This marvellous book is a treasure trove of objects often overlooked in conventional histories.

Lauren Elkin's compulsive need to wander the city in order to feel at home continues the tradition of the original flaneuse.

Madeleine O'Dea's book is a moving, intimate mix of history, memoir and reportage.

Anyone who has ever butted heads with a neighbour over boundaries will be predisposed to enjoy this book.

This anthology is a substantial collection of writing from such well-known names as Melissa Lukashenko, Omar Musa and Maxina Beneba Clarke, as well as newer writers.

After a very slow start, Rashida Murphy's novel picks up the pace about halfway through and rockets towards its shocking conclusion.

Hiromi Kawakami wrote the best-selling Strange Weather in Tokyo, and her new book seems to follow the pattern of the last one.

As far as symbolic issues inexplicably beloved by the conservative end of politics go, there have been few as passionately fought as their resolute objection to same-sex marriage.

According to Scottish writer Kate Atkinson, every novel is improved by the presence of a dog. It's advice that singer songwriter Holly Throsby has taken to heart in her debut novel.

Officials in charge of an Australian writers festival were so upset with the address by their keynote speaker, the American novelist Lionel Shriver, that they censored her on the festival website and publicly disavowed her remarks.

J.M. Coetzee has been knocked out of the Man Booker Prize. 

Lionel Shriver warned that inviting "a renowned iconoclast" to speak about community and belonging was "like expecting a great white shark to balance a beach ball on its nose".

This densely detailed book doesn't reveal much that is new but it does emphatically correct the misguided notion that Paul McCartney was the lesser talent of the Beatles' song-writing team.

A fresh and fascinating look into Ireland and one of its greatest families.

Read this column and you can't unread it. Sounds reasonable, right? Which is another way of saying that doesn't sound unreasonable, unlike saying that's reasonably unsound, which is plausible too, given this paragraph's hall of mirrors.

FICTION

Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton continue to delight readers at independent bookshops.

Sophie Hannah brings back Hercule Poirot and does an inspired job laying twists, ulterior motives and a breadcrumb trail of clues.

Top 10 sports books

For the couple in Matthew Griffin's poignant, beautifully written debut, the closet remains the world.

Paul Mitchell is a terse and observant writer, as alive to the particulars of Aussie idiom and experience as Tim Winton, but less showy.

Robert Gott's actor and sometime detective thinks he's Laurence Olivier, though he's more often reduced to hamming it up as a pantomime dame.

Former editor Mark Baker has authored a biography of war correspondent Phillip Schuler.

There's shock, anger and confusion when the real world crosses with a beloved children's book.

Now 86, the hugely influential Ursula K. Le Guin has received a rare literary honour.