Spineless Wonders: 40 books

A thrilling work of historical fiction, ‘Remembering Mardion’ brings ancient Egypt back to life for us to experience and enjoy. ‘Remembering Mardion’ takes us back to Ancient Egypt, to the time of Cleopatra, and invites us to take part in the adventures of Mardion, a mysterious servant...

The Lives of the Dead short story collection begins and ends with a road trip. The outsider characters defy authority. They seek or are captured by memories of the past, tied up inextricably in landscape. These travellers of highways and trainlines are preoccupied with the lives of the dead, lost...

‘This was what you wanted: to have somewhere you were meant to be.’ Donna is struggling with change. After moving into a new town, seeing her daughter start school and getting a job with the local drop-in centre, she feels more mixed up and out of place than her five-year-old. Life is complicated....

This anthology harvests the voices of writers from all over the world, in fictional reflection on what the world to come looks like from where they are writing, in place and in time. Editors Patrick West and Om Prakash Dwivedi have selected stories across a range of genres that will surprise, delight, enthrall and even horrify.

Easy-going Orley has until recently enjoyed a casual lifestyle, running an ageing caravan park in a less than salubrious resort town, surrounded by a family he loves and on whom he has largely depended. But nothing ever stays the same. When those foundations that have been his world are threatened...

Z works within Treasury in a government where knowledge and alliances are power, and people are bought, used and manipulated. Z is blindsided when he learns that he has been “bought” by the highest ranked official of a dangerous government agency, who took advantage of a sinister new law....

In ‘Rent’, Anthony Lynch explores the tensions that can arise in shared houses and the surprising power of passiveness, in a simple yet intriguing narrative. Rae, a postgraduate student, lives in a terrace with her dog, Nana. After posting an advertisement seeking a new housemate, she meets...

When her expectations of happiness and family evaporate, Audrey sets out determined to re-establish a crucial relationship.

In ‘Love Bites’, Andy Kissane captures the different facets of a mother-daughter relationship – the tension, unequivocal love and support and the way in which there can often be parallels in the choices that they make in their lives. Emily, a research scientist, is conducting malaria...

Stephanie is a young girl who escapes into the imaginary world of Toodleton where she is a hero, not a victim. Stephanie is a young girl who escapes into the imaginary world of Toodleton where she is a hero, not a victim. But when a deadly poison threatens lives including the very existence...

A moving story told with gritty realism and vivid imagery, reconstructed through storytelling, emails and unreliable memory. Left alone for the day at the lake by their father, four children wander off on adventures which put each of them at risk. In ‘The Lake Story’ by Ron Elliott,...

As pressure and anger over a new fence builds, more profound personal divisions become evident which will prove far more difficult to comprehend. Rani’s new neighbours want to replace the old fence between their two yards. But for Rani, the fence is no mere boundary. It is the centrepiece...