Better Read Than Dead Bookstore Newtown

MAY Book of the Month

Painting Portraits of Everyone I've Ever Dated

By Joseph Earp

We love a local debut! Especially one as funny and sharply observed as Joe’s here. Our protagonist Ellie Robertson has always wanted to be a painter – and just this side of thirty, it actually seems to be happening for her. Off the back of a big prize win, and under a level of scrutiny that brings out her immensely spiky nature, Ellie decides that her next project will be painting portraits of her exes. Certainly a cool and normal choice. What follows is a novel that beautifully represents the intersection of two of my favourite micro genres: women artists and slightly insane women.

To be honest, I find it hard to trust not-women authors to write ‘difficult’ women, but Ellie is authentically and precisely petty, hysterical, and root-for-able. Within the first few pages I’d laughed out loud multiple times, and exhaled sharply through my nose with a regularity that was probably concerning to outside witnesses.

– LEONA –

$34.99

MAY ILF Book of the Month

Not Telling

By Alison J. Barton

Not Telling, is a metaphor for cultural silence and its ongoing effects. Alison J. Barton’s debut poetry collection tells, through its non-linearity and bold depictions, the deep-seeded realities of colonial dispossession, its ongoing legacy and the legacy of those who continue to feel the weight of their own survival. Intergenerational grief, loss, a disruption of cultural practice and community, Not Telling offers a unique perspective on the invasion of Australia.

– FRANCESCA –

$27.00

MAY Kids Book of the Month

This Dream Will Devour Us

By Emma Clancey

Nora is gifted, beautiful, poor and desperate; her dead father has left her nothing but debts and her brother has contracted a mysterious illness. While trying to hold it all together, she is thrown into an abyss full of rich, ruthless, reality-warping characters. There’s dazzling fame, high-stakes magic, thrilling romance, and smirk-worthy banter.

Set in a New York contemporarily familiar yet completely alien, in a world where only the rich and powerful have access to magic, this is a captivating fantasy that blends a delightfully twisting plot with swoon-worthy romance, and an exploration of celebrity and inequality. The overall concept, when science and magic are fused together and those that have power will do anything to keep it, leads us through this cut-throat, adrenaline-charge page turner. 13+

– ROBERT –

$24.99

MAY Cookbook of the Month

Viet Kieu

By Thi Le

With two restaurants and a bánh mì bar under her belt, it is no wonder that Melbourne-based chef Thi Le has been hailed by many as the new voice of Vietnamese and South East Asian cuisine. In her debut cookbook (which also happens to mark the 10th anniversary of her flagship restaurant Anchovy), Thi takes a deep-dive into her culture’s food, sharing the mouth-watering (and beautifully photographed) recipes that have shaped her life and restaurants.

However, for me, it is the intimate and surprising stories that Thi includes here of growing up in Sydney’s West with a foot in two cultures that give us a true insight into her determination and passion for bringing us her heart-lifting, inspiring food.

– SYLVIA –

$55.00

Australian Fiction

Middle-Grade Fiction

Cooking

The Australian Ingredients Kitchen: Simple recipes using bushfoods

Third Culture Cooking: Classic Recipes for a New Generation

Slow Cooking: Wholefood recipes | Every recipe for slow cooker and oven or stove

Konbini: Cult recipes, stories and adventures from Japan’s iconic convenience stores

Biography

Australian Non-Fiction

Mean Streak: A moral vacuum, a dodgy debt generator and a multi-billion-dollar government shake down - the powerful story of robodebt from the award winning author of One Hundred Years of Dirt

Non-Fiction

The Fran Lebowitz Reader: The Sunday Times Bestseller

Lifestyle

How to be Enough: Seven life-changing steps for self-critics, overthinkers and perfectionists

All I Ever Wanted Was to Be Hot: Self image, beauty ideals and desirability

Art

Japanese Tattoo: The History and Evolution of an Art Form

This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance

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