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'We've driven around Australia, how about we drive around the world?'

And with this one fanciful remark, the seeds were sown for what would become a worldwide adventure for one Melbourne family.

Fuelled by itchy feet and a profound desire to expand their family's horizons, after five years of meticulous planning and seemingly endless vaccinations, Danny and Sandra packed their two kids, Maddy and Raffy, into their 4WD and headed off on their 'Big Trip'.

Over the next 360 days and more than 36,000kms, this ordinary family undertook a truly extraordinary expedition, circumnavigating the globe and taking in experiences, both profound and everyday, which would prove to be life-changing.

Based on the blog that the family kept while on the road, Drive Around the World is a touching, at times hilarious and genuinely unique account of their journey. Filled with tales of the unexpected, close calls and boundless adventure, it's a book that the whole family can enjoy and be inspired by.

Elderly Holocaust "survivor" Jack (Yaakov Stein) now lives in Melbourne. After trying to pass off a false testimony to a young Catholic photographer, Ian Gross, he then relents and tells us the truth ... Or does he?

 

With false memoirs all the rage, this is clearly a fictitious story with some real characters, at once highly entertaining and deadly serious.

 

Ernst Leitz II ("the photography industry's Schindler") not only designed and manufactured Germany's most famous camera, the Leica, but also saved hundreds of Jewish lives from certain death during the Holocaust. From the kernel of this true story, Joe Reich weaves an interesting - sometimes outrageous - blend of fact and fiction, historical and contemporary times, drawing the reader into the fictional life and exploits of the protagonist.

 

"Joe has the ability to seamlessly merge history with the present, and create a most readable and enjoyable story." - Nicolas Brasch, author of Gallipoli Reckless Valour

 

"Ein Stein is a real page turner and a terrific read." - Esther Kister, Chairperson Melbourne Jewish Book Week

 

“One of the most-needed and grab-you-by-the throat convincing books around today” - Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys

 

“For parents who feel defeated by the powerful influence of social media in their children’s lives, this book will sympathise, illuminate, inspire and encourage us to believe there is another, better way to live.” - Hugh Mackay, social researcher and bestselling author

 

Smartphones and other interactive devices have turned up the volume on stress and are harming our mental and physical health. They have shrunk the capacity of families to spend time together, and when together, they have increased conflicts. Two-thirds of Australian families experience tension or disagreement about screens at least three times a week.

 

In this confronting yet constructive guide on parenting in the digital age, award-winning journalist Toni Hassan catalogues the impacts of interactive devices on children and young people and offers ways out.

 

“Rather than freeing us, screens have made us dependent,” she says. “They have thinned relationships and thinned time for the things that ultimately nourish us. Almost no part of children’s lives are free from the anxiety created by commercial forces curating their moment to moment experiences.”

 

Moving beyond the gloom, Hassan offers lots of practical hope with ideas and tips for families to manage the digital age so that, despite the challenges, children and young people can thrive.

Faraway Places is a collection of three novellas that goes to dark and dingy places that the faint-hearted might wish are truly faraway. But are they? Not when you take a crazed trip with an odd-ball who dreams of a faraway place, while all the while he is on a slow-burn to insanity. Maybe he can solve the problem of living in a caravan alongside a garbage tip with a foul-mouthed significant other and a companion dog. That's not an easy problem to solve when you lack initiative.

 

Perhaps the frozen wastelands of pre-revolutionary Russia are a change of location, but still you'll find that it's that kind of faraway place where many bizarre things could be possible: dogheaded people might exist, a nasty con-man can become a tsar and, if you want to save your skin, there are people you should avoid. If that’s not enough, then waiting to be solved is the provenance of two mysterious trunks and their contents in the basement of St Petersburg's Hermitage.

 

Finally, a misconstruction about a killing on an isolated farm in a British colony in 1815 leads to disastrous consequences. Decent men can commit abominable acts and criminals can be decent. In this faraway place, it's brutal times all round - brutal times for the original native inhabitants, for settlers and their women, and for the convicts and child convicts. A gripping read.

 

This is Ross Fitzgerald's 42nd book, an updated edition of his 2010 book My Name is Ross. Although he has now succeeded in not drinking alcohol or using drugs for 50 years, in this revised edition the author still calls himself an alcoholic, and pays extended tribute to the role of Alcoholics Anonymous in keeping him on the wagon. His involvement in AA has become a way of life; he still attends two or three meetings a week.

 

A key aspect of AA's therapeutic process involves what can be termed the mechanism of surrender. Instead of telling alcoholics to use their willpower, control their drinking or pull up their socks, AA suggests that a much more efficacious strategy is to admit that, at least in relation to alcohol, they are beaten. With his insight into the scourge of numerous kinds of addiction, Fitzgerald traces the journey of many alcoholics and drug addicts.

 

In this brutally honest and intimate portrayal of his fascinating life - his struggles as well as his successes - Fitzgerald doesn't shy away from his difficult times and regrets, but ultimately has written an uplifting and inspiring book. With the prevalence of alcohol in our daily lives for every celebration or sad occasion, a book like this is needed more than ever.

This book portrays a modern epic - of an army that sailed across the world to fight a war. Its struggle with the Kaiserreich (German empire) became the most formidable campaign Australian troops have ever fought. By the time Monash's soldiers broke through the Hindenburg Line, their achievement and its cost were staggering.

This epic was created by normal Australians, and is understandable to normal Australians. Here, you won't need expertise in military terminology. But to appreciate the titanic conflict the Diggers had entered, you'll find a clear picture of the Great War - its key issues and extraordinary events.

Before this book was written Australians could not get, in one concise volume, the two interwoven sagas - of Australia's epic and the Great War itself. That's what this lively and vigorous book offers.

It draws on the sources of thirteen countries to present as many good unknowns (women, men and fascinating situations) as it does big leaders, events, generals and battles. In debate it's not shackled to old predictables, and while mindful of general readers, it relies throughout on sound scholarship. For good measure, it bombards a few fallacies and their well-overdue authors.

Manfred Jurgensen was born between Denmark and Germany in the coastal border town of Flensburg in 1940, a 'midnight child'. He has always been sensitive to boundaries and what's beyond the borders, emotionally and physically. He has chosen to reveal his life history - to a very large extent dominated by World War II and its aftermath - in a highly original and unusual form.

The protagonist and his lifetime experiences are wrapped within a semi-fictional presentation that he suggests might be called 'autofiction', or perhaps a 'bio-novel'. Throughout the narrative he philosophises about the nature of 'coincidence' as a life-force.

Switzerland, formerly known as the excessively clean and prosperous 'neutral' country of war-torn Europe, is the symbolic present-day setting for this imaginative narrative. It begins just after he suffers a nervous breakdown while delivering a doctoral seminar at the University of Basle. In a luxurious sanatorium for mentally disturbed patients called Humanitas, he is asked to write about his life experiences, including his own awareness of the Nazi era and what it meant to be one of 'Hitler's children'; he is regularly interviewed by a Board of distinguished psychiatrists based on these accounts. An involuntary prisoner, he longs to achieve his freedom and be reunited with his wife.

Flame Tip is a slim collection of short fictions that explore different realities and perceptions arising from the Tasmanian Black Tuesday bushfires of 1967. The pieces in this collection are as diverse in subject matter (infidelity, love, suicide) as they are in length. Despite the horror of one day of infernal terror, these stories reveal nuances of character and place through resilience, empathy, honesty and humour.

February 2017 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Tasmanian Black Tuesday bush fires. Flame Tip will resonate with Australians, fire being elemental in our consciousness, and with Tasmanians in particular who may recognise themselves and their surroundings within the lines of fiction. There is also a universality to the pieces that should appeal to a wider audience.

David Walsh, the controversial and high-profile owner of MONA, has written the foreword.

Bumbling Mangoland academic, Professor Dr Grafton Everest, has been elected to the Australian Senate, without really knowing why, and due to the influx of weird Independents, finds himself holding the balance of power. Despite this, his personal life is a train wreck. A prostatectomy has left him impotent, his daughter is staging a theatrical event with an outlaw motorcycle gang and he suspects his wife is planning to have him put to sleep. On top of it all, Australia is facing natural disaster from Tectonic Change. Can Grafton save his family, his country and himself?

Shortlisted for 2017 Russell Prize for Humour.

'Grafton Everest is a wonderful creation whom I would place without question in the ranks of Philip Roth's Portnoy and Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim.' - Barry Humphries

'Grafton Everest [is] a slob making Les Patterson seem a class act. Broad comedy, very rude and, for anyone liking gleefully scabrous humour, very funny as well.' - The Daily Mail (London)

High Noon at Starbucks is an eloquent and compelling exploration of human particularity in diverse cultural settings: the author's hometown of Melbourne, Trumpite Florida, posthandover Hong Kong, and Switzerland. Its themes include midlife experience, identity, mental and physical illness, gender, colonialism and the Holocaust. Whether comic, tragic or tragicomic, these stories are pervasively concerned with the complexities of the moral life. Their historical reach includes imaginative encounters with classics of nineteenth century fiction. Sophisticated but accessible, High Noon at Starbucks reminds us that fictional realism remains very much a going concern.

“Tonally complex and acutely observed, Richard Freadman's powerful stories take us into the inner world of conflicted men as they confront personal crises, and into the experience of the people with whom they share romantic, familial or fleeting relationships. Freadman’s exploration of the effect of patriarchy on both women and men extends the reach of Australian fiction. Running through the volume is a comic element, transgressive as well as funny.” – Hermina Burns, author

This is an authoritative, comprehensive account of Victoria’s justice system, starting with a tour of the historic justice precinct which is located on the corner of La Trobe Street and Russell Street, Melbourne. The author takes us back to the earliest days of Victoria’s settlement and introduces the politicians, police, magistrates, and even the criminals who played their parts in Melbourne and Victoria’s development. We are shown how the prison hulks developed into stockades on land, and uncover the philosophy behind the construction of the prisons – many no longer occupied – and the building of courts which were built for conducting trials, both civil and criminal.

The book is, in many ways, an insight into an aspect of Victoria’s social history about which little has been written elsewhere. It is a valuable addition to the justice bibliography and even exposes a mystery or two. It took seven years to research and fact check, and includes many photos.

All of the author’s proceeds of this book after costs will be donated to Victoria Police Legacy, which looks after families of deceased police officers who have died in the course of their duties.

There are lots of books about anxiety. Most of them are written by medical professionals like psychiatrists and psychologists, with lots of great information on the latest tools and techniques to beat anxiety. There aren't, however, many books written by people who have actually suffered from anxiety - and recovered. People who actually know what it feels like to be haunted by strange and terrifying thoughts and feelings day after day.

 

David McLaughlin has transferred his knowledge and experience into this book, which is designed to help others recover. By helping sufferers understand how stress and anxiety work and what they do to the brain and body, the book helps them break the never-ending cycle of worry and fear that keeps them stuck. David provides the reader with a step-by-step guide to recovery, in a practical and easy to follow way.

A deserted picnic ground near Melbourne. The killer, horrified and frozen with indecision, mistakes a firetruck for the authorities, and bolts.

 

Kate wakes from a dream holiday to discover her husband Matt is leaving her. Matt shares his joy with his friends – Paul, a womaniser, Lewis, an introvert struggling with relationships, and Jason, a family man who regularly travels interstate on business.

 

But not all is as it seems. Affairs, hidden identities and drugs... Set in and around Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, this crime mystery explores veiled secrets, deceit and betrayal, and the exposure of a criminal partnership. It’s a tangled web of relationships and the death of a lover blinded by idyllic dreams of glamour, wealth and success.

 

***

 

'A skilfully written, intelligent mystery that keeps you guessing right up until the final pages.' - Dave Hogan

 

'Prepare to be hooked from the very first sentence and taken on a gripping 'Who dunnit' journey with many unexpected twists and turns.' – Chris Mayo

 

'An excellent first novel that draws you into a web of intrigue and links desperate lives.' – Chris Gray

A rusted wok; a rooster's feather; a battered cricket bat; World War II medals; a Vietnam Moratorium badge; a ring. Why are these things so precious to Beth?

The war in Afghanistan is entering its eighth year. Beth has been living in her father's house, looking after him, waiting for him to die. And now the wretched old man is finally dead and she must clear out the contents of the house ready for sale... but Beth is a hoarder. Parting with anything at all is agony for her.

For Martha, a professional clutter buster and ruthless neat freak, throwing things out is easy - some say, too easy.

As the two women begin to trawl through the mountains of 'stuff' that have built up over the years, gradually the layers of both their lives are peeled back.

In My Father's House is about passion, obsession and imagination. It is about families - their secrets, lies and loves. It explores the ways in which war damages people's lives and what it really means to be brave.

How do we come to terms with the past, let go and move on?

A lucid, honest and deeply searching account of the author's struggle to come to terms with anxiety and depression.

Jenny Stewart shows how, over many years, with considerable help from others, she was able gradually to take control of her depression, not by focusing on its causes, but by understanding how best to fight it. It covers practical advice as well as personal revelations.

There are many books about depression - what makes this one different? This is not just a self-help book, it is a self-seeing book. It has been written specifically with women in mind. Inner Weather shows that it is possible to make something positive out of the depressive experience, provided that we have the courage to learn from it. It fills a gap between the many excellent books of professional advice and personal memoirs that relate the depressive experience.

Inner Weather is not only a book for depressives, but for anyone who has an interest in managing their own mind 'from the inside'.