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Works By

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Picador Fiction Picador (publisher), series - publisher
1 y separately published work icon No Church in the Wild Murray Middleton , Sydney : Picador , 2024 27370817 2024 single work novel

'It's been five long years since violence erupted between young migrants and local police in Melbourne's inner west. A police-led trip to hike the Kokoda Trail hopes to rebuild relationships in the community, but as training gets underway, fresh allegations of racial profiling have everyone on a knife-edge.

'For wannabe rapper Ali, pride is hard to come by in the commission towers as both gentrification and his best friend's court date creep closer.

'Classmate Tyler's anger - at his dysfunctional family, and a world that denies his dreams - is close to ignition, and the way out is dangerously narrow.

'Young and idealistic teacher Anna's life is in disarray, but she knows she has to take a stand against the school system that's failing her students.

'And Paul, a cop new to the beat, quickly realises that it'll take a lot more than community policing to repair the mutual mistrust with local youth.

'From the vial-studded stairs of the high-rises to the melting pot classrooms of secondary schools, to the mud-sucking jungle of Kokoda, No Church in the Wild is a deeply researched, richly imagined novel that interrogates the jaggedness of contemporary Australian society and the prejudices that still underpin it.' (Publication summary)

1 2 y separately published work icon Days of Innocence and Wonder Lucy Treloar , Sydney : Picador , 2023 26827740 2023 single work novel

'When someone is taken away, what is left behind?

'All her life, Till has lived in the shadow of the abduction of a childhood friend and her tormented wondering about whether she could have stopped it.

'When Till, now twenty-three, senses danger approaching again, she flees her past and the hovering presence of her fearful parents. In Wirowie, a town on its knees, she stops and slowly begins creating a new life and home. But there is something menacing here too. Till must decide whether she can finally face down, even pursue, the darkness - or whether she'll flee once more and never stop running.

'Both a reckoning with fear and loss, and a recognition of the power of belonging, Days of Innocence and Wonder is a richly textured, deeply felt new novel from one of Australia's finest writers.' (Publication summary) 

1 6 y separately published work icon Prima Facie Suzie Miller , Sydney : Picador , 2023 26507082 2023 single work novel

'Tessa is a thoroughbred. A young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from a working-class background to be at the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. Her masterful line of questioning in the courtroom has netted Tessa win after win, freeing men accused of rape and sexual assault. As controversial as it is, this is her job - it's just about the facts and who can game the system.

'Working late one night, Tessa falls into a casual relationship with Julian, a coworker, an attorney who comes from an elite, wealthy family. A light-hearted affair, with a man she admires. She begins to wonder if perhaps there is a future for the two of them.

'One sickening night, though, Julian makes a choice and Tessa finds herself in a position countless women - one in three - have before her. And she's faced with a gut-wrenching, life-changing decision: will she take the stand to testify about her rape, with the full awareness that the system has not been built to protect her?

'Drawn from the internationally acclaimed play, Prima Facie is a propulsive, raw look at the price victims pay for speaking out and the system that sets them up to fail. With breakneck prose and a devastating emotional intensity, this is a novel for our times, by one of Australia's most important writers.' (Publication summary)

1 4 y separately published work icon Ordinary Gods and Monsters Chris Womersley , London : Picador , 2023 26430965 2023 single work novel

'It could have been any summer evening, but of course it wasn't.
It was the end of some things, the beginning of so many others.

'Nick Wheatley has finished high school, but he isn't ready for the rest of his life. His parents are getting divorced, his sister is downright weird and his best friend and neighbour, Marion, seems to have acquired a boyfriend.

'One hot night, Marion's father is killed in a hit-and-run. There are no suspects and no leads. But a sly tip from the local psychic sends Nick and Marion into the undertow of a strange and sinister world they hadn't known existed in the suburbs - one of inscrutable gangsters, speed-dealing bikies and unpredictable, one-eyed conspiracy theorists.

'It's a world they'll be lucky to survive.' (Publication summary)

1 4 y separately published work icon The Vitals Tracy Sorensen , Sydney : Picador , 2023 26365452 2023 single work prose

'Deep inside Tracy's body live the organs of the peritoneal cavity.

'Ute, a wandering womb.
Rage, an existential spleen.
Gaster, a gleeful gorger.
Liv, a workaholic liver.

'But there is also Baby, an ever-growing tumour, and Baby's child Bunny, whose cells are multiplying alarmingly.

'Together, the organs must fight for homeostasis ... and Tracy's survival.

'The Vitals is Tracy Sorensen's cancer memoir transformed by imagination into something far richer and stranger. Narrated by her internal organs, it will make you infinitely more aware of the peculiar world inside your body, and illuminate all the hidden parts that make you human.' (Publication summary)

1 4 y separately published work icon Wolfe Island Lucy Treloar , Sydney : Picador , 2023 17117918 2019 single work novel

'Kitty Hawke, the last inhabitant of a dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay, has resigned herself to annihilation...

'Until one night her granddaughter blows ashore in the midst of a storm, desperate, begging for sanctuary. For years, Kitty has kept herself to herself - with only the company of her wolfdog, Girl - unconcerned by the world outside, or perhaps avoiding its worst excesses. But blood cannot be turned away in times like these. And when trouble comes following her granddaughter, no one is more surprised than Kitty to find she will fight to save her as fiercely as her name suggests...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 8 y separately published work icon Iris Fiona Kelly McGregor , London : Picador , 2022 24975681 2022 single work novel historical fiction 'Who is Iris Webber? A thief, a pervert, a killer, the most violent woman in Sydney. A wife, a lover, a daughter, a friend. A musician, a dancer, a big-hearted fool. A woman who has lived a big full life but is now trapped in prison cell. But is she guilty or innocent? Rollicking through the underbelly of Sydney in the 1930s, Iris is a dazzling literary achievement from one of Australia's finest writers. Building on a true story, here is a striking and vibrantly told story of a woman who went down fighting.' (Publication summary)
1 8 y separately published work icon The Diplomat Chris Womersley , Sydney : Picador , 2022 24692296 2022 single work novel '1991. Fresh out of detox, Edward Degraves returns to Melbourne looking for a clean start. All he needs is one last trip to The Diplomat, a seedy motel known best for its drug dealers and eccentrics. But sobriety is both torment and a gift. As Edward revisits old haunts and faces people from his past, his failures follow close behind: ruined relationships, an abortive career as an artist and - looming over everything - the death of his beloved wife Gertrude. Fraught with grief and regret, The Diplomat is a powerful story of love and recovery, and the choices that lie between self-destruction and redemption.' (Publication summary)
1 1 y separately published work icon A Great Hope Jessica Stanley , Sydney : Picador , 2022 23596599 2022 single work novel

'John Clare was a titan in Australian politics. The head of a powerful union, he had long been tipped as a future leader himself. Supporting him in his push for power were his elegant wife Grace, his troubled children Sophie and Toby, and Tessa, the mistress he thought would stay secret.

'But now John has fallen, brutally, to his death. A terrible accident - or was it?

'In the wake of losing John, his inner circle mourn and rage, remembering and trying to forget the many ways he'd loved and disappointed them. An adoring and unreliable father; a grateful and selfish husband; a besotted and absent lover; an authoritative and compassionate leader; a failed politician in an era when party politics failed a nation. As those around him reassess everything they knew of and felt for John, a new idea of what love and power really mean begins to emerge - as does the true cause of his death.

'Gripping, propulsive and ambitious, A Great Hope untangles the mystery of John's fall through the eyes of those who knew him best - or thought they did. Deftly displaying the clash of the political and the personal, this is a novel for our times, from a brilliant and forceful new Australian writer.'(Publication summary)

4 11 y separately published work icon Devotion Hannah Kent , London : Picador , 2022 22127333 2021 single work novel historical fiction

'Prussia, 1836

'Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature — she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity...until she meets Thea.

'Ocean, 1838

'The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God's law and at odds with their King's order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne's heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break.

'The whale passed. The music faded.

'South Australia, 1838

'A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible ... is devotion.

'This long-awaited novel demonstrates Hannah Kent's sublime ability with language that creates an immersive, transformative experience for the reader. Devotion is a book to savour.' (Publication summary)

1 2 y separately published work icon The School : The Ups and Downs of One Year in the Classroom Brendan James Murray , Sydney : Picador , 2021 21855617 2021 single work autobiography

'One teacher. One school. One year.

'Brendan James Murray has been a high school teacher for more than ten years. In that time he has seen hundreds of kids move through the same hallways and classrooms - boisterous, angry, shy, big-hearted, awkward - all of them on the journey to adulthood.

'In The School, he paints an astonishingly vivid portrait of a single school year, perfectly capturing the highs and lows of being a teenager, as well as the fire, passion and occasional heartbreak of being their teacher. Hilarious, heartfelt and true, it is a timeless story of a teacher and his classes, a must-read for any parent, and a tribute to the art of teaching.' (Publication summary)

1 3 y separately published work icon As Beautiful As Any Other : A Memoir of My Body Kaya Wilson , Sydney : Picador , 2021 21273776 2021 single work autobiography

'When Kaya Wilson came out to his parents as transgender, a year after a near-death surfing accident and just weeks before his father's death, he was met with a startling family history of concealed queerness and shame.

'This is a trans story.

'As Beautiful As Any Other weaves this legacy together with intimate examinations of the forces that have shaped Wilson's life, and his body: vulnerability and power, grief and trauma, science and narrative.

'This is also my story.

'In this powerful and lyrical memoir, Wilson makes a case for the strength we find when we confront the complexities of our identity with compassion. As Beautiful As Any Other is a trailblazing debut of remarkable beauty, insight and candour.'

Source : publisher's blurb

1 3 y separately published work icon The Fire of Joy The Fire of Joy : Roughly Eighty Poems to Get by Heart and Say Aloud Clive James , London : Picador , 2020 20397850 2020 anthology poetry

'Clive James read, learned and recited poetry aloud for most of his life. In this book, completed before just before his death, he offers a selection of his favourite poems and a personal commentary on each.

'In the last months of his life, his vision impaired by surgery and unable to read, Clive James explored the treasure-house of his mind: the poems he knew best, so good that he didn’t just remember them, he found them impossible to forget. The Fire of Joy is the record of this final journey of recollection and celebration. Enthralled by poetry all his life, James knew hundreds of poems by heart. In offering this selection of his favourites, a succession of poems from the sixteenth century to the present, his aim is to inspire you to discover and to learn, and perhaps even to speak poetry aloud.

'In his highly personal anthology, James offers a commentary on each of the eighty or so poems: sometimes a historical or critical note on the poem or its author, sometimes a technical point about the poem’s construction from someone who was himself a poet, sometimes a personal anecdote about the role the poem played in his own life.

'Whether you’re familiar with a poem or not — whether you’re familiar with poetry in general or not — these chatty, unpretentious, often tender mini-essays convey the joy of James’s enthusiasm and the benefit of his knowledge. His urgent wish was to share with a new generation what he himself had loved. This is a book to be read cover to cover or dipped into: either way it generously opens up a world for our delight.' (Publication summary)

1 5 y separately published work icon In Search of the Woman Who Sailed the World Danielle Clode , Sydney : Picador , 2020 19895416 2020 single work biography 'A voyage of discovery, nature and untold histories - in the vein of Clare Wright, Edmund de Waal and Helen Macdonald.

'When the first woman to circumnavigate the world completed her journey in 1775, she returned home without any fanfare at all.

'Jeanne Barret, an impoverished peasant from Burgundy, disguised herself as a man and sailed on the 1766 Bougainville voyage as the naturalist's assistant. For over two centuries, the story of who this young woman was, why she left her home to undertake such a perilous journey and what happened when she returned has been shrouded in uncertainty.

'Biologist and award-winning author Danielle Clode embarks on a journey to solve the mysteries surrounding Jeanne Barret. From archives, herbariums and museums to untouched forests and open oceans, Clode's mission takes her from France and Mauritius to the Pacific Islands and New Guinea to reveal the previously untold full story of Jeanne's life as well as the achievements and challenges of her famous voyage.

'This book is an ode to the sea, to science and to one remarkable woman who, like all explorers, charted her own course for others to follow.' (Publication summary)

 
6 8 y separately published work icon Amnesty Aravind Adiga , London : Picador , 2020 18555342 2020 novel

'A riveting, suspenseful, and exuberant novel from the bestselling, Man Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger and Selection Day about a young illegal immigrant who must decide whether to report crucial information about a murder—and thereby risk deportation.

'Danny—formerly Dhananjaya Rajaratnam—is an illegal immigrant in Sydney, Australia, denied refugee status after he fled from Sri Lanka. Working as a cleaner, living out of a grocery storeroom, for three years he’s been trying to create a new identity for himself. And now, with his beloved vegan girlfriend, Sonja, with his hidden accent and highlights in his hair, he is as close as he has ever come to living a normal life.

'But then one morning, Danny learns a female client of his has been murdered. The deed was done with a knife, at a creek he’d been to with her before; and a jacket was left at the scene, which he believes belongs to another of his clients—a doctor with whom Danny knows the woman was having an affair. Suddenly Danny is confronted with a choice: Come forward with his knowledge about the crime and risk being deported? Or say nothing, and let justice go undone? Over the course of this day, evaluating the weight of his past, his dreams for the future, and the unpredictable, often absurd reality of living invisibly and undocumented, he must wrestle with his conscience and decide if a person without rights still has responsibilities.

'Propulsive, insightful, and full of Aravind Adiga’s signature wit and magic, Amnesty is both a timeless moral struggle and a universal story with particular urgency today.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

1 6 y separately published work icon Flyaway Kathleen Jennings , Sydney : Picador , 2020 17351781 2020 single work novella fantasy

'Strange what chooses to flourish here. Which plants. Which stories.

'Bettina Scott lives a tidy, quiet life in Runagate, tending to her delicate mother and their well-kept garden after her father and brothers disappear — until a note arrives that sends Bettina into the scrublands beyond, searching for answers about what really happened to this town, and to her family.

'For this is a land where superstitions hunt and folk tales dream — and power is there for the taking, for those willing to look.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Picador ed.)

1 3 y separately published work icon Somewhere Becoming Rain : Collected Writings on Philip Larkin Clive James , London : Picador , 2019 18356862 2019 selected work essay 'A love letter from one of the world's best living writers to one of its most cherished poets.

'Clive James is a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time.

'The greatness of Larkin's poetry continues to be obscured by the opprobrium attaching to his personal life and his private opinions. James writes about Larkin's poems, his novels, his jazz and literary criticism; he also considers the two major biographies, Larkin's letters and even his portrayal on stage in order to chart the extreme and, he argues, largely misguided equivocations about Larkin's reputation in the years since his death.

'Through this joyous and perceptive book, Larkin's genius is delineated and celebrated. James argues that Larkin's poems, adored by discriminating readers for over half a century, could only have been the product of his reticent, diffident, flawed, and all-too-human personality.

'Erudite and entertaining in equal measure, Somewhere Becoming Rain is a love letter from one of the world's best living writers to one of its most cherished poets.' (Publication summary)
1 2 y separately published work icon The Innocent Reader : Reflections on Reading and Writing Debra Adelaide , Sydney : Picador , 2019 18048447 2019 selected work essay 'Books are impractical companions and housemates: they are heavy when you are travelling, and in the home take up a lot of space, are hard to keep clean, and harbour insects. It is not a matter of the physical book, it is the deep emotional connection that stretches back to my early years. Living without them is unimaginable.

'These collected essays share a joyous and plaintive glimpse into the reading and writing life of novelist, editor and teacher of creative writing Debra Adelaide.

'Every book I have read becomes part of me, and discarding any is like tearing out a page from my own life.

'With immediate wit and intimacy, Adelaide explores what shapes us as readers, how books inform, console and broaden our senses of self, and the constant conversation of authors and readers with the rest of their libraries. Drawing from her experiences in the publishing industry, the academic world, her own life and the literary and critical communities, she paints a vibrant portrait of a life lived in and by books, perfect for any student, bibliophile, editor, or simply: reader.' (Publication summary)
 
1 7 y separately published work icon From Here On, Monsters Elizabeth Bryer , Sydney : Picador , 2019 16432719 2019 single work novel mystery

'In a city locked in a kind of perpetual twilight, an antiquarian bookseller accepts a very strange commission - the valuation of a rare codex. Within its fragile pages is the story of another book, another codex, but unravelling the mystery may mean unravelling the nature of reality itself...

'A noirish mystery. A speculative fiction with a social conscience. An unbridled imagination, and a scholar's bibliomanic preoccupations. From Here On, Monsters stretches the boundaries of what we consider fiction in weird and totally wonderful ways...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

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