Picks of the month
Book of the Month: August 2025
The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
New York bookseller Cassie Andrews is not sure what she's doing with her life. She lives quietly, sharing an apartment with her best friend, Izzy. Then a favourite customer gives her an old book. Full of strange writing and mysterious drawings, at the very front there is a handwritten message: "This is the Book of Doors. Hold it in your hand, and any door is every door."
Suddenly, Cassie and Izzy are confronted by violence and danger, and the only person who can help them is Drummond Fox who has a secret library of magical books hidden in the shadows for safekeeping, a man fleeing his own demons. The Book of Doors is a clever and beautiful novel about the power of books.
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Booked All Winter
Our title of the month is full of secret libraries and magical books. If you love reading, there's still time to join our Booked All Winter adult reading club on Beanstack. Track your reading, explore themed lists, share reviews and complete fun challenges for your chance to win Woollahra Bookshop vouchers and other great prizes. The challenge runs until Sunday 31 August, with winners announced on Monday 8 September.
Spotlight: Irish Fiction
Nesting by Roisin O'Donnell
On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan's relentless campaign to get her to come back. Tense, beautiful and gut-wrenching, Nesting is an unforgettable story of motherhood, underpinned by love, hope and resilience.
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Time of the child by Niall Williams
Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in the little town of Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean he has always been set apart from his community. His youngest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow, and remains there, having missed her chance at real love and passed up an offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family, and their role in their community are changed forever.
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Heart, be at peace by Donal Ryan
Some things can send a heart spinning; others will crack it in two. In a small town in rural Ireland, the local people have weathered the storms of economic collapse and are looking towards the future. But a fresh menace is creeping around the lakeshore and the lanes of the town, and the peace of the community is about to be shattered in an unimaginable way. Told in twenty-one voices, Heart, be at Peace is a heartfelt and lyrical novel.
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The amendments by Niamh Mulvey
Nell and her partner Adrienne are about to have a baby. For Adrienne, it's the start of a new life. For Nell, it's the reason the two of them are sitting in a therapist's office. Delving into the lives of three generations of women, The Amendments is an extraordinary novel about love and freedom, belonging and rebellion – and about how our past is a vital presence which sits alongside us.
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The Story Collector by Evie Woods
One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets. With a taste for the magical in everyday life, Evie Woods's latest novel is full of ordinary characters with extraordinary tales to tell.
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