The Cancer Finishing School
Peter Goldsworthy. Penguin. $36.99.
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Poet, novelist and GP Goldsworthy was accidentally diagnosed with cancer after a scan of his dicky knee. He was thrown into a world that he knew only too well from the other side: a world that soon shrank to hospital visits, sleepless and hyped-up nights on dexamethasone and life-saving chemotherapy. It intersperses his own experience with odd and astonishing case stories of patients and literary friends who have trodden the same path: both cautionary tales and exemplary tales, sometimes laugh-out-loud, sometimes deeply moving, that intersect with, or refract, his own travels through denial, acceptance, treatment and survival.
Datsun Angel: A true-story adventure inside the savage heart of 1980s Australia
Anna Broinowski. Hachette. $34.99.
O-Week at Sydney University thrust Broinowski into a hyper-masculine caste system where nothing was what she thought it'd be - until she found her people. Then Peisley, a gentle giant, talks of a hitchhiking trip up north. And, after agreeing on three rules - never split up, remain platonic, accept every lift that gets them closer to Darwin - off they go, finding a dystopian dustbowl on society's hard edges, where outsiders must adapt or perish, and women teeter on an existential knife edge. Based on her battered travel diary, this is a memoir of sex, drugs and violence-fuelled adventure.
Now That I have Your Attention: 7 Lessons in Leading a Life Bigger Than They Expect
Nicolas Hamilton. Hachette Australia. $34.99.
Born with a form of cerebral palsy, Hamilton was told that he would never walk and would need a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Today he not only walks everywhere but he is the first disabled athlete to ever compete at the top level of British motorsport, the British Touring Car Championship. This book follows his journey and shares the valuable, tough and often surprising lessons learned throughout his life. He has had to navigate periods of anger and resentment, but by building his mental strength and pushing himself beyond the physical limits of what anyone had ever expected of him, he changed his life - and believes you can, too.
Oscar Piastri: The Rookie. In the Driver's Seat with the Next F1 Legend
Andrew van Leeuwen. Penguin. $36.99.
Motorsport journalist van Leeuwen's account of Piastri's first season in Formula 1 charts the young Melburnian's meteoric rise through the ranks to become McLaren's chosen young gun. It takes readers behind the scenes in Piastri's mission to triumph in the do-or-die world of the fastest show on earth, from the moment his racing roots first took hold to the ups, downs and inevitable controversies that led to his arrival at McLaren - while also exploring the pressure of fame and fortune, the pageantry and rich history that go with life on the biggest motorsports stage in the world.
What I Would Do To You
Georgia Harper. Penguin. $34.99.
In a near-future Australia, the death penalty is back. But if the victim's family wants the perpetrator to die, they have to do it themselves. They're given 24 hours alone in a room with the condemned and no mics or cameras, just whatever punishment they decide befits the crime. After 10-year-old Lucy is murdered, secrets and grief threaten her mothers Stella and Matisse, her much older brother, and her bookish younger sister who is too young to participate in the execution but has plans of her own. Stella remains adamant that she must carry out the punishment. But it becomes clear that if she steps into that room, the family may lose her too.
Sharp Scratch
Martine Bailey. Allen & Unwin. $49.99.
In 1983, Lorraine Quick is a single mum, a member of a band going nowhere fast and personnel officer at Salford's grim Memorial Hospital. She will be pivotal in selecting a new general manager, thanks to her recent training in psychometric testing. However, the deliberate substitution of a flu vaccine for a lethal dose of anaesthetic reveals a killer is at work at the hospital. Lorraine's suspicions turn towards the top brass vying for the new role. Could the personality tests lead her to the killer?
Bone Lands
Pip Fioretti. Affirm Press. $34.99.
On a winter night in 1911 in rural NSW, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins discovers the bodies of three murdered young scions of the richest family in the district, on a road that Hawkins should have been patrolling, had he not been busy bedding the local schoolteacher. Detectives arrive from Sydney and the disgraced Hawkins, a traumatised veteran of the Boer War, comes under fierce scrutiny. With his honour and sanity at stake, he becomes hell-bent on finding the murderer and discovers dark secrets about the people he thinks of as friends,
Lone Wolf
Gregg Hurwitz. Penguin. $34.99.
The book is the latest in the Orphan X series of thrillers. Ex-government assassin Evan Smoak drops out of sight when a personal crisis leaves him on his knees. Meanwhile, a tech billionaire with a lack of empathy has an empire that is reaching into every aspect of people's lives, and a serial killer known as the Wolf has Evan in her sights. How does it all connect? And will Evan be able to rediscover the instinct and skills he needs in order to survive and prevail?