Looking for your holiday read? Here are 10 new books to get stuck into

FICTION – International

Irish writer Sally Rooney’s fourth novel, Intermezzo, is a departure from earlier books that explore the tumultuous love lives and existential angst of 20-somethings. A quieter, more mature novel, Intermezzo deals with the increasingly fraught relationship between two brothers in the aftermath of their father’s death. They could not be more different – 32-year-old Peter is a confident, successful Dublin lawyer; 22-year-old Ivan is a quirky chess genius – but each has an unconventional love life. A fine, nuanced portrayal of the complexity of sibling relations – and of love, wherever you find it.

British writer Alan Hollinghurst won the 2004 Man Booker Prize with his fourth novel, The Line of Beauty. His seventh, Our Evenings, traces the life of Dave Win, half-English, half-Burmese, who in 1961 visits the family that funds his scholarship to school, where their son, Giles, is a bully.
Giles goes on to become a prominent pro-Brexit politician, while Dave pursues a career as an actor. A powerful commentary on modern Britain – with a cracker ending.

Precipice, the 16th novel by British writer and former journalist Robert Harris, is gobsmacking, largely because much of it is true. Yes, British prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith, 61
and married, had an affair with the aristocratic Venetia Stanley, 26. Yes, he wrote her 560 letters (many while in cabinet meetings). And yes, on the eve of World War I, he sent her correspondence that revealed state secrets. Asquith’s letters survive (Venetia’s do not) and Harris’ great skill is in interweaving fiction through excerpts from them. A fascinating study of love and power.

FICTION – Australian

Juice is Tim Winton’s response to the climate emergency, in which he imagines the world we’ll leave our grandchildren’s grandchildren. When it opens, the male narrator and a child have just been captured after some time on the run. The narrator tells their captor his life story in a bid to keep them alive, describing the searing heat that forced him and his mother to live half the year underground, and how his life changed upon discovering that his ancestors knew their failure
to act would lead to this outcome.

A literary tour de force and an impassioned call to action. Michelle de Kretser has twice won the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In her latest book, Theory & Practice, she skilfully combines memoir, essay and fiction to explore the discrepancies between them. Cindy, the 20-something narrator, has arrived in Melbourne in 1986 to do a master’s thesis on Virginia Woolf. Upon discovering racism in Woolf’s diaries, she struggles to continue. Meanwhile, she falls in love with Kit, who already has a girlfriend, forcing Cindy to grapple with the gap between her feminist beliefs and sexual jealousy. Clever, witty and absorbing.

Emily Maguire’s seventh novel, Rapture, set in ninth-century Europe, is the story of studious, high-spirited Agnes, born in Germany to an English priest, who runs away at 18 to escape being married off. Disguised as a man, and with help from a monk captivated by her intelligence, she begins a new life of prayer and study as Brother John the Englishman. A powerful story of female courage and faith, of deception and love.

NON-FICTION

Helen Garner turns her eagle eye to Australian rules football in The Season, recording the highs and lows of her grandson Amby’s under 16s team. Notebook in hand, she attends every match and training session, recording her observations of young men on the cusp of adulthood as they hurl themselves into the game. Soon she’s no longer a spectator but fully involved. The result is a celebration of the capacity of team sport to bring out the best in young men, the nobility of the game she loves (she’s a long-term Western Bulldogs fan) and of a grandmother’s love.

Mean Streak, by journalist Rick Morton, is a forensic take-down of the infamous Robodebt scheme and its chief architects. Morton, who won two Walkleys for his Robodebt coverage, sets out the mathematical flaws in the scheme and identifies who knew what and when. With barely concealed rage, he shares the stories of people whose lives were ruined by the false accusations that they owed the federal government money. A compelling, incriminating account of what the Federal Court described as a “massive failure of public administration”.

“A speakeasy for Australia’s ruling class” is journalist Joe Aston’s description of Qantas’ Chairman’s Lounge in The Chairman’s Lounge, his riveting exposé of what went wrong at Australia’s national airline from 2019 to 2023, with particular emphasis on former chief executive Alan Joyce’s spectacular fall from grace. Impossible-to-claim COVID-19 flight credits, unlawful outsourcing of the baggage handlers’ and cleaners’ jobs, chaotic airport delays, sky-high fares and perks for pollies and titans of business – The Australian Financial Review’s former Rear Window columnist chronicles it all in blow-by-blow detail. A must-read for anyone interested in how power operates in this country.

In her fourth cookbook, Good Cooking Every Day, Good Weekend contributor Julia Busuttil Nishimura champions seasonal produce and simple cooking. Her recipes are accessible for the home cook and beautifully photographed – and they work for midweek family dinners or entertaining.

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