Litty Committee: 14 New Reads To Curl Up With Now That It’s Officially Book Season (Autumn)

Litty Committee

This month on Litty Committee: Kazuo Ishiguro‘s new book Klara And The Sun (!!!!!!!), a stunning debut novel from Aussie author Ella Baxter, and the extremely relatable Today I F****D Up by Thomas Mitchell. Welcome back to Litty Committee, folks!

Here’s just a slice of the new titles hitting shelves this month, plus Netflix’s adaptation of Shadow And Bone, as seen on Bookstagram.

New Releases

Beyond Climate Grief by Jonica Newby

Beyond Climate Grief, $29.99 (paperback)

About the book: 

“In this magical, often funny and deeply moving personal story, award-winning science reporter Jonica Newby explores how to navigate the emotional turmoil of climate change.”

It features conversations with singer-songwriter Missy Higgins, comedians Charlie Pickering and Craig Reucassel, and business leader Mike Cannon-Brookes, as well as practical advice from psychological and scientific experts, accounts from everyday heroes, and stories from the climate strike kids.

Read the full blurb here.

Category: Non-fiction

On sale: March 1, 2021

New Animal by Ella Baxter

Litty Committee

New Animal, $29.99 (paperback)

About the book: 

New Animal is the debut novel by Australian author and artist Ella Baxter.

It’s described as a stunning, heartbreakingly funny novel about sex, death, grief, and running away. New Animal is also being turned into a TV series by Aussie screenwriter Marieke Hardy. Huge!

“… most nights I find myself trying to combine with someone else to become this two-headed thing with flailing limbs, chomping teeth, and tangled hair. This new animal. I am medicated by another body. Drunk on warm skin. Dumbly high on the damp friction between them and me.

Read the full blurb here.

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 2, 2021

Acts Of Desperation by Megan Nolan

Litty Committee

Acts Of Desperation, $29.99 (paperback)

About the book: 

This book hurts. Penguin sent me a copy and I had no idea what to expect, other than it’s been recommended for fans of Sally Rooney.

Acts Of Desperation is a sharp yet messy and completely honest portrait of toxic relationships, so startling that I had to put the book down at times to catch my breath. It is crushingly relatable and oh so difficult to read. But, I couldn’t stop reading it.

You can read the full blurb here.

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 2, 2021

The Family Doctor by Debra Oswald

The Family Doctor, $32.99 (paperback)

About the book: 

I see Debra Oswald‘s name, the creator/head writer of the first five (and best) seasons of Offspring, and I CLICK.

“Paula is a dedicated suburban GP, who is devastated by the murder of a friend and her children by their estranged husband and father. Stacey and the children had been staying with her after fleeing his control, and Paula is haunted by the thought that she couldn’t protect them when they most needed it. How had she missed the warning signs? How had she failed to keep them safe?

“Not long after, a patient with suspicious injuries brings her anxious young son into Paula’s surgery. The woman admits that her husband hurts her, but she’s terrified to leave for fear of escalating the violence, and defeated by the consistent failures of the law to help her.

“Can Paula go against everything she believes to make sure one woman is saved, one child spared? She isn’t motivated by revenge. She’s desperately trying to prevent a tragedy…”

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 2, 2021

Klara And The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Litty Committee

Klara And The Sun, $32.99 (paperback)

I have been waiting for this book for nine months and I don’t need to read the reviews to know it’ll be good. It’s Kazuo Ishiguro, goddamn it, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains Of The Day.

About the book:

“This is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

“A thrilling feat of world-building, a novel of exquisite tenderness and impeccable restraint, Klara And The Sun is a magnificent achievement, and an international literary event.”

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 2, 2021.

Friends & Dark Shapes by Kavita Bedford

Friends & Dark Shapes, $32.99 (paperback) 

About the book: 

“A group of friends moves into a share house in Redfern. They are all on the cusp of thirty and big life changes, navigating insecure employment and housing, second-generation identity, online dating and social alienation—and one of them, our narrator, has just lost her father.

“How do you inhabit a space where the landscape is shifting around you, when your sense of self is unravelling? What meaning does time have in the midst of grief?”

Written by Australian-Indian writer Kavita Bedford, Friends & Dark Shapes is a novel of love and loss, of constancy and change.

“Most of all, it is about looking for connection in an estranged world.”

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 2, 2021

Waking Romeo by Kathryn Barker

Waking Romeo, $19.99 (paperback)

About the book:

“Year: 2083. Location: London. Mission: Wake Romeo.

“Meet Jules: a surly (or just misunderstood?) teenager, dealing with the very real fallout of her wild romance with ‘golden boy’ Romeo. But things are far from rosy for Jules, especially when Romeo falls into a coma.

“It’s the end of the world. Literally. Time travel is possible, but only forwards. And only a handful of families choose to remain in the ‘now’, living off the scraps that were left behind. Then a handsome time traveller, Heathcliff Ellis, arrives with an important mission that makes Jules question everything she knows about life and love. Can Jules wake Romeo and rewrite her future? Does she even want to?”

It’s Romeo & Juliet meets Wuthering Heights. 

This is purely on my list for how chaotic the blurb is. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m getting The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde vibes.

Category: Young adult science fiction

On sale: March 2, 2021

Of Gold And Dust by Samantha Wills

Of Gold And Dust, $32.99 (paperback) 

About the book: 

Samantha Wills started her self-titled jewellery company on the kitchen table of her share house in the eastern suburbs of Sydney when she was just 21 years old. While her rise to the global stage looked meteoric to many, Samantha has said ‘It took me twelve years to become an overnight success.’

“Following Samantha’s journey, from being named a breakout star by The New York Times to barely being able to breathe on a hotel room floor, Of Gold And Dust is so much more than a business memoir. In her unique, confessional tone, Samantha tells the intimate details of her life and business, sharing her truths with a rare rawness and vulnerability.”

Here’s one for your mate(s) who started a business during lockdown. That’s not a jab, I know three people who did just that.

Category: Memoir

On Sale: March 2, 2021

The Care Factor by Ailsa Wild

The Care Factor, $24.99 (paperback)

About the book:

Simone Sheridan has one of the most sought-after skills today. As a nurse, her skill is to care. When COVID-19 began to spread across the world in 2020, Sim volunteered to retrain to work in Melbourne’s intensive care units. And as she prepared to go back to ICU and case numbers began climbing, Sim started talking to her friend Ailsa [Wild]. Through the exhaustion, the confusion, the many tears and the surprising moments of hilarity, Sim kept talking. And Ailsa started writing.”

Category: Non-fiction

On sale: March 3, 2021

Today I F****D Up by Thomas Mitchell

Today I F****D Up, $24.99 (paperback) 

About the book: 

“Today I F***D up is a collection of true tales that are equal parts hilarious and horrifying; a timely reminder that no matter how terrible things get, they could always be worse. So much worse.”

Mood.

Read the full blurb here.

Category: Non-fiction

On sale: March 3, 2021

Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert

Litty Committee

Act Your Age, Eve Brown, $19.99 (paperback) 

ROM-COM COMING IN HOT.

About the book: 

This is the third book in The Brown Sisters series from author Talia Hibbert.

“Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong – so she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins a wedding, her parents draw the line. It’s time for Eve to grow up and prove herself – even though she’s not entirely sure how…

“Jacob Wayne is always in control. The uptight B&B owner expects nothing less than perfection from his employees, so when a purple-haired tornado of a woman applies for his open chef position, he tells her the brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car – supposedly by accident.”

Love me some chaos, I tell you what.

Read the full blurb here.

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 9, 2021

Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi

Yolk, $19.99 (paperback)

About the book:

“Jayne and June Baek are nothing alike. June’s three years older, a classic first-born, know-it-all narc with a problematic finance job and an equally soulless apartment (according to Jayne). Jayne is an emotionally stunted, self-obsessed basket case who lives in squalor, has egregious taste in men, and needs to get to class and stop wasting Mom and Dad’s money (if you ask June). Once thick as thieves, these sisters who moved from Seoul to San Antonio to New York together now don’t want anything to do with each other.

“That is, until June gets cancer. And Jayne becomes the only one who can help her.

“Flung together by circumstance, housing woes, and family secrets, will the sisters learn more about each other than they’re willing to confront? And what if while helping June, Jayne has to confront the fact that maybe she’s sick, too?”

Category: Young adult general fiction

On sale: March 9, 2021

House Of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Litty Committee

House OfHollow, $19.99 (paperback) 

About the book: 

House Of Hollow is the latest novel from Aussie-born British author Krystal Sutherland. You may know her as the author of Chemical Hearts, which was adapted into an Amazon Prime series last year, starring Lili Reinhart.

Anywho, Sutherland’s latest novel is a dark and twisty modern-day fairytale about the unquestionably strange Hollow sisters. Let me just say the cover is STUNNING.

“The book follows three sisters who disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month later with no memory of what happened to them. Since then, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. 10 years later, one sister goes missing without a trace, leaving behind bizarre clues as the others are left to trace her last few days…”

Read the full blurb here.

Category: Young adult fiction

On sale: March 30, 2021

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne

Second First Impressions, $29.99 (paperback) 

About the book: 

“From the bestselling Australian author of The Hating Game comes the clever, funny and unforgettable story of a muscular, tattooed man hired as an assistant to two elderly women – under the watchful eye of a beautiful young retirement home manager.”

Second First Impressions comes from Aussie author Sally Thorne. Read the full blurb here.

Category: Fiction

On sale: March 31, 2021

As seen on Bookstagram…

Shadow And Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow And Bone, $19.99

I mean, the Netflix adaptation is coming out soon, so I thought I may as well see what all the fuss is about.

About the book:

Shadow And Bone focuses on Alina Starkov, a soldier who must make her first trek across the Shadow Fold – a swatch of unnatural darkness crawling with hellish monsters. When her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.

Now, Alina will enter a whole new world as she trains with the Grisha, her country’s magical military elite, and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling.

That’s basically the gist.

Category: Young adult fantasy

On sale: Now

The trailer for the Netflix series came out over the weekend and it is currently sitting on [checks notes] 1.8 million views. Gonna be another Big One, hey?

Welcome to the Grishaverse.

HELLLOOO Ben Barnes. 

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