
Toby Fitch'sWhere Only the Sky Had Hung Before (Vagabond) has a Klippel picture on its cover. For this book,technology produces language as mechanical form. These poems,like Klippel's artworks,are assemblages. They test,in language,what Klippel called"the inter-relationship between the cogwheel and the bud".
Clarice Lispector'sComplete Stories (New Editions) are jaggedly alive and intense to read together. Elizabeth Bishop was the first to translate one of Lispector's stories into English. This year,in Bishop'sCollected Prose (FarrarStrausGiroux),belatedly I found stories and pieces I hadn't read before.
American photographer Emmet Gowin was the sole photographer granted access to the Nevada Test Site. His bookThe Nevada Test Site (Princeton) collects astounding photographs of this nuclear site — the craters,trenches,sand turned to glass.
Lisa Gorton's most recent poetry collection is (Giramondo).
EMMA VISKIC
In a year of great reading,Lucy Treloar's luminousWolfe Island (Picador) was a standout. Kitty Hawke is the last inhabitant on a sinking island,resolutely alone until her granddaughter arrives seeking refuge.
The Yield (Hamish Hamilton) by Wiradjuri writer Tara June Winch begins when August Gondiwindi returns home to Massacre Plains for her grandfather's funeral. A fierce and lyrical novel about language and identity.
Jock Serong'sPreservation (Text) is a beautifully written,sometimes chilling,story inspired by the shipwreck of the Sydney Cove,and the disappearance of 14 of its 17 survivors.
Author Jock Serong and his book Preservation.Christine Ansorge/Supplied
InHearing Maud (UWA Publishing),Jessica White intertwines her own experiences of deafness with that of 19th-century Maud Praed in a moving hybrid memoir.
, Darkness for Light,is published by Echo.
ZOE MORRISON
This year I discovered,belatedly,The Accusation:Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea (Serpent's Tale) by the anonymous writer Bandi (meaning"fire-fly"). Written in secret at risk of his life,it's the first book published outside North Korea by a current resident. Vivid and straight-forward,these extraordinary stories portray – repeatedly – extreme repression alongside life-defying love.
I have not been able to remove from my headLove in the New Millennium (Yale University Press) by Can Xue,a truly strange,experimental novel,or"soul story",which reads like a lucid dream.
But my best read this year was Melissa Lucashenko'sToo Much Lip (UQP). Its language is addictively poetic,its cry for social justice real;it's powered by literary rocket fuel.
Author Melissa Lucashenko and her book Too Much Lip.Renee Nowytarger/Supplied
And I can't end without mentioning an Australian book that evoked such extreme reactions in the book store when I bought it out of interest that it wholly proved its point:Welcome to Your Period:Your Easy No-Dumb-Questions Guide to Handling it Like a Boss (Hardie Grant) by Yumi Stynes (for younger readers) and its predecessor (for all).
Along withAbout Bloody Time:The Menstrual Revolution We Have to Have (Victorian Women's Trust) by Karen Picking and Jane Bennett,they are first of their kind and replace the apparent mortification and taboo with research,dignity and respect.
Zoe Morrison's most recent book is (Vintage).
CLARE WRIGHT
I would never have known aboutThe Farm (Bloomsbury),the first novel by American journalist Joanne Ramos,had I not met the author at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Thank goodness I did – it was my stand-out,hands-down book of the year. It reveals a world of race,class,privilege,exploitation,greed,entitlement and capitalism taken to its logical – and terrifying – conclusion:the commercialisation of women's wombs for corporate profit. A riveting book for our times.
Most Australians will never have the experience of visiting or living on a remote Indigenous community,so it is a great privilege that the Yolngu Gay'wu Group of Women from north-east Arnhem Land have brought the songs,stories,insights and ancient learnings of their people into everyone's homes (and hopefully hearts) through their remarkable book,Song Spirals (Allen&Unwin). To read it is to change the way you see,think and feel this country.
Like a greedy vulture,I'm pecking the eyes out ofYellow Notebook (Text),Helen Garner's diary memoir. It's a gift to watch a gifted writer teach herself to write,but I still can't believe she's left her tender morsels so exposed.
Author Helen Garner and her book Yellow Notebook.Darren James/Supplied
Also savoured:Rick Morton's memoir One Hundred Years of Dirt (MUP),Tony Birch's novelThe White Girl (UQP) and Tanya Dalziell and Paul Genoni's cultural history,Half the Perfect World (Monash).
Clare Wright's most recent book is (Text).
JOAN LONDON
Arturo's Island (Pushkin) by Elsa Morante. On a remote island,Procida,in the Bay of Naples,a motherless boy,Arturo,roams the shores and dreams up a world of daring exploits on the sea. His father,Wilhelm,lives away and rarely returns to the island. Increasingly erratic,Wilhelm suddenly arrives with a new young wife,Nunziata,and Arturo falls in passionate love with her.
In Tessa Hadley'sLate in the Day (Jonathan Cape) two couples,Alexandr and Christine,Zachary and Lydia,have been close friends for 30 years. Then one evening Alex and Christine receive a distraught phone call from Lydia:Zach is dead. Moving between the past and present,through the survivors'thoughts and interactions,the novel explores the fragility of their seemingly rock-solid friendship,and the grievances that rise from the past.
Stalingrad (Harvill Secker) by Vasily Grossman is one of the great classics of wartime literature. In it he writes:"True knowledge of war includes knowledge of the enemy and his weapons,knowledge of war at dawn,in the mist,in bright daylight,at sunset,in the woods,on the road,in the steppe,in a village,on the banks of a river. It includes knowledge of war's sounds and whispers and – above all –knowledge of yourself,of your own strength,stamina,experience and cunning."
isThe Golden Age (Vintage).
SHAUN PRESCOTT
My favourite novel this year was Laszlo Krasznahorkai'sBaron Wenckheim's Homecoming (Profile). It felt like a collage of his previously translated works,though it was funnier and sadder,and a bit less dark. It's set in a doomed Hungarian town during the return of the nominal Baron,who stands to maybe save the population from its poverty and torpor. He doesn't.
Wayne Macauley'sSimpson Returns (Text) was a strange Australian adventure,satirical but not hardened.
Author Wayne Macauley and his book Simpson Returns.Michael Clayton-Jones/Supplied
Bright (Brow Books) by Duanwad Pimwana was engaging – I've never read a Thai novel before.
But mostly I read Zola novels. I discovered Alain Robbe-Grillet and Malcolm Lowry (mostly thanks to Krasznahorkai).
I re-read Eve Langley'sThe Pea-Pickers (HarperCollins) and finally found her out-of-print oddity,White Topee.
Shaun Prescott was a in 2018. His novelThe Town is published by Brow Books.
DAVID VANN
John L'Heureux wrote many great novels. The Medici Boy (Astor&Blue),for instance,his masterpiece set in 15th-century Florence,about the sculptor Donatello,captures a unique moment in which politics,art,religion and sexuality collide,and these have been L'Heureux's enduring themes.
Now inThe Heart Is A Full-Wild Beast (Public Space Books),L'Heureux's posthumously published new and selected stories,you can read the finest examples of his great and enduring work,his legacy which is stunning,elegant,unforgettable and always focused on how we fail in love.
These stories are the most sustained and intelligent self-interrogation I've ever read. The book is luminous and breathtaking,often outrageously funny and always varied and delightful and surprising,scattering perfectly shaped gems before us.
David Vann's most recent book,,is published by Text.
American novelist David Vann.Philippe Matsas
Gig Ryan
Emma Lew’s haunted yet mutinous narrators thrum throughCrow College:New and Selected Poems (Giramondo):‘‘I played a game/ called ‘Wreck Everything’...and delicately nurtured thanks.’ Jennifer Maiden’sThe Espionage Act(Quemar Press) continues her sharply staged commentaries on machinations of power:’ ‘it is such great violence nothing comprehends it.’’
In The Gang of One:Selected Poems (Grand Parade Poets),Robert Harris,who died in 1993,is honoured with a volume that highlights his best sequences,Jane Interlinear andSeven Songs for Sydney.
Lisa Gorton’s intricateEmpirical (Giramondo) ruminates on empire as both imposed on nature (specifically,through Royal Park),and as historically conceptualised,or desired,in poetry. And Ken Bolton’sBirds of Rome (Little Esther Books) vividly meanders through Italy,casually conversing with history and the arts.
Gig Ryan'sNew and Selected Poems won the NSW Premier's literary award for poetry in 2012.
Poet Gig Ryan.Sebastian Costanzo