Niki Savva
Between 2013 and 2022, Tony Abbott begat Malcolm Turnbull, who begat Scott Morrison. For nine long years, Australia was governed by a succession of Coalition governments rocked by instability and bloodletting, and consumed with prosecuting climate and culture wars while neglecting policy.

By the end, among his detractors — and there were plenty — Morrison was seen as the worst prime minister since Billy McMahon. Worse even than Tony Abbott, who lasted a scant two years in the job, whose main legacy was that he destroyed Julia Gillard, then himself, and then Turnbull.

Morrison failed to accept the mantle of national leadership, or to deal adequately with the challenges of natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. He thought reform was a vanity project. He said he never wanted to leave a legacy. He got his wish.

Niki Savva, Australia’s renowned political commentator, author, and columnist, was there for all of it. In The Road to Ruin, she revealed the ruinous behaviour of former prime minister Abbott and his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, that led to the ascension of Turnbull. In Plots and Prayers, she told the inside story of the coup that overthrew Turnbull and installed his conniving successor, Morrison.

Ashleigh Wilson
These days Wendy Whiteley is a legendary figure in the art world, the keeper of the Brett Whiteley legacy, best known for creating the Secret Garden on the land below her house on Sydney Harbour. But before she met Brett, Wendy was herself a budding artist; her creative work ever since has been under-recognised

Wendy is a survivor: of drug dependence, bitter divorce, the deaths of Brett and their beloved daughter, Arkie. More than that, she is a remarkable figure whose life has had its own contours and priorities. Now in her early eighties—reflective yet outspoken, with a dry wit—she has much to tell about it.

The product of many hours of candid conversations at the kitchen table in Lavender Bay with acclaimed Brett Whiteley biographer Ashleigh Wilson, and supplemented by extensive research and interviews with others, this is the unforgettable story of Wendy’s life.

Peter FitzSimons
It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers.

Then – just when they were least expecting – they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack.

For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught. The skies opened and the rain fell as ferocious mortar and automatic fire pinned them down. Snipers shot at close quarters from the trees that surrounded them. The Aussie, Kiwi and Yankee artillery batteries knew it was up to them but, outnumbered and running out of ammunition they fired, loaded, fired as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces just kept coming. And coming.

Their only hope was if Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) could reach them before they were wiped out. The APCs did their best but low cloud and thunderstorms meant air support was stalled. A daring helicopter resupply mission was suggested but who would want to fly that? The odds against this small force were monumental…

By far the deadliest battle for Australian forces in Vietnam, the Battle of Long Tan has a proud place in the annals of Australian military history – and every ANZAC who fought there could hold his head high.

Jim Eames
In The Mighty 747, Jim Eames – author of The Flying Kangaroo and Courage in the Skies – traces the early development of the jumbo, an aircraft of unprecedented size, and the vision of Joe Sutter, the man who guided it into existence. A major watershed in aviation technology, the 747 has flown over 3.5 billion passengers, and over the next few years is scheduled to be phased out around the world.

In this jet-set nostalgia journey we see how the 747 dramatically changed travel from Australia, offering fares cheap enough to be within reach for the first time for migrants and their children to revisit home, and the plane’s extensive teething problems, but also the people in Qantas who had the vision to see the jumbo through those difficulties to be a massive success.

We see the high points of its Qantas life – the uplift out of Darwin after Cyclone Tracy, out of China after Tiananmen Square, in more recent days from Wuhan and the coronavirus outbreak, and its role in charters to the Antarctic. We discover how the 747 came in all shapes and sizes – from a Combi for cargo and passengers to the Special Performance version which could fly non-stop to the USA, and eventually the 747-400 which created a world distance record on its delivery flight from London to Sydney in 1989. We also find out about the ‘near misses’, of how close we have come to disaster on several occasions. And finally the jumbo’s nostalgic farewell and how it departed Australia’s skies for the last time on 22 July 2020.

So much more than aircraft history, The Mighty 747 is woven with the humour and nostalgia of the people at Qantas who sold the 747 to Australia, serviced it and made it work on the ground and in the air.

Melissa Doyle
In your darkest hour can you still find hope? In this intimate and insightful book, Melissa Doyle shares the stories of some of the most resilient people she has ever met, gently drawing out their wisdom, empathy and heartfelt practical advice for anyone who’s going through a difficult time. When the world stopped turning in 2020, award-winning journalist Melissa Doyle had already been thrown off course by life.

She’ d just turned 50, her eldest child had finally left home to study overseas and her 25-year-long career as a popular presenter at Channel 7 had come to an end. While lockdowns and closed borders damaged livelihoods, relationships and the nation’s mental health, Melissa found herself reflecting on some of the true survivors she’ d met during her years reporting from the front lines of triumph and tragedy. Surely these people had clues on how to navigate grief and anxiety? Revisiting these stories with such extraordinary people, Melissa was struck once more by their hard-won wisdom and their ability not just to survive but to find meaning in their experiences.

Quintin Jardine
Sir Robert Skinner’s stock is rising – after retiring from the police service he’s been promoted to head an international media organisation. Yet a series of unexplained deaths on his home turf in Scotland threaten to bring him crashing back down to earth.

As Skinner helps the elderly in his local community, several residents seem to die of natural causes. But when a gruesome discovery is made in a Glasgow flat and one of Skinner’s long-time friends – an aspiring politician – emerges as the prime suspect, things become very murky indeed.

After unpicking clues that go nowhere, Skinner and his team are left grappling the most baffling conundrum they have ever encountered – is there a mystery at all?

Quintin Jardine
The gritty new mystery in Quintin Jardine’s bestselling Bob Skinner series, set in Edinburgh and the Scottish countryside; not to be missed by readers of Ian Rankin and Peter May. Nine years ago, divorcee Marcia Brown took her own life. A pillar of the community, she had been accused of theft, and it’s assumed that she was unable to live with the shame.

Now her former husband wants the case reopened. Marcia was framed, he says, to prevent her exposing a scandal. He wants justice for Marcia. And Alex Skinner, Solicitor Advocate, and daughter of retired Chief Constable Sir Robert Skinner, has taken on the brief, aided by her investigator Carrie McDaniels.

When tragedy strikes and his daughter comes under threat, Skinner steps in. His quarry is about to discover that the road to hell is marked by bad intentions . . .

Garry Disher
Hirsch’s rural beat is wide. Daybreak to day’s end, dirt roads and dust. Every problem that besets small towns and isolated properties, from unlicensed driving to arson. In the time of the virus, Hirsch is seeing stresses heightened and social divisions cracking wide open. His own tolerance under strain; people getting close to the edge.

Today he’s driving an international visitor around: Janne Van Sant, whose backpacker son went missing while the borders were closed. They’re checking out his last photo site, his last employer. A feeling that the stories don’t quite add up.

Then a call comes in: a roadside fire. Nothing much—a suitcase soaked in diesel and set alight. But two noteworthy facts emerge. Janne knows more than Hirsch about forensic evidence. And the body in the suitcase is not her son’s.