Picks of the month
Book of the Month: May 2025
The Australian Ingredients Kitchen: Simple recipes using bushfoods by Elder Bruno Dann and Tahlia Mandie of Kakadu Plum Co.
In this accessible cookbook, bushfoods industry pioneer and Nyul Nyul Elder Bruno Dann and Tahlia Mandie of Kakadu Plum Co. have come together to share recipes and stories as part of Australia's ongoing journey towards reconciliation. There are 60 everyday dishes drawn from Elder Bruno's camp kitchen and Tahlia's family kitchen.
With more Australians cooking with bushfoods, we can better respect First Nations knowledge, as well as appreciating the importance of living in harmony with the land. The Australian Ingredients Kitchen offers a practical way to connect to Country and First Nations cultures.
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Spotlight: First Nations Stories
I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton
Based on the true story of Tasma Walton's ancestor, a powerful, heart-wrenching novel about maternal love that endures against pitiless odds. This sweeping novel asks us to consider who, in colonial history, were the real savages, and what it truly means to be civilised.
A Piece of Red Cloth: A novel from Arnhem Land by Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrwanga & Djawundil Maymuru
Batjani's beloved granddaughter Garritji is on the cusp of womanhood, about to go through the rituals preparing her for marriage. Batjani uses all means at her disposal to protect her granddaughter from the visiting Macassan trepang fishers, but she is betrayed. Can Garritji be saved? This powerful and unique novel is based on oral history and told through Yolngu eyes, with ancestors as the Yolngu remember them: proud, strong, resilient people in control of their world and interacting with foreigners on their own terms.
Red Dust Running by Anita Heiss
Matters of the heart have always made Annabelle run for the hills, literally. After a disastrous relationship effectively torches her personal and professional life in Sydney, Annabelle is back in Brisbane. Everything is going to plan until a birthday trip to the rodeo with her tiddas brings Annabelle up close and (very) personal with Dusty Davies, bona fide cowboy. Opposites may attract, but Annabelle's not built for the rodeo life. Anyway, Dusty doesn't take art and activism seriously like Annabelle does. It's just a country fling. Can Dusty convince Annabelle to compromise for love, or will he be just another cowboy left in the dust?
Murriyang: Song of time by Stan Grant
Stan Grant is talking to his country in a new way. In his most inspiring work yet, the Wiradjuri writer offers us a means of moving beyond the binaries and embracing a path to peace and forgiveness rooted in the Wiradjuri spiritual practice of Yindyamarra - deep silence and respect. In this grace-filled book, he zooms out to reflect on the biggest questions, ranging across the history, literature, theology, music and art that has shaped him, setting aside anger for kindness, reaching past the secular to the sacred and transcendent. It is a book for our current moment, and something for the ages.
Shapeshifting: First Nations lyric nonfiction edited by Jeanine Leane & Ellen van Neerven
Co-edited by Jeanine Leane and Ellen van Neerven, Shapeshifting is a wide-ranging collection of nonfiction by First Nations writers that breaks new ground. These lyric essays push the boundaries of nonfiction with pieces that experiment with form and embark on carefully crafting and re-crafting interventions that both challenge and expand existing genre structures. Shapeshifting brings to the fore a whole new genre waiting to take shape, to be formed, informed, and re-formed by First Nations Australian writers.