Brunswick Bound Books

Another year over and it's time to have a look at what Brunswick was reading this year. Almost all non-fiction titles on the list this year with the exception of Sally Rooney's much lauded Normal People .  (I hear she might have something coming in 2019, so keep your eyes peeled for that...). Interestingly enough, only 4 books on the list were actually published this year. Dark Emu was by far our bestselling book this year, which is fantastic.  Originally published in 2014, the new edition of this very important book reignited the conversation about what we truly understand about Aboriginal culture and was followed up by Marcia Langton's Welcome to Country and Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia (which also features on our Top 10 list), which also made their way onto many of your bookshelves. Self-publishing was represented, with Grungewick sitting solidly in the middle of our list.  Editor Michael Winkler was also part of our First Chapters event series this year....

Angela Meyer's writing has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories , Island , The Big Issue , The Australian , The Lifted Brow and Killings .  She has previously published a book of flash fiction. Angela has worked in bookstores, as a book reviewer, in a whisky bar and for the past few years has published a range of Australian authors for Echo Publishing, including award-winners and an international bestseller ( The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris).  She grew up in Northern NSW and lives in Melbourne. Angela will be reading from her debut novel A Superior Spectre . 1.       Brunswick Bound has asked you to read a chapter from your published work.  Tell us what we can expect from the chapter you have chosen? I hope it will transport you in time and space, while also making you feel completely present in your body… 2.       How would you describe the kind of books that you writ...

Marlee Jane Ward is a writer, reader and weirdo living in Melbourne.  She likes dreaming of the future, cats, and making an utter spectacle of herself.  You can find her short stories in the  Hear Me Roar Anthology ,  Interdictions  and  Mad Scientist Journal . Her novella  Welcome to Orphancorp  won the 2015 Seizure Viva La Novella Prize and the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction. The final instalment in the Orphancorp trilogy,    Prisoncorp , will be published in 2019. Marlee Jane will be reading at First Chapters on Friday 1 February .  We asked her some questions to get to know her better. 1. Brunswick Bound has asked you to read a chapter from your published work.  Tell us what we can expect from the chapter you have chosen? I haven’t chosen which one yet! Last time I waited until the last minute to choose, I ended up reading a sex scene to a packed bar while rather ...

Corey J. White is a writer of science-fiction, horror and other, harder to define stories.  He is the facilitator of the nothing here newsletter featuring commentary and opinion from Marlee Jane Ward, Austin Armatys, John English and m1k3y.  Corey is also one half of Oh Nothing Press , purveyors of narratively-dense artefacts and weird cultural errata. Corey will be reading from Killing Gravity , the first book in the VoidWitch Saga trilogy at First Chapters on Friday 1 February.   We asked him some questions to get to know him better.  Here's what he said. 1. Brunswick Bound has asked you to read a chapter from your published work.  Tell us what we can expect from the chapter you have chosen? I’m going to read a chapter from early in Killing Gravity – one that introduces readers to most of the important characters across the full trilogy, and will also give them a good idea of tone of the series, and the sort of action they can e...

By Chloe (age 11) I really enjoyed this book because I liked the storyline and the themes it was set on.  I found the book had a major issue although most of the drama happened in the last part of the book.  It was slow to get to the drama because the story just kept going through Olivia's everyday life, one day at a time, where some some stories might skip a week to get to the exciting part. I noticed that most of the sentences were simple sentences rather than compound and complex sentences. The story held a really important theme of care/help, ignorance and truth.  Olivia and Berk didn't have much of an idea about what was going on with their parents, so I think their parents should have sat down with Olivia and Berk to tell them what was going on and not to hide the truth from them. I think that Bart is a really important part of the story.  As soon as Bart comes into the story he gives Olivia hope.  She then starts to face every day with a bit mo...

By Greer (age 10) I really liked You May Already Be A Winner , because it was realistic and described a life that was not like mine.  It made me think about the way that other people might live.  The book gets it's title because although the main character does have a hard life at the start of the novel, she wins back a better life for herself and her family by the end.  However, she never wins any of the hundreds of competitions she enters! Olivia lives with her Mum and sister in a trailer park in America.  Her Dad has left and she doesn't know why, but predicts that he is being a ranger in Bryce Canyon.  She has to take care of her sister Berkeley and her Mum (in a way) so she doesn't go to school much.  She has a wild imagination and she can turn a little ordinary thing into a big dream.  She has her gut talking to her just like in The Song From Somewhere Else (our September book club book).   She makes a friend named Bart, who says...

Katherine Collette is a writer and environmental engineer.  Katherine will be reading at First Chapters on Friday 2 November from her debut novel The Helpline . We asked Katherine a few questions about her writing and here is what she had to say. 1. Brunswick Bound has asked you to read a chapter from your published work.  Tell us what we can expect from the chapter you have chosen? You will meet Germaine.   Germaine is the main character in The Helpline .   She’s a woman who is very good with numbers and not so good with people, as will become apparent.   2.       How would you describe the kind of books that you write? Officially, the term is ‘up lit’, i.e. uplifting literature. I write and, as a reader, seek positive stories because I think life is good. There’s a lot that’s wrong with the world but there’s a lot that’s great about it too.   To be more specific, I like writing about ...