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In 2004 the author found a little diary of 386 pages written by a 62-year-old man in a nursing home. This story is inspired by that diary.

E=mc2? Jack Smythe thinks Einstein is wrong and he has a theory to prove it. But he's no physicist. Instead, he's been a homeless kid, a palmreader, a cosmic theorist, a father of two (who probably aren't his) and a devoted companion to his sister Kitty who has her own demons. But now at 62, he wakes after an operation to find he's been placed at Eden, a below-average nursing home.

Here he is confronted by Nurse Stinson, Collier the Hun, Pistol Pete, Skeleton Joe, Dooley the publican, Jim the ex-politician and Jim's rebel granddaughter, among others. He wants nothing to do with any of them.

Instead, with wry wit Jack begins a story about Kitty starting with the day they ran away from home for good. It seems Jack is always running away and ultimately there's a daring escape at Eden. But unknown to Jack, it's the "muddle of geriatrics" at Eden that eventually put meaning in his life.

Professor Dr Grafton Everest's latest outrageous entertainment takes us to London and New York after a series of hilarious meanderings in the land of Oz.

So Far, So Good centres on our hapless professor's obsession with food and fame; his relationship with his increasingly independent wife Janet; their wayward (and soon to be married) daughter Lee-Anne; and his much-loved terrier Maddie. This cleverly plotted satire exposes the sad state of universities and of what now passes for politics in the West. Our obsession with technology, our fear of outsiders and our distrust of elites also come in for a pasting.

Caught in a series of concentric conspiracies, Grafton manages to save the day, save the world and even launch Australia on the road to a republic.

Well-known author and commentator, Professor Ross Fitzgerald, and Antony Funnell, of ABC Radio National's "Future Tense" fame, have produced the funniest Grafton Everest novel yet.

The previous Grafton adventure, Going Out Backwards, was shortlisted for the 2017 Russell Prize for Humour Writing.

The squawking parrot knows it all, the secret keeper of this land, of wine and river, war and love, and dreams men brought to river bank; alas they tried to build them. Part family saga, part love story, told over three generations by an undeliable parrot, "a most marvellous tale."

A centuries old battle is about to erupt, and the future of all the races rests upon the most unlikely people in the Empire.

Aerik is a slave, his life surrounded by squalor and death. By day he works in the fields, at night takes solace in a secret slave bar, entertaining his friends and helping them escape the grim reality of life. When the Drakes destroy all he holds dear, Aerik is left with a burning desire for revenge...

Honoured SongForger, Kelkh Ironbound is one of the rare few Drakes gifted with the ForgeSong, a magic that allows him to create weapons of immense power. He encounters Annah, a human outcast shunned by her own people.

"Another great 'read-all-in-one-go' book from natural-born storyteller Garry Willmott. Soul Survivor picks up the story of Lara, last remaining survivor of the Doherty family. The last sentence in Survival reads 'The Dohertys had survived the war, the POW camps and the Titanic. Now they were all gone, except for Lara.'

Masterful storyteller Garry Willmott takes the reader on a wild ride through the orphaned Lara's life from her childhood and privileged upbringing in England to her political career. Along the way, she follows the family tradition of becoming a doctor and is involved in the Hippie movement and the music of the 60s, and the Vietnam War protests. A lot of this story will be familiar territory for the baby-boomer readers.

Lara's character is shaped by some cruel blows that life deals out to her but despite all these she retains her positive and loving nature.

Garry Willmott weaves his story through the turbulence of mid-20th century history. The story encompasses post-war England, international investments and shady deals, kidnapping and ransom, flower power and the swinging 60s, popular music, the waning power of the English class system and the political upheaval of the 70s. A brilliant read and a wonderful history lesson." - Sheelagh Wegman, editor.

Weaving Greek mythology, religion and the study of grammar, Stamatia X is the story of a Greek-Australian girl whose parents make the monumental decision to re-migrate "like birds flying backwards" to Greece. The year is 1973 and a military junta is in power. This modern Greek tragedy subverts notions of family, culture and gender. A yiayia in a swimsuit, a blasphemous Greek Orthodox priest, a corrupt regime. An explosive epic.

The best of Brien Cole's work is the story of Morning Parrot Trees. And it is superb. The concreteness and fantasy of Fisher's search for the parrot flower are perfectly poised. This is imaginative writing of a high order. The technique is to take the reader inside the action and never let go. His skill lies in knowing what matters. Perhaps his most impressive characteristic is that he does know what matters and resists wasting words on unnecessary explanations. The best of these stories are mulled over and mature, every detail if lovingly placed. - Rodney Hall, Sydney Morning Herald

 

Brien Cole has the rare ability in a prose writer of handling flamboyant metaphors with credible panache, and rhythm avoiding the ponderous... We experience the casual interchange between fantasy and reality that distinguishes the best of Peter Carey's work - the insinuating reasonableness of the fable rather than simply gawking at the bizarre. Brien Cole's characters are impossible to place socially - blue collar fringe dwellers, bourgeois drop-outs... They communicate only haphazardly with their fellows, yet feel betrayed by nature. A fascinating collection both of characters and of stories. The most original I have encountered for some time. - Bill Turner, Imprints

Stories of Laughter and Lament, set among the filthy rich and the dirt poor, seven stories first selected and published by Penguin Books.

Widows

Charles Rand fell off his yacht, somewhere in the middle of the bay, on one of the first pale blue evenings of autumn. Later, the Coroner would be unable to fix that time more precisely than between six and ten o'clock. Newspapers, reporting that he had sailed off without crew, used terms which pictured Charles as a hardy loner. Anyone who knew him smiled at this.

So begins Widows, with the loss of the wealthy husband whom Dorothy Laird had caught, by playing her cards faultlessly, for marriage to the beautiful Elizabeth, her one child. Elizabeth is Dorothy's straight flush. This is the world of the Lairds.

Children Aren't Supposed to be Here at All

Troilus and Cassandra spend their days at a private school, are then alone until their parents come home from the office.

The best view in Sydney, panorama wall to wall, ten thousand dollars a foot. All that view, Troilus said, locks us in.

This is the world of Troilus and Cassandra. Troilus begins to spend more time alone in his room. Troilus has secreted an illegal kitten.

The Routine

An airplane journey, in reverie the narrator reprises scenes from the recent breaking up with his lover. His defence is hard-bitten cynicism. His neighbour in the next seat is spectacularly disabled.

He had a strangely taut face, of indeterminate age. Either thirty-five or very old, pallid cleft chin and lumpy nose. Describe it with artistic integrity:

Bent as a 1930 Labour politician's

Shapeless as a football after a wet game

Hit by a Bondi taxi, the trams were on strike

He is the other guy.

There.

But his shapeless neighbour displays a quiet brilliance with jokes, and likes to play the comedian, as a gift to his companion. Each is uniquely disabled, so a strong current of love begins between them. This is the world of the tragic human comedy.

Pedigrees

This is a world of croquet on the lawn, the breeding of horses for dressage, of dogs for the shows, and very little sanity.

It does not seem to be fear of falling which has made her unable, by herself, to move, although she is clinging to the bole of a white gum which overhangs the cliff. She is intent only on a bundle lying on the rocks fifty feet below her. It is the sodden and dislocated body of her daughter's rag doll Cindy. It is to take psychiatrists three months of gentle prying to release from Elinor's mind the belief over which it has closed. This belief is that she has thrown her own child over a cliff.

Inventory

A son of English Old Money, whose talents so far have won him note as a failure, expects Christmas dinner in Kent to win him derision from his father in front of his entire family.

But Sir George did not wait for Henry Edward Charles to recount, over the remains of the goose, the imminent failure of his second marriage, six years old in January; or the collapse of his racing stable, a draining of the finest blood ever exported from Ireland and New Zealand; or the sale of the few remaining blue-chip investments to pay his slandering creditors so he could remain in his club.

Ticket for Charity

When Charity Lord fell pregnant she told each of the six boys who were that month's quick loving, in turn, as they stumbled from the hotel.

Slow Billy, the dry-country farmer, became the boy who would marry her. He would also become the boy whose life is transformed by her fierce gratitude. Together they worked his heartbreaking farmland until time for the birth.

Melodrama for a Plastic Heroine

A love story. He lives alone, penniless, in a city tenement. He scrapes together enough money to buy himself a wife. She is a life-size inflatable doll whom he pushes about in a wheelchair, shawled, as if she were merely lamed. On the busy sidewalk they do not draw a second's interest.

And here is a vendor selling wind-up toys and balloons and dizzy windmills. He pays for two balloons. They crowd about and make his choosing difficult. He takes time to choose a red and a blue. Their cheeks seem to him to be chubby and irrepressible, and they tug, now, at his hand with the campaigning impatience of small children. He wheels them all away and they set off for the far side of the hill.

'If God is too indifferent, or too non-existent to take care of His creation, then clearly it's up to Me.'

Morgen Tanjenz is a lawyer with an overactive sense of justice. His mission in life is to reward the virtuous, punish the ignorant and avenge those who won't avenge themselves. His favourite pastime is 'life sculpture' - anonymously intervening in the lives of strangers to change their destiny in ways he thinks they deserve.

But Morgen isn't the only one changing lives in the city. A serial killer is on the prowl and taunting the police in letters to the local rag. But, as the body count rises, Detective Sergeant Blacksnake Fowler can hardly focus on the job with so many distractions: his boss hates him, his deputy is trying to undermine him and the woman he loves is having an affair.

In the cicada-throbbing heat of a Sydney summer, the threads of a strange story become entangled in a wild conclusion no one will see coming.

'a ripsnorter of a ride through the dark heart of the burbs... may just be Australia's answer to American Psycho.' Kirsten Krauth, just_a_girl

'Sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing, and always compelling... with a super-original premise and a one-of-a-kind protagonist'. Tony Wilson, Making News

'A disturbingly good read. Unnerving and darkly comic.' Stuart Quin, Ealing Studios Australia

Life-changing injuries, a shared hospital room, a monster at the door - can you think of a better way to fall in love?

Ronan Cox sets aside his peculiar past to pursue his military career. Then he's shot down over an Iraq desert, meets an eldritch being, and wakes up in an American hospital.

Byron Slain, aka Benjamin Williams, aka the tattooed, pierced pretty boy in the bed beside Ronan's, has his own strange story, but no time to tell it when a clawed cryptid comes scratching at their hospital door.

And then things start getting really strange.

'A compelling read, this is the story of one family's journey through wars, tragedies and triumphs. A story of love, family, unity and resilience. Another great story from Australian author G. S. Willmott. Very difficult to put this one down.' - Christine

 

'Historical thriller of how one family beat the odds to survive WWI and WWII... The ending leaves the reader astonished.' - David

 

'A masterful book written in the most powerful way, about two families and their struggle with business, two world wars and the loss of the family and friends held dearest to them.

 

From the very first page you are held in suspense, through the absorbingly vivid descriptions of the most horrific and colourful situations, that were the period during and between the two great wars.

 

The spellbinding finale leaves the reader wanting answers to the vexed questions of life, and its true meaning.' - Ian

Mothers-in-law are famous for being difficult but when Nell marries Andy it’s her father-in-law, Hal, who is the problem. A corrosive force in his own family, Hal is a truly ugly Australian who spreads his corruption whenever he gets the chance. Surviving Hal takes place in Sydney and Thailand and is the story of Nell and Andy trying to keep their family together against the influence of a charismatic but ugly soul.

 

Praise for Penny Flanagan

"Poignant … balanced, delicately handled, quietly eloquent." - The Sydney Morning Herald

 

"Penny Flanagan has produced a stylish first novel studded with comic gems." - New Librarian

 

"Not since Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip has a book given me this feeling of fitting into another woman’s skin." - Marie Low

After Will manages to ruin his best friend Sweets' regular casual hook-up, he promises to atone by finding him a new lady friend.

Complication one: the woman Will's found is so amazing that he can't help being attracted to her himself.

Complication two: even the combined charms of two young devil-may-care restaurant entrepreneurs may not be enough to melt the wall of ice that she puts up between her and the world.

Can great food, great sex, and great friendship save the day?

In the 1860s in the Colony of Victoria, Tabu an aborigine goes 'walkabout' after a violent tribal fight during which his brother is killed. He rescues the wife of a drover/farmer - Michael, who is an escaped convict. He hires Tabu to help him drove sheep into the mainly unexplored northern districts of Victoria to the Murray River. Only a few hardy explorers and drovers had previously been through this country when bringing stock overland from Sydney to Melbourne.

Their droving encounters many difficulties - crossing several rivers, bushfires, floods, theft of sheep and aborigine conflict. Parallel family stories involve an aboriginal battle, wild dog attacks, water rights and attempted piracy. The novel also includes other tales involving their family's trials and tribulations, bordering on truth and fiction.

The author's knowledge of Australian history has helped him interweave tales of early settlers and aboriginal lifestyles to bring together significant events that occurred within Michael's and Tabu's family. The Colony's scenery and unique animals are also vividly described, together with a surprising conclusion for Michael. Collectively these descriptions have helped to complete an exciting must-read story 'of days gone by' and will be of interest to all readers, and will increase the knowledge of students of Australian history.

When two elderly bachelors were poisoned with cyanide, a strange woman was on the scene each time - but now she has disappeared, leaving no trace. Tracking her down in a town of twenty-eight thousand people is a job to tax even Detective Inspector Bonaparte's powers. He will need the unorthodox assistance of burglar Jimmy the Screwsman and a lightning-sketch artist, as well as all the deductive and tracking skills at his command, as he trails a killer no-one has seen...