BETWEEN THE LINES
Make a well-deserved date with one of the latest page-turners to hit our shelves.
Make a well-deserved date with one of the latest page-turners to hit our shelves.
THE NOWHERE BOY
Anne Cleary, Allen & Unwin
Winner of the 2025 Allen & Unwin Aotearoa NZ Fiction Prize, Anne Cleary’s debut novel explores the razor-thin line between love and obsession. When three-year-old Oliver vanishes from a remote beach carpark, suspicion and desperation ripple through everyone left behind. As the search for Oliver intensifies, another woman clings to the impossible belief she’s been handed a second chance at motherhood. Tense and impossible to put down, The Nowhere Boy is a haunting must-read for fans of psychological drama.
FAMESICK
Lena Dunham, HarperCollins
Part memoir, part reckoning, Famesick sees Lena Dunham reflecting on the dizzying highs and brutal fallout of fame. Charting the years after TV show Girls turned her into a cultural lightning rod, Lena writes candidly about chronic illness, addiction, ambition and the cost of living publicly while privately falling apart. The book peels back the glossy veneer of celebrity to reveal a woman trying to reclaim herself beyond fame.
YESTERYEAR
Caro Claire Burke, 4th Estate
This unsettling and addictive debut novel takes a sharp swipe at influencer culture. Natalie Heller Mills has built an empire selling the fantasy of wholesome pioneer living to millions online, with polished sourdough loaves, a cowboy husband, perfect children and all. Then she wakes to find herself trapped in the brutal realities of the 1800s she’s been romanticising. Darkly funny, Caro Claire Burke peels back the performance of modern femininity and asks what’s left underneath.
ORGAN SPEAK
Giulia Enders, Harper Collins
More than a decade after Gut, Giulia Enders is back with a wider look at the body’s inner workings. Organ Speak explores what our organs can teach us about stress, healing, safety and connection. Enders has a knack for making science feel surprisingly intimate, by swapping dry medical jargon for sharp storytelling and everyday insight. This is the kind of book that makes you pay closer attention to yourself.
WHY WE GARDEN
Hannah Moloney, Simon & Schuster
In Why We Garden, Australian gardening guru and Gardening Australia presenter Hannah Moloney digs beneath the soil to uncover what really draws us to growing things. Page by page, she weaves together stories from gardeners, artists, activists and everyday people to reveal how gardening nourishes far more than our backyards. Hannah makes a compelling case for gardening as an act of hope and care in an increasingly disconnected world.
RULE OF LIES
Jamison R Firestone, HarperCollins
This political thriller plunges readers into the chaos of post- Soviet Russia through the eyes of an American lawyer caught in the middle of corruption and rising authoritarianism. From mafia threats to exposing state corruption alongside Sergei Magnitsky and Alexei Navalny, Firestone’s real-life story unfolds with the pace of a spy novel. Rule of Lies is an eye-opening account of power and survival under Putin’s Russia.
Between the lines
Between the lines
Books A Plenty owners Scott and Sheree Brown reveal their all-time favourite books.
Books A Plenty owners Scott and Sheree Brown reveal their all-time favourite books.
Heartstopper
By Alice Oseman
Hachette (Publisher)
It's the first day back at Truham Grammar High School. Charlie Spring, an openly gay year 10, is seated next to Nick Nelson, a Year 11 boy from the rugby team. After being assigned next to each other in the new vertical form classrooms, they're quick to become close friends. But with this closeness, Charlie develops feelings for Nick that he is unsure goes both ways.
It's not often I come across a book series that I would read in one sitting, but Heartstopper is definitely one of them. In these heartwarming novels, Alice Oseman achieves a positive representation of queer love. Telling a story not of tragedy but of acceptance and celebration in identity and sexuality. Depicting so many relevant topics and presenting them in a realistic way, these books can be incredibly comforting. Heartstopper can be your best friend, and can help you feel like you're not alone in your struggles.
Sheree’s pick
The Alchemist
By Paulo Coelho
HarperCollins (Publisher)
The Alchemist is about a boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist who points Santiago in the direction of his quest.
A fantastic book full of wisdom and philosophy. The story bursts with optimism and shows that the journey to your destiny is as important as the destiny itself. I think this book is appealing because we all have dreams and sometimes we just want someone to tell us that they may come true. The Alchemist is a very exciting novel and it deserves a space on everyone’s bookshelf.
Hard Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World
By Haruki Murakami
Penguin (Publisher)
A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. This is science fiction, a detective story and a post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel.
I found the method of story telling, with the use of parallel story lines, fascinating. The book’s chapters alternate between futuristic Tokyo (Hard-Boiled Wonderland), and an isolated town with a perimeter wall (The End of the World). As the story picks up, the reader begins to notice parallels between these two vastly different and far away worlds.
Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy. Reading Murakami feels like experiencing a dream in book form.