Rebecca Sparrow

Nick Earls

Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is two weeks in the life of Joel Hedges and Cat Davis. Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother's faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke. Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, an even more annoying little brother, and a deep abiding hatred of Joel Hedges. Due to an unfortunate incident involving a leaking pen and suspected outbreak of Bird Flu, Joel and Cat are forced to sit next to each other in Extension English. To make matters worse, and to their mutual horror, they are paired together for a tandem story writing assignment. What ensues reveals a lot about how smug teenage boys are and what teenage girls really think. No, wait – it's about a sane female and an insane male. It's about revenge and mistaken identity.

Joel & Cat Set the Story Straight

While his parents are in Geneva, sixteen-year-old Dan spends his last year of high school living with his twenty-two-year-old bass-playing aunt, Jacq, and her beautiful friend Naomi, whose active lovelife is audible through the wall between their bedrooms. Original.

48 Shades of Brown

"This story covers six weeks of Richard Derrington's life in the house his grand-parents built at Brisbane's Red Hill. Six weeks of rumination, chaos, poor judgement, interpersonal clumsiness and, eventually, hope, as he stumbles from one crises to another." - summary taken from the cover of the sound recording of the same name.

Zigzag Street

Terry Whidborne

From award-winning author Nick Earls and illustrator Terry Whidborne comes a mysterious, action-packed series for the word nerd in us all. Lexi and Al Hunter are twins with almost nothing in common - except their parents and their birthday! At school Lexi hangs with her friends, while Al hides in the library reading about history, battles and faraway places. When the twins stumble upon an old dictionary their world as they know it changes. They are blasted into history to hunt down the words that threaten to vanish from our past and our present. Their lives and the future of the world are at stake. Can they find a way back home? Or will they be trapped in the past? For once, they'll need to depend on each other if they want to survive.

The Curious Dictionary

Alex Delaney, an Australian teenager feels bored while vacationing at his mother's beach house and is worried about passing his final examinations until he meets an attractive local girl.

After Summer

Adjusting to a new country and a new school was never going to be easy for Herschelle. The food is strange, it's so different to South Africa and, worst of all, no one understands the Aussie slang he's learnt on the web. But it's the similarities that make things really hard. Herschelle will have to confront racism, bullying and his own past before Australia can feel like home . . . A moving, funny new novel by one of Australia's best-loved authors.

Home

Jessica Adams

Helen Basini

Juliet Partridge

There's something for everyone. There's no collection like it . . . Even more great stories and poems, recipes and holiday fun, hilarious cartoons, terrific art, and tips from celebrities. If you thought Kids' Night Inwas cool, check this out . . . What a feast of stories! Visit kidsnightin.com.au for more.

A Feast of Stories

Kids' Night in 2

Bachelor Kisses

Alaska, 2018, and Mike is a long way from home, nursing a wrecked knee and an unspoken grief, striking out into real estate and parenting his partner’s son. London, 1978, and Simon is an Australian fish out of water navigating adolescence during the Winter of Discontent, and drawn to an eccentric impresario next door. Washington, DC, 1928, and a retired US senator is interviewed about his time in Russia in 1916, and his mission to save a young heir to an empire. Vienna, 1809, and an Irish teenager on the run from the law takes refuge among composers as Napoleon besieges and shells the city. Hong Kong, 2019, and estranged brothers Mike and Simon reunite in midlife to face the secrets of the past, and reconnect in more ways than one. Empires rise and fall, human lives play out, encounters, collisions and connections occur more than we can ever know – and yet, the unexpected can still happen. Endlessly compelling and inventive, Empires is a masterful novel in five parts with boys and men at its heart. Spanning centuries and crossing continents, it explores the empires we build, the way we see ourselves, the narratives we construct and the interconnectedness of all things. This is Nick Earls at his finest.

Empires

Christos Tsiolkas

Georgia Blain

Judy Nunn

Craig Silvey

Alex Miller

Rachael Treasure

Malla Nunn

Mark Dapin

Includes stories by: Maggie Alderson, Georgia Blain, Mark Dapin, Nick Earls, Alex Miller, Judy Nunn, Malla Nunn, Craig Silvey, Rachael Treasure, Christos Tsiolkas.

Ten Short Stories You Must Read in 2010

Bloomingdales, Nasti Boy, his mother's purse, the drugs sex and rock and roll of fast, abrupt celebrity. Jeff Forster is on a mission in New York and he's got to make this interview with the rapper Na$ti Boy pay. He's ushered into a private shopping spree, spends the night driving round the city with rap celebrity and his keeper Smokey. Gotham delves into the tensions of making it and missing out, the tensions of fame and its cost to family life. This quietly told, intelligent story rubs into the soul and causes reflection on some of the moral issues of our time.

#1 of Wisdom Tree

Gotham

Australian comedian Meg Riddoch has made it to the Big Time. She's an icon to her fans, a darling of the media, schmoozed by television networks and an A-list guest at festivals abroad.She's a month and three countries into her current tour, a week away from home in Brisbane - though what exactly 'home' means is problematic these days.On a flight between gigs, a recurring dream raises disturbing questions. It's Northern Ireland Meg can't escape - a secret life in another time, a life of lies, pacts and forbidden alliances.Haunting flashbacks provide clues to a past long ago buried. Then there's her relationship with Murray and where it went wrong . . .Out of the spotlight and beneath the punchlines, Meg discovers that memory will find a way to break the surface.Shifting in time and place between Canada, Australia and Northern Ireland, The Thompson Gunner is a compelling novel of self-discovery that will intrigue, surprise and linger well after the last page.

The Thompson Gunner

At university Josh had dreamed of investigative journalism, exposing corruption and changing the world for the better. After a romance and friendship fail simultaneously, he finishes his university studies with little motivation except a desire to head to London. He is now back in Australia, where his client is a law firm - but his pursuit of the truth becomes way more complicated than he'd ever expected.

The Fix

"'I'm not about to attack,' she said. She smirked with one side of her mouth and looked up at me through the black spray of her fringe. Her eyes were dark and already she was playing some kind of game with me, or that's how it seemed. Her voice was a little deeper and huskier than I might have expected, so her last line had come out with a hint of something that might have been menace or even seductiveness or just a pitch at adult banter. Whatever it was, it stuck with me and it punctuated the moment and it didn't feel quite right for a conversation with a schoolgirl on my doorstep." When Annaliese Winter walks down Curtis Holland's front path and into his life, he's ill-prepared for a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who's a confounding and seductive mixture of adult and child. After years travelling the world with his successful band, Butterfish, he's not used to having a neighbour at all, let alone one who appears unimpressed by the slightly chubby ex-rock star next door. So when Curtis receives an invitation to dinner from Annaliese's mother, Kate, no one is more surprised than he is when he not only accepts but finds himself being drawn to this remarkably unremarkable family. Even to Mark, a sebaceous fifteen-year-old at war with his own surging adolescence. As Curtis gets to know the Winters, he soon realises that with Kate divorced, Annaliese and Mark need a male role model in their lives, but it's hard for him to help when he's just starting to grow up himself and struggling to deal with the death of his father, and harder still when Annaliese begins to show an interest in him that is less than filial. Filled with acute observation, humour and tenderness, Butterfish is Nick Earls at his very best.

The True Story of Butterfish

This collection of stories showcase the calibre and versatility of Nick Earls at his perceptive best. An Australian wine-maker tries to crack the Taiwanese market. Two holiday-makers in Spain decide to tell a lie about each other every meal. A man drives home from work trying not to dwell on what he has just done. From Arizona to Taipei to suburban Brisbane, Nick Earls's characters lead ordinary lives that, in these stories, become far from ordinary. Ranging widely in style, setting and narrator, Welcome to Normal vividly captures the uniqueness of the everyday through its author's eye for detail and his unfailing aim at the human heart. By turns playful and thought-provoking, these stories showcase the calibre and versatility of Nick Earls at his perceptive best. 'A writer hitting his straps with gusto.' - The Australian

Welcome to Normal

Life. This could be the best summer of Kane's life . . . This summer is different because there's a new girl in town. It's different because she's Tanika Bell – occasional bus driver, regular optimist and, it turns out, woman of the world. But expecting life to play by the rules is like making laws for clouds. Kane's whole family has never worked by the rules. His dad ran off years ago, his mother's still chafing and drinking, and she's really bad on her bad days. Summer sets in, hot and humid, and Kane works the road verges. But he's got lofty ambitions, he's got Tanika on his mind and he's going to make this summer count, whatever it takes. Once again Nick Earls is poignant, sharp, very funny and sometimes achingly sad. Making Laws for Clouds gives us the good times, shows us the bad, and – just like Kane – looks to making something hopeful for the future.

Making Laws for Clouds

From the moment he hears her voice over the fence, Matt Sherman knows he has to meet the twins' cousin, Monica Bloom. She's just flown in from Dublin ready for the start of school, but not at all ready, as it turns out, for what the year holds. A scandal at Matt's father's work plays itself out in the media. Matt feels his family changing, his life changing, the certainties of his world slipping away. Meanwhile, Monica Bloom finds trouble of her own, and Matt finds that he can't stop thinking about her. A funny and beautiful story about the power of first love and memory, expectations and change. About Nick Earls' novels: ". . . poignant and perceptive" Cleo ". . . warm, funny and deeply moving" Courier Mail ". . . written with verve and intelligence" The Bulletin

Monica Bloom

This January is different. School is over for Alex Delaney and he's waiting for his tertiary offer - only 17 days away. The waiting is killing him. He's not expecting much from January. Bodysurfing, TV, but mainly waiting. So he's not ready for the girl who cuts past him on a wave. Not at all prepared for her perfect balance on the board, the bare elegant muscles of her shoulders and back. Just a girl. Compelling green eyes, gold skin something graceful and elusive about her. January is about to change.

After January

Ten years have passed since Jon Marshall's bachelor days and life has not taken the path that he expected it would - He has a good practice, a nice house and good friends, but he also finds himself a widower with a baby daughter - A darkly humorous story.

Nick Earls

About

Books

Join the club