Spydus Search Results - DIY Book Club Australian Fiction

Exiles [DIY Book Club] / Jane Harper.

Author: Harper, Jane
Published: Sydney, NSW : Pan Macmillan Australia, 2023.
1 volume.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 011163441

Sixty-Seven Days [DIY Book Club.] / Weldon, Yvonne.

Evie has been raised in the heart of Aboriginal Redfern, by a proud trailblazing Wiradjuri family. She remembers so much about the previous world - the Dreamtime, the ancestors, and the knowing - but she also harbours a dark pain that is becoming almost too much to bear. And then Evie meets James.
Author: Weldon, Yvonne
Published: Camberwell, VIC : Michael Joseph Australia, 2022.
23 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 011015702

Forty Nights [DIY Book Club] / Jafari, Pirooz.

Tishtar runs a small legal practice in Melbourne where he has a new client, Habiba, who seeks to bring her orphan nieces to Australia from war-torn Somalia. He is also a migrant, having left the civil unrest in Iran to find a new life in a new country.
Author: Jafari, Pirooz
Published: Ultimo, NSW : Ultimo Press, 2022.
320 p. 22 cm.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 011015566

The Soulmate [DIY Book Club] / Hepworth, Sally.

Gabe has become somewhat of a local hero since his family moved to the cliff house, talking seven people down from stepping off the edge. But when Gabe fails to save the eighth, Amanda, a sordid web of secrets begins to unravel, pushing bonds of loyalty and love to the brink. What wouldn't you do for your soulmate?
Author: Hepworth, Sally
Published: Sydney, NSW : Pan Macmillan Australia, 2022.
23 cm.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 011015658

The Younger Wife [DIY Book Club] / Sally Hepworth.

Tully and Rachel are murderous when they discover their father has a new girlfriend. The fact that Heather is half his age isn't even the most shocking part. Stephen is still married to their mother, who is in a care facility with end-stage Alzheimer's disease. Heather knows she has an uphill battle to win Tully and Rachel over, while carrying the burden of the secrets of her past. But, as it turns out, they are all hiding something. The announcement of Stephen and Heather's engagement threatens to set off a family implosion, with old wounds and dark secrets finally being forced to the surface. A garage full of stolen goods. An old hot-water bottle, stuffed with cash. A blood-soaked wedding. And that's only the beginning . .
Author: Hepworth, Sally
Published: Sydney , NSW : Pan Macmillan Australia, 2022.
1 volume.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Onloan - Due: 17 May 2024 - 010803430

Dirt town [DIY Book Club] / Hayley Scrivenor.

On a sweltering Friday afternoon in Durton, best friends Ronnie and Esther leave school together. Esther never makes it home. Ronnie's going to find her, she has a plan. Lewis will help. Their friend can't be gone, Ronnie won't believe it. Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels can believe it. She has seen what people are capable of. She knows more than anyone how, in a moment of weakness, a person can be driven to do something they never thought possible. Lewis can believe it too. But he can't reveal what he saw that afternoon at the creek without exposing his own secret. Five days later, Esther's buried body is discovered.
Author: Scrivenor, Hayley
Published: Sydney, New South Wales : Pan Macmillan Australia, 2022.
Published: ©2022.
359 pages ; 25 cm.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Onloan - Due: 17 May 2024 - 011014576

The dictionary of lost words : a novel [DIY Book Club] / Pip Williams.

"Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means "slave girl," begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women's and common folks' experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages. Set during the height of the women's suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world."--Back cover.
Author: Williams, Pip, 1969-
Ballantine Books trade paperback edition.
Published: New York : Ballantine Books, 2022.
Published: ©2020
xiv, 388 pages : illustrations, map ; 21 cm.
Reese's book club
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Onloan - Due: 18 Jun 2024 - 010160120

Like Mother [DIY Book Club] / Austin, Cassandra.

It's 1969 and mankind has leapt up to the moon, but a young mother in small town Australia can't get past the kitchen door. The day is unravelling for Louise Ashland; her husband is away on the road, her mother won't leave her alone, and her baby, Dolores, won't stop screaming.
Author: Austin, Cassandra
Published: Camberwell, VIC : Hamish Hamilton Australia, 2021.
23 cm.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010160083

The Silent Listener [DIY Book Club] / Lyn Yeowart

In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner. Yet, decades later, she returns to the family's farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her 'perfect' sister Ruth is also there, urging revenge.
Author: Yeowart, Lyn
Published: Hawthorn, VIC : Viking Australia, 2021.
24 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010747444

The Price of Two Sparrows [DIY Book Club] / Collins, Christy.

Heico is an ornithologist fighting a losing battle to protect the birds in his beachside suburb. When a journalist asks for comment on a planned development, Heico exaggerates his reports on how many migratory birds use the site
Author: Collins, Christy
Published: Mulgrave, VIC : Affirm Press, 2021.
24 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010748588

One Hundred Days [DIY Book Club] / Alice Pung.

In a heady whirlwind of independence, lust and defiance, 16-year-old Karuna falls pregnant. Incensed, Karuna's mother, already over-protective, confines her to their 14th-storey housing-commission flat. Stuck inside for endless hours, Karuna battles her mother and herself for a sense of power in her own life, as a new life grows within her.
Author: Pung, Alice
Published: Melbourne, VIC : Black Inc, 2021.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010747734

Echolalia [DIY Book Club] / Briohny Doyle.

Set in a fictional regional city beset by drought, Echolalia follows a family in the advent and aftermath of unspeakable tragedy, the narrative moving fluidly between the 'Before' and 'After'.
Author: Doyle, Briohny
Published: Milsons Point, NSW : Vintage Australia, 2021.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010160113

Love Objects [DIY Book Club] / Maguire, Emily.

Nic is a 45-year-old trivia buff, amateur nail artist and fairy godmother to stray cats. Nic's closest relationship is with her niece Lena. The two of them meet for lunch every Sunday to gossip about the rest of the family and bitch about work. One Sunday, Nic fails to turn up to lunch and when Lena calls she gets a disconnection message.
Author: Maguire, Emily
Published: Crows Nest, NSW : Allen & Unwin, 2021.
23 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - This book is ONLY for Book Club Members to use (Set: 08 Nov 2022) - 010749066

After Story [DIY Book Club] / Larissa Behrendt.

When Indigenous lawyer Jasmine decides to take her mother Della on a tour of England's most revered literary sites, Jasmine hopes it will bring them closer together and help them reconcile the past. Ambitious and engrossing, After Story celebrates the extraordinary power of words and the quiet spaces between.
Author: Behrendt, Larissa, 1969-
Published: St Lucia, Qld : University of Queensland Press, 2021.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010746409

Locust Summer [DIY Book Club] / David Allan-Petale.

Shortlisted for The Australian Vogel's Literary Award, Locust Summer celebrates the wide-open beauty of Australia's regions while exploring the heartbreaks that come from living on the land.
Author: Allan-Petale, David
Published: Fremantle, WA : Fremantle Press, 2021.
21 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010747475

Dark As Last Night [DIY Book Club] / Tony Birch.

Dark as Last Night confirms, once again, that Tony Birch is a master of the short story. These exceptional stories capture the importance of human connection at pivotal moments in our lives, whether those occur because of the loss of a loved one or the uncertainties of childhood.
Author: Birch, Tony
Published: St Lucia, Qld : University of Queensland Press, 2021.
24 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010748854

Love & Virtue [DIY Book Club] / Diana Reid.

Michaela and Eve are two bright, bold women who befriend each other their first year at a residential college at university, where they live in adjacent rooms. They could not be more different; one assured and popular the other uncertain and eager-to-please.
Author: Reid, Diana
Published: Ultimo, NSW : Ultimo Press, 2021.
23 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 Copies in set - Onloan - Due: 17 Jun 2024 - 010748571

The family doctor [DIY Book Club] / Debra Oswald.

Paula is a dedicated suburban GP, who is devastated by the murder of a friend and her children by their estranged husband and father. Stacey and the children had been staying with her after fleeing his control, and Paula is haunted by the thought that she couldn't protect them when they most needed it. How had she missed the warning signs? How had she failed to keep them safe? Not long after, a patient with suspicious injuries brings her anxious young son into Paula's surgery. The woman admits that her husband hurts her, but she's terrified to leave for fear of escalating the violence, and defeated by the consistent failures of the law to help her. Can Paula go against everything she believes to make sure one woman is saved, one child spared? She isn't motivated by revenge. She's desperately trying to prevent a tragedy.
Author: Oswald, Debra
Published: Crows Nest, NSW : Allen & Unwin, 2021.
Published: Crows Nest, NSW : Allen & Unwin, 2021.
Published: ©2021.
359 pages ; 24 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - OSWA - 12 copies in set - Available - 010532873

The Others [DIY Book Club] / Brandi, Mark.

I heard voices talking last night. I've never heard my father talk to someone else. Not that I can remember. I was in bed, and I heard my father's voice first. He was talking to someone, and then I heard another man. The man got angry, I could tell, even though I couldn't hear exactly what he was saying. Then my father said, 'I'd kill you first.'
Author: Brandi, Mark
Published: Sydney, NSW : Hachette Australia, 2021.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Onloan - Due: 22 Apr 2024 - 011014088

Honeybee [DIY Book Club] / Craig Silvey.

'Find out who you are, and live that life.' Late in the night, fourteen-year-old Sam Watson steps onto a quiet overpass, climbs over the rail and looks down at the road far below. At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette. The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other. Honeybee is a heart-breaking, life-affirming novel that throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show. At the heart of Honeybee is Sam: a solitary, resilient young person battling to navigate the world as their true self; ensnared by a loyalty to a troubled mother, scarred by the volatility of a domineering step-father, and confounded by the kindness of new alliances. Honeybee is a tender, profoundly moving novel brimming with vivid characters and luminous words. It's about two lives forever changed by a chance encounter -- one offering hope, the other redemption. It's about when to persevere, and when to be merciful, as Sam learns when to let go, and when to hold on.
Author: Silvey, Craig, 1982-
Published: Sydney : Allen & Unwin, 2020.
Published: Sydney : Allen & Unwin, 2020.
Published: ©2020.
424 pages ; 24 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - SILV - 12 copies in set - Available - 010532880

A room made of leaves : a novel [DIY Book Club] / Kate Grenville.

What if Elizabeth Macarthur - wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in early Sydney - had written a shockingly frank secret memoir? In her introduction Kate Grenville tells, tongue firmly in cheek, of discovering a long-hidden box containing that memoir. What follows is a playful dance of possibilities between the real and the invented. Grenville's Elizabeth Macarthur is a passionate woman managing her complicated life-marriage to a ruthless bully, the impulses of her own heart, the search for power in a society that gave her none-with spirit, cunning and sly wit. Her memoir reveals the dark underbelly of the polite world of Jane Austen. It explodes the stereotype of the women of the past - devoted and docile, accepting of their narrow choices. That was their public face-here's what one of them really thought. At the heart of this book is one of the most toxic issues of our times - the seductive appeal of false stories. Beneath the surface of Elizabeth Macarthur's life and the violent colonial world she navigated are secrets and lies with the dangerous power to shape reality.
Author: Grenville, Kate, 1950-
Published: Melbourne, Victoria : Text Publishing, 2020.
Published: ©2020.
322 pages ; 24 cm.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - Available - 010384540

Khaki town [DIY Book Club] / Judy Nunn

Judy Nunn's new bestseller is a breathtaking historical novel set in Queensland during World War II. Khaki Town, Judy Nunn's exciting new novel, is inspired by a true wartime story that has remained a well-kept secret for over seventy years. It seems to have happened overnight, Val thought. How extraordinary. We've become a khaki town. It's March 1942. Singapore has fallen. Darwin has been bombed. Australia is on the brink of being invaded by the Imperial Japanese Forces. And Val Callahan, publican of The Brown's Bar in Townsville, could not be happier as she contemplates the fortune she's making from lonely, thirsty soldiers. Overnight the small Queensland city is transformed into the transport hub for 70,000 American and Australian soldiers destined for combat in the South Pacific. Barbed wire and gun emplacements cover the beaches. Historic buildings are commandeered. And the dance halls are in full swing with jazz, jitterbug and jive. The Australian troops begrudge the confident, well-fed 'Yanks' who have taken over their town and their women. There's growing conflict, too, within the American ranks, because black GIs are enjoying the absence of segregation. And the white GIs don't like it. As racial violence explodes through the ranks of the military, a young United States Congressman, Lyndon Baines Johnson, is sent to Townsville by his president to investigate. 'Keep a goddamned lid on it, Lyndon,' he is told, 'lest it explode in our faces ...'
Author: Nunn, Judy
Published: [Docklands, Victoria] : Penguin Books, 2020.
Published: ©2019.
384 pages : map, ; 20 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Onloan - Due: 05 May 2024 - 010405887

All our shimmering skies [DIY Book Club] / Trent Dalton.

Darwin, 1942, and as Japanese bombs rain down, motherless Molly Hook, the gravedigger's daughter, is looking to the skies and running for her life. Inside a duffel bag, she carries a stone heart, alongside a map to lead her to Longcoat Bob, the deep-country sorcerer who she believes put a curse on her family. By her side are the most unlikely travelling companions: Greta, a razor-tongued actress and Yukio, a fallen Japanese fighter pilot. The treasure lies before them, but close behind them trails the dark. And above them, always, are the shimmering skies.
Author: Dalton, Trent
Published: [Sydney, New South Wales] : Fourth Estate, 2020.
Published: ©2020.
436 pages ; 24 cm.

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in the set - Available - 010394525

The Coconut Children [DIY Book Club] / Vivian Pham.

"Growing up can feel like a death sentence. Life in a troubled neighbourhood demands too much too young. But Sonny wouldn't really know. Watching the world from her bedroom window, she exists only in second-hand romance novels and falls for any fast-food employee who happens to spare her a glance. Everything changes with the return of Vince, a boy who became a legend after he was hauled away in handcuffs at fourteen. Sonny and Vince used to be childhood friends. But with all that happened in-between, childhood seems so long ago. It will take two years of juvie, an inebriated grandmother and a porn stash for them to meet again. The Coconut Children is an urgent, moving and wise debut from a young and gifted storyteller." -- Back cover.
Author: Pham, Vivian
Published: Milsons Point, NSW : Vintage Australia, 2020.
23 cm.
Premiers' Reading Challenge Years 9 and 10

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010160090

There was still love [DIY Book Club] / Favel Parrett.

Prague, 1938: Eva flies down the street from her sister. Suddenly a man steps out, a man wearing a hat. Eva runs into him, hits the pavement hard. His hat is in the gutter. His anger slaps Eva, but his hate will change everything, as war forces so many lives into small, brown suitcases. Prague, 1980: No one sees Ludek. A young boy can slip right under the heavy blanket that covers this city - the fear cannot touch him. Ludek is free. And he sees everything. The world can do what it likes. The world can go to hell for all he cares because Babi is waiting for him in the warm flat. His whole world. Melbourne, 1980: Malá Liška's grandma holds her hand as they climb the stairs to their third floor flat. Inside, the smell of warm pipe tobacco and homemade cakes. Here, Mána and Bill have made a life for themselves and their granddaughter. A life imbued with the spirit of Prague and the loved ones left behind. Favel Parrett's deep emotional insight and stellar literary talent shine through in this love letter to the strong women who bind families together, despite dislocation and distance. It is a tender and beautifully told story of memory, family and love. Because there is still love. No matter what.
Author: Parrett, Favel
Published: [S.l.] : Hachette Australia, 2019.
Published: Sydney, NSW : Hachette Australia, 2019.
Published: ©2019.
vii, 214 pages ; 22 cm.
2 reserves

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - PARR - 12 copies in set - Available - 010532897

The yield [DIY Book Club] / Tara June Winch.

The yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the language of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things: baayanha. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land -- a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river. Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch's The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.
Author: Winch, Tara June
Published: [Melbourne, Victoria] : Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia, 2019.
Published: ©2019.
343 pages : 1 map ; 24 cm.
1 reserve

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010380474

The yellow house [DIY Book Club] / Emily O'Grady.

Ten-year-old Cub lives with her parents, older brother Cassie, and twin brother Wally on a lonely property bordering an abandoned cattle farm and knackery. Their lives are shadowed by the infamous actions of her Granddad Les in his yellow weatherboard house, just over the fence. Although Les died twelve years ago, his notoriety has grown in Cub's lifetime and the local community have ostracised the whole family. When Cub's estranged aunt Helena and cousin Tilly move next door into the yellow house, the secrets the family want to keep buried begin to bubble to the surface. And having been kept in the dark about her grandfather's crimes, Cub is now forced to come to terms with her family's murky history.
Author: O'Grady, Emily
Published: Crows Nest, New South Wales : Allen & Unwin, 2018.
314 pages ; 24 cm

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Onloan - Due: 06 May 2024 - 010158516

The arsonist : a mind on fire [DIY Book Club] / Chloe Hooper.

On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police as firebugs. But the detectives soon found themselves on the trail of a man they didn't know. The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the strange puzzle of his mind. It is also the story of fire in this country, and of a community that owed its existence to that very element. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species - understanding its abuse will define our future. A powerful real-life thriller written with Hooper's trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in an age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.
Author: Hooper, Chloe
Published: [Melbourne, Vic.] : Hamish Hamilton, 2018.
xiii, 253 pages : maps ; 24 cm.
Available online: Click Here to Access Book Club Discussion Notes

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010158769

Black Rock White City [DIY Book Club] / A. S. Patric.

Black Rock White City is a novel about the damages of war, the limits of choice, and the hope of love. During a hot Melbourne summer Jovan's cleaning work at a bayside hospital is disrupted by acts of graffiti and violence becoming increasingly malevolent. For Jovan the mysterious words that must be cleaned away dislodge the poetry of the past. He and his wife Suzana were forced to flee Sarajevo and the death of their children.
Author: Patric, A. S.
Published: 2015

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in set - Available - 010158622

The strays [DIY Book Club] / Emily Bitto.

On her first day at a new school, Lily befriends one of the daughters of infamous avant garde painter Evan Trentham. He and his wife are trying to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like minded artists to live and work at their family home. Lily becomes infatuated with this wild, makeshift family and longs to truly be a part of it. As the years pass, Lily observes the way the lives of these artists come to reflect the same themes as their art: Faustian bargains and spectacular falls from grace. Yet it's not Evan, but his own daughters, who pay the price for his radicalism. The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.
Author: Bitto, Emily
Published: South Melbourne, VIC : Affirm Press, 2014.
290 pages ; 21 cm.
Available online: Click here to view Book Club notes

Sandringham Library - (Bayside Library Service) - DIY Book Club - 12 copies in the set - Available - 010159209