OUR BOOKSELLERS

Meet our Matilda booksellers - what they’ve liked lately and some of their all-time favourite books and authors.

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MOLLY

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They by Helle Helle

This is a stunning portrait of an enmeshed relationship between a solo mother and teenage daughter, as both negotiate the mother's slow descent into illness. It is the small rituals and conversations that highlight the tenderness between these two, so that while grief threatens to submerge them, we are given a glimpse into the ordinary ecstasies of adolescence and middle age. Elegant sentences lift this into the realm of poetry. MOLLY

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JO

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A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan

This evocative and gripping novel, told from the perspective of a young girl and set over summer in a small New Zealand town, kept me enthralled until the last pages. From the outside everyone seems happy, but secrets, both big and small, are eventually uncovered which change things forever. Trevelyan writes beautifully and sustains a tone of barely-concealed tension throughout.
I really enjoyed this. Jo

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GAVIN

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On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas

In language as precise and faultless as the Swiss watches made where this novel is set, Thomas takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey through Switzerland and the myriad artists who have intersected with it during their careers. Told in multiple modes, this mosaic of travelogue, fiction and history fits together seamlessly to produce a telling portrait of a woman travelling alone to the country of her father’s birth after his sudden death. While narrative spine of On Not Climbing Mountains is only loosely sketched, the Swiss Alps are the granite thread that loom over the dreamlike air that this wonderful novel inhabits. GAVIN

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ROSE

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Brawler by Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff returns with a stunning collection of short stories that places her definitively as one of the best living writers working in the English language. Each of the nine stories draws us instantly into a pivotal moment in the characters’ lives, from sexual awakenings to natural disasters to the choking tendrils of privilege. The writing is brilliant and Groff’s ability to deliver a gut-punch never wanes. This book deserves a place on your bookshelf. ROSE

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KASEY

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Plastic Budgie by Olivia de Zilva

This brutally funny debut really nails the brutal, and yet finishes with a hopeful glimpse of things to come. Whether you consider this fiction / autofiction / memoir, you’ll find the narrator well-realised and haunting. The cultural touchpoints of growing up in Y2K Adelaide offer an accessible means to identify with the narrator, whilst also allowing glimpses of the ways that grappling with cultural heritage in the face of racism underpinned the narrator’s childhood and shaped their later years too. De Zilva’s voice is powerful and provoking. This is a stunning debut. KASEY

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HEATHER

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Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

I knew from page one that I loved this book. The ‘funny-and-moving family drama’ book market is saturated with mediocre reads; this one is a unicorn. Shifting between perspectives of the unravelling Flynn family, our characters are richly drawn, darkly humorous and magnetic. The book flirts with becoming a mystery in the second half, but always remains anchored in the gravitational pull of the family dynamic. My cup was left feeling full. A break-the-glass book for when you need a bit of levity in your reading. HEATHER

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NADIA

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Body Double by Hanna Johansson

Consider this my official formation of the Hanna Johansson fan club! This Swedish literary thriller, with Hitchcockian levels of tension, had me gripped from the very first page. Two women accidentally swap coats, and a transcriber hears someone speaking to her at the other end of the tape. In typical Johansson style, she weaves desire, obsession and loneliness seamlessly, which makes for an utterly intoxicating read. NADIA

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EMILIE

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The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin

“If we set fire to the books… How much simpler that would be.”

Receiving word of her Father’s death, Agathe returns to her childhood home, a chateau in rural France where she felt little nurturing. There is also the psychologically loud company of her mute sister Vera. Resentment and hostility crackle in the silence between the sisters as they orbit each other, the mounds of debris to be sorted and the conversations that truly need to be had.

A beautiful study in quiet anger. Agathe and Vera’s relationship ricochets from bewildered affection to seething rage and back and forth and up and down in a dizzying, fascinating way. Emilie

ASK OUR BOOKSELLERS

Do you need a hand choosing your next book?

Our Matilda booksellers are now offering a book recommendation service. If you’d like to fill out the form here, our widely-read staff will be in touch soon with their personal selections.