5 best new books – quick links
5 best new books: October 2025
Riots, Fiona Skyring – 30 September
Non-fiction. From 1918, 1919 and into 1920 Australia was rocked by a series of riots involving returned soldiers. From brawls in small regional towns to major riots in capital cities, thousands of men took their grievances to the streets, where in some cases police spent days quelling the chaos. Yet this noisy and violent chapter of our history has been absent from our contemporary commemorations of Anzac.
Silence is my Habitat: Ecobiographical essays, Jessica White – 1 October
Non-fiction. Jessica White has been deaf since she was four years old. Through ecobiography, which dwells on a person’s interaction with their ecosystem and how this shapes their sense of self, she considers how deafness encouraged and moulded her relationship to the natural world.
Jessica White on ArtsHub: Bean counting at Meanjin misses the intangible value of reading and imagining
The Mushroom Murders, Greg Haddrick – 14 October
Non-fiction. Greg Haddrick tells the fascinating inside story of the triple murder trial that gripped Australia and made headlines around the world. With details not previously published, it is the compelling story of a troubled family and a poisonous mushroom that is readily found in parks and gardens.
The Hiding Place, Kate Mildenhall – 28 October
Fiction. When Lou sees an ad for a long-abandoned mining town up for sale, it doesn’t take her long to convince her sister and their oldest friends to go in on the idyllic property buried in the bush – a place where the four families can hide away on weekends, get back to nature and unstick the kids from their screens. But things start to go wrong before they even arrive for their first camping trip …
The Transformations, Andrew Pippos – 28 October
Fiction. In the fading glow of Australia’s print journalism era, The National is more than a newspaper: it’s an institution, and the only place that George Desoulis has ever felt at home. A world-weary subeditor with a bookish sensibility and a painful past, George is one of nature’s loners.
5 best new books to read in September 2025:
As If I’m Really There, Emilie Collyer – 1 Sep
Poetry. We’re big fans of Australian playwright and poet Emilie Collyer – see our five-star review of Collyer’s excellent play Super, performed at Red Stitch Theatre, Melbourne, a couple of months ago – and our views on Collyer’s previous poetry collection, Do You Have Anything Less Domestic?
Ash, Louise Wallace – 2 Sep
Fiction. We can’t wait for this novel. New Zealand writer Wallace is the author of four collections of poems, including This Is a Story About Your Mother, published in 2023. She is the founder and editor of Starling, an online journal showcasing the work of young writers from Aotearoa New Zealand, and the editor of Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2022.
