Tracey Lee Holmes<\/strong>
Simon & Schuster, $36.99
<\/strong>In her memoir<\/a> about her personal, professional and intellectual life, Tracey Lee Holmes writes: \u201cI am a journalist. When so many run from an emergency in fear, we want to run towards it. We are witnesses to history.\u201d Her journalism is about sport \u2212 she seems to have covered everything and been everywhere \u2212 but here she writes about how she experiences the world through that prism, and what she has learnt about racism, misogyny and power. \u201cSport,\u201d she writes, \u201chas never been far from the most dramatic events in our history.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Author](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/36357a166644c5fa284301c89fb75bbeffccd803.jpeg\")
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Author Toni Jordan.Credit: Jason South<\/p>\n
Tenderfoot<\/strong> Borneo<\/strong> Katabasis<\/strong> R.F. Kuang\u2019s new book is nothing like her bestseller, Yellowface.Credit: Julian Baumann<\/p>\n No Dancing in the Lift<\/strong> Loading<\/p>\n Walking Sydney<\/strong> Discipline<\/strong> Buckeye<\/strong> Rebecca Solnit advocates drawn-out paths of influence in her essays.Credit: <\/p>\n No Straight Road Takes You There<\/strong> Desolation<\/strong> Why Do Birds Sing?<\/strong> The Secret of Secrets<\/strong> Gary Oldman plays Jackson Lamb in the TV adaptation of Mick Herron\u2019s Slow Horses novels. The ninth book in the series appears later this month.Credit: <\/p>\n Clown Town<\/strong> Writer and activist Arundhati Roy.Credit: AP<\/p>\n Mother Mary Comes to Me<\/strong> All the Way to the River<\/strong> Ian McEwan is as engaging as ever in his latest novel.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n What We Can Know<\/strong>
Toni Jordan<\/strong>
Hachette, $32.99
<\/strong>Toni Jordan\u2019s dad trained a couple of dishlickers, so she knows about what she writes in this story<\/a> of a seminal year in the life of 12-year-old Andie, whose adored greyhound-training father Eddie disappears, taking three of the family\u2019s four dogs with him. Narrated by an older Andie, she notes that \u201cwhen you\u2019re small, the world comes into focus like a Polaroid: smudged and indistinct, taking years to resolve to clarity\u201d. There\u2019s plenty of Jordan\u2019s trademark wit and warmth in Andie\u2019s getting of clarity.<\/p>\n
Michael Veitch<\/strong>
Hachette, $34.99
<\/strong>World War II ended 80 years ago last month, but Australia\u2019s amphibious invasion of Borneo between May and July 1945 was the war\u2019s \u201clast great campaign\u201d. In this revealing account<\/a>, Michael Veitch says of the action, which involved 80,000 personnel and resulted in 2000 casualties, \u201chighly placed members in both the government and the army considered the whole thing unnecessary\u201d. Nevertheless, Veitch says it remains Australia\u2019s largest, most complex and, and arguably most successful military campaign.<\/p>\n
R.F. Kuang
HarperVoyager, $34.99
<\/strong>Don\u2019t expect more of the same from the author<\/a> of the bestselling satire on publishing, Yellowface. She changes genres and styles almost every time she writes. If there\u2019s any similarity in Katabasis<\/a> it\u2019s to an earlier novel, Babel, her historical fantasy set in 19th-century Oxford. This time we\u2019re in Cambridge, from where PhD students Alice Law and Peter Murdoch have to descend into the Eight Courts of Hell to rescue Professor Jacob Grimes. A dark satire on university life, historical fantasy, tartarology, and a sort of love story to boot.<\/p>\n![\"R.F.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ef9997965d38f6f95aab464d1d2211d225a3a199.jpeg\")
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Mandy Sayer<\/strong>
Transit Lounge, $32.99<\/strong>
\u201cThe biggest myth about the death of someone deeply loved is that the relationship ends once the final breath is drawn,\u201d writes award-winning novelist and biographer Mandy Sayer. Her fourth memoir<\/a> begins after the death of her jazz drummer father Gerry \u2212 central to her first, Dreamtime Alice \u2212 but goes back to chronicle her care of him as cancer develops. She was also concurrently editing an anthology about Kings Cross with playwright Louis Nowra and as Gerry\u2019s health deteriorates, her relationship with Nowra blossoms. Reader, she married him.<\/p>\n
Belinda Castles<\/strong>
NewSouth, $34.99<\/strong>
The subtitle of this lovely volume<\/a> is \u201cFifteen Walks with a City\u2019s Writers\u201d and Belinda Castles says the writers open \u201cthe fabric of the contemporary city \u2026 that make the dreamlife \u2212 the real life \u2212 of this city\u201d. As they walk, writers such as Jazz Money, Michelle de Kretser, Larissa Behrendt, Malcolm Knox, Gail Jones, Michael Mohammed Ahmad and others discuss the places they are wandering through, what they mean to them and how their writing intersects with them. Psychogeography with a literary bent?<\/p>\n
Randa Abdel-Fattah<\/strong>
UQP, $34.99<\/strong>
September 2
<\/strong>This novel<\/a> by Randa Abdel-Fattah, originally to be called The Occupation, was the subject of objections by some Jewish leaders in Queensland, who accused the author of \u201cspreading misinformation and hate\u201d, but UQP stuck by its author. Abdel-Fattah\u2019s first book for adults is about how Ashraf, an academic, and Hannah, a young journalist, respond to the furore when 18-year-old Nabil Mostafa is arrested at a demonstration against an Israeli company and delves into the interface of academia, the media and the need not to be silenced.<\/p>\n
Patrick Ryan<\/strong>
Bloomsbury, $32.99<\/strong>
September 2
<\/strong>The American writer has published short-story collections and YA novels but now, after eight years in the writing, comes his first novel<\/a>, a story of two families and their interactions from World War II to the divisions over Vietnam. As news comes of the former\u2019s end, Cal Jenkins and Margaret Anderson spontaneously kiss in his hardware shop in Bonhomie, Ohio. That is the beginning of an affair that sparks the events of this engaging story. This large character-driven novel allows you to immerse yourself in it as secrets are gradually revealed.<\/p>\n![\"Rebecca](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2695e0f331ef135e0662286c49adbd4386a7b779.jpeg\")
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Rebecca Solnit<\/strong>
Granta, $36.99<\/strong>
September 2
<\/strong>In the introduction to this collection of essays<\/a>, the American author and activist says that in the past few decades the aim of her writing has been to \u201coffer not just my views but \u2026 equipment for anyone considering history, power, change, and possibility\u201d. Her title reflects her belief in \u201cthe drawn-out paths of influence\u201d. Among the diverse essays is one on Kronos Quartet founder David Harrington\u2019s 300-year-old violin, and another on life in San Francisco and the impact of Silicon Valley tech companies. Finally comes a brief \u201ccredo\u201d, in which she points out \u201cthere is no alternative to persevering\u201d.<\/p>\n
Hossein Asgari<\/strong>
Ultimo, $34.99<\/strong>
September 2
<\/strong>Hossein Asgari\u2019s first novel, Only Sound Remains, was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin last year. His second<\/a> is set mostly in the aftermath of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolution and begins with a writer in a cafe approached by an Iranian man, whom he calls Amin, with a story to tell. There is young Amin\u2019s developing, but hard-to-negotiate relationship with his neighbour, would-be writer Parvaneh, the tragedy of his adored elder brother Hamid dying when Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down and then his military service. At the heart of this novel, though, lies the power of story.<\/p>\n
Grainne Cleary<\/strong>
Allen & Unwin, $34.99<\/strong>
September 2
<\/strong>As we move into spring, are you being woken by the dawn chorus? What are all those songbirds doing and what do they get out of it? Following her book Why Do Birds Do That?, Grainne Cleary answers every question you could possibly want to know about that wonderful racket outside. The book<\/a> is a sort of extended explainer written in short informative chapters, packed full of insight and backed by considerable research. And Cleary was amazed to discover \u201cthe parallels between birdsong and how we learn our own language\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dan Brown<\/strong>
Bantam, $55<\/strong>
September 9
<\/strong>It\u2019s been a long time between drinks for fans of Dan Brown\u2019s Robert Langdon series \u2212 and let\u2019s face it, there have been millions of fans. In his seventh adventure<\/a>, Brown\u2019s Harvard symbologist is accompanying his partner, Noetic scientist Katherine Solomon, to an academic conference in Prague where she promptly vanishes. Setting his novel in a city such as Prague gives Brown scope to indulge himself in all sorts of mysterious skulduggery. If this is the sort of thing you like, then you\u2019ll like this sort of thing. And why not?<\/p>\n![\"Gary](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8c06a991f91a0497bf99e5e80d5fc9bd692197dc.jpeg\")
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Mick Herron<\/strong>
Baskerville, $32.99<\/strong>
September 9
<\/strong>Here we are back for the ninth time<\/a> with the denizens of Slough House, those exiled MI5 agents who have made catastrophe their boon companion \u2212 \u201closers and boozers\u201d, as Mick Jagger characterises them in his theme song for the TV adaptation of Mick Herron\u2019s Slow Horses novels. Under the guidance of fat, filthy and flatulent Jackson Lamb, they face dangers stemming belatedly from the Troubles in Northern Ireland, while egregious pollie Peter Judd and MI5 chief Diana Taverner are up to mischief again.<\/p>\n![\"Writer](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/37e8032feb8e1067340114db01aae95234b60395.jpeg\")
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Arundhati Roy<\/strong>
Hamish Hamilton, $36.99<\/strong>
September 9
<\/strong>Arundhati Roy\u2019s brother said their mother treated nobody as badly as she did the Booker prize-winning novelist, author of The God of Small Things. But Roy was distraught when Mrs Roy, as she calls her throughout this candid and surprisingly witty memoir, died suddenly at the age of 89 \u2212 \u201cwe had 60 years to discuss her imminent death\u201d. But this is not only a family memoir<\/a>. Here is her determination to be a writer \u2212 \u201cas a child, it\u2019s all I ever thought I\u2019d be\u201d \u2212 her love life, her acting experience and her gradual transition from writer to writer-activist.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Gilbert<\/strong>
Bloomsbury, $34.99<\/strong>
September 9
<\/strong>Elizabeth Gilbert stormed the bestseller lists with Eat Pray Love, Big Magic and her novels, The Signature of All Things and City of Girls. She was married, divorced and then fell in love with her best friend, Rayya Elias \u2212 only for Rayya\u2019s pancreatic cancer diagnosis to take her 18 months later. Both were addicts \u2212 Gilbert to sex and love, Rayya to drugs, which made her final few months \u201ca living hell for everyone involved\u201d. As Gilbert writes<\/a>: \u201cWe addicts can be some of the best people out there, and we can also totally be the worst.\u201d This book tells it all and more.<\/p>\n![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/e331619e310e8ac48cf819ac781ca4d76323ddeb.jpeg\")
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Ian McEwan<\/strong>
Jonathan Cape, $34.99<\/strong>
September 15
<\/strong>Post-climate catastrophe in 2119, when \u201cthe sea stood off at a respectful distance\u201d, academic Tom Metcalfe is continuing his obsessive research into a mysterious poem by Frances Blundy that was read at a dinner in October 2014 to celebrate Blundy\u2019s wife\u2019s 54th birthday. But the one copy of the mythical A Corona for Vivien, which he inscribed on vellum, vanished. Metcalfe is pulled between past and present searching for knowledge and gradually Ian McEwan, as engaging as ever, reveals the truths<\/a> behind the disappearance. What can you truly know of the past?<\/p>\n