Book Babble

Greek-Australian author Olympia Panagiotopoulos shares stories of family, food and love in her new memoir Beneath the Fig Leaves. Read an extract and try your hand at her recipe for Fig Leaf and Vanilla Cream.

Pip Williams, author of the exquisite historical novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, recognises the work of women in compiling the Oxford English Dictionary.

We’re pleased as punch that Paul Byrnes’s The Lost Boys has been named Illustrated Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the ABA’s Indie Book Awards. We asked Paul to share what it was like for him in putting together The Lost Boys.

When we had the idea earlier this week to blog about the books we would read while social distancing, it was somewhat hypothetical. But things have changed rapidly; now we find ourselves working from home and our weekend plans are out the window. Luckily our bookshelves are prepared and stacked with Affirm Press favourites to keep our minds off the news. But we also put together a list of the books from other publishers we’ve got lined up – we can assure you none of these include the words COVID-19.

Read the introduction to Angela Williams’s powerful new memoir Snakes and Ladders, revealing the dark truth of Australia’s justice system through the eyes of a woman sent to prison twice for the same crime.

The most effective way to lessen your wardrobe’s environmental impact is to love the clothes you already have and make them last as long as possible. And that means mending and maintenance.

Award-winning writer Wayne Macauley did us the honour of launching Wayne Marshall’s debut collection, Shirl, at Melbourne’s Hill of Content last night and gave a speech so delightful and heartfelt that we wanted to share it here.

Here are some of our favourite holiday reads from other publishers.

Michael Sexton, author of Border’s Battlers, shares his experiences from Asia’s largest sports literature festival.

Author Vikki Conley remembers cherished childhood Christmases that shaped Christmas Wonder, her charming new picture book illustrated by Cheryl Orsini that captures the magic of an Australian family Christmas.

New profit-for-purpose book We Are Here, edited by former Big Issue deputy editor Meg Mundell, is a vibrant and moving collection of true stories showcases the creative talents of people who have known homelessness.

The idea for The Lost Boys started in Belgium in summer 2017, with a gravestone and a pint of Belgian beer. Paul Byrnes had been researching in the battlefields, when he noticed a gravestone that mentioned an under-age soldier. Here, Paul shares how his this discovery turned into a book.

To commemorate the fifty years since Peter Brock first got behind the wheel at the iconic Bathurst racing circuit, his long-term partner Bev Brock joins teammates, racing rivals and friends to relive every Bathurst race of his legendary life in Brock at Bathurst.

Susan White’s day job as a clinical geneticist sees her hunting for answers to undiagnosed conditions in children. In her writing, Susan aims to take readers inside the medical world (without the boring bits) and her first book, the exceptional YA novel Take the Shot, does just that.

Affirm Press has pledged to support worker participation in the global climate strike on Friday 20 September, three days before the UN Climate Action Summit.

Christian White, author of The Nowhere Child, returns on 24 September with his highly anticipated follow-up, The Wife and the Widow, Find out how Australia’s booksellers reacted to The Wife and the Widow, and check out Christian’s tour dates for an author visit near you.

For much of my life, fear has been invisibly woven into the fabric of my existence, regularly whispering helpful pearls in my ear such as ‘Life is dangerous,’ and ‘You’re crap at this’. So perhaps I wasn’t the most obvious person to end up walking 3,000km solo from one end of New Zealand to the other – but in the end, this journey chose me.

The theme of this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival is ‘When we talk about love’ and it all kicks off this Friday 30 August. Inspired by the event Love Letter to a Book, the Affirm Press team shares a heartfelt note to a book from our past, thanking it for the way it shaped and moved us.

Fiona Hardy’s brilliant debut novel How to Make a Movie in 12 Days is, in part, an homage to her long-held love of all things film. (If you couldn’t tell by the title, just check out the 20-page school holidays movie guide at the back of the book.) Here, Fiona shares five films that kick-started her movie madness.

Father’s Day is this Sunday 1 September, but don’t panic if you haven’t gotten a gift for Dad yet: Affirm Press may have just the ticket.

Mad Dogs and Thunderbolts is the fourth book in Ben Pobjie’s uproarious appraisal of Australian history. But what is it about the past that fascinates Australia’s most irreverent historian so much?

Dave Glasheen has lived alone on Restoration Island for more than 20 years, since he lost his fortune in the stock market crash of 1987 and opted out of the rat-race for good. But what does it take to find happiness on a deserted island? Dave shares the five things he always keeps stock of on Resto.

Justin Heazlewood’s memoir Get Up Mum is partly built around tape cassette recordings Justin made of his family when he was 12, including recordings of his mum who lives with schizophrenia. ABC Radio National’s Life Matters adapted Get Up Mum for a special podcast series, with plenty of original recordings woven in.

Author–illustrator dream team Nick Falk and Tony Flowers have joined forces again for a hilarious new junior fiction book, Vognox the Viking and the Island of Skeletons. This rollicking adventure story entices struggling readers through visual storytelling techniques. Catch Tony Flowers at the Byron Writers Festival on Friday 2 August.

So She Did celebrates the life of May Wirth, who was born in Bundaberg in 1894 and went on to become an internationally famous circus performer. May was renowned for being the first woman in the world to perform the back across – an incredibly risky trick that involved somersaulting from one cantering horse to another. That she did it at a time when girls and women weren’t encouraged to be daring makes it all the more impressive.

At 24, Georgie Dent had the world at her feet – but within a year she was suffering such crippling anxiety that she admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital. Georgie shares what this difficult time was like, and how she relived it when writing her memoir Breaking Badly.

On my five-year anniversary with Affirm Press, Keiran and Martin decided that I’d proofed enough proofs and talked enough authors back from the brink to earn some kind of reward. I thought the idea of a long-service award was lovely, but I’ll admit, when they first brought it up I expected maybe a nice pen – certainly not the chance to spend a working week anywhere in the world for a professional development experience.

Author Maggie Hutchings and illustrator Cheryl Orsini, who teamed up for the much-loved Unicorn!, join forces again in Mermaid!, a magical new story about friendship and the wonders of the sea. Maggie shares how her day-to-day work with children as a family counsellor feeds into her work as an author.

Affirm Press editor Coco McGrath teamed up with award-winning illustrator Sarah Firth to create Badass Mums: 30 Boundary Breaking Women Getting Sh*t Done. Illustrator Sarah Firth shares why her own mum, Dianne Firth OAM, is the definition of badass.

Award-winning creator Jess Racklyeft shares the inspiration behind her heartwarming new book as author–illustrator, There’s Only One Mum Like You, celebrating the big and small ways that mothers show their love every day.

In the spirit of the ‘Desert Island Books’ series at Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Affirm Press team shares which single book they’d want to take with them if they were castaways on a desert island.

Professor Susan Hurley shares the scientific approach she applied to the plot of her brilliant debut thriller, Eight Lives.

We’re lucky to be hosting Freya Horton Andrews, a fabulous intern courtesy of the Publishing Industry Internship Program run by our friends at the Australian Publishers Association.

Angela Wales left behind her Australian bush childhood to embark on an archaeological adventure in Greece.

Alice Robinson reflects on four stories that capture the bold – and often uncomfortable – truths of motherhood.

Affirm Press is delighted to announce that our Mentorship Award with Varuna Writer’s House in 2019 will focus exclusively on Young Adult and Middle Fiction submissions for the first time.

When award-winning author Richard Newsome tried his hand at a writing experiment, he never expected it would turn into a three-book deal – but perhaps the bigger surprise was the way that his new character, Stella McNaught, took on a life of her own.

In Imperfect, Lee Kofman explores what it’s like to live in a body that deviates from the norm. Here, she shares some of the lessons learnt while researching and writing her fascinating new book.

Bad Yogi traces the two years I spent training to become a yoga teacher while seeking treatment for an eating disorder. We in the yoga community can get our heads stuck up our asanas sometimes and I wanted something that would acknowledge the pain, but also make me laugh.

Affirm Press is delighted to join forces with the Western Sydney literacy movement Sweatshop to establish a mentorship which will enable two Western Sydney writers from culturally diverse backgrounds to develop their debut novels.

Greg French is best known as a master fly fisher, and he shares many of his wondrous fishing stories in his book Water Colour. But what many readers may not realise is that he has plenty of encounters with creatures much furrier, and bigger, than fish: bears. He shares here some incredible stories and photos from over the years.

We recently celebrated the launch of John Tesarsch’s brilliant third novel, Dinner with the Dissidents, where Lee Kofman shared some of her insights into this literary thriller, set in the tumultuous times of 1970s Moscow.