Join The Australian Women’s Weekly Book Club!
We dig through the crop of new and exciting tales from authors at home and abroad to recommend you the very best in reading material.
Each month we publish our pick of the best books to dive into, as well as our Great Reads – the best of the best!
Plus, we’d love to hear from our bookworm readers!
Join us on Instagram and let us know what you’re currently reading, as well as your all-time favourite reads. Share a photo of your favourite book on Instagram using the hashtag #WomensWeeklyBookClub.
We can’t wait to hear from you.
Keep on scrolling to see our top book picks for June.
Great Read for June:
Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten
Historical fiction
Before Catherine the Great, there was Catherine I, the all-powerful Russian Empress who was catapulted from serfdom to the highest position in the land.
Her story is shocking and in UK-based author Ellen Alpsten’s intoxicating hands it’s also a vicious, bloody, sexy romp.
This is fearless historical fiction with a sharp contemporary frisson which offers a thought-provoking vision of the brutal, knife-edge lot of women at the time.
The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Coben
Thriller
Naomi Pine is bullied at Sweet Water High, so when she disappears, fellow student Matthew Crimstein is concerned.
His godfather is a rather unconventional detective called Wilde who 30 years previously was found in the New Jersey backwoods with no idea how he got there.
His search uncovers unsavoury secrets that implicate a reality TV star, now presidential candidate, and soon we are knee-deep in gripping subplots.
The Innocent Reader by Debra Adelaide
Memoir
A volume that covers everything from childhood awe at her parents’ leather-bound Reader’s Digests to Adelaide’s recommendation that anxious children should try reading to a dog.
One day she was baton-passed a book by a stranger on a train. “It was deliberate, practised, as if he were a character out of an Alan Furst [spy] novel.” Furtively she slipped it into her bag: it was an Alan Furst.
Desire Lines by Felicity Volk
Romance
Can true love conquer all? This is the question at the heart of Australian author Felicity Volk’s deeply affecting debut novel, and the answer is complex and devastating.
Set over five decades from 1952 and told in alternating narratives, we piece together the stories of Paddy and Evie.
Paddy O’Connor’s childhood is shocking, and that underlying trauma contaminates everything in his adult life.
Evie is raised in secure middle-class Canberra and follows her passion to become a famous landscaper.
Go Be Kind by Leon Logothetis
Self-help
A simple but utterly irresistible manifesto for making the world a better place. Go and be kind to someone every day, “because basically kindness makes people feel less alone”.
Tell a stranger you like their shoes; make their day – the tiniest of compliments can change a lonely life.
And at the end a tear-out Dear Leon “I helped someone feel less lonely today postcard” to send to him in LA. He donates a book to a child in need for each he receives.
The Beautiful Mother by Katherine Scholes
Contemporary fiction
The magical journey of motherhood is explored in this story of love and adventure in remote Tanzania.
Tasmanian-based author Katherine Scholes was born in Tanzania and her acute connection with the country provides a layered frame for her tale as well as evocative descriptions which transport you to the waves of lush pink as the Rift Valley’s famous flamingos descend in mating season.
It is 1970 and Essie Lawrence is married to an archaeologist who is working in the shadow of the volcano where four-million-year-old footprints have been discovered…
The Lost Jewels by Kirsty Manning
Mystery
Meticulous research, stories with social importance, pioneering characters, and effortless flitting from one epoch and city to another underpin Kirsty Manning’s cut-above historical fiction novels.
Based on a true story, we begin with a courageous child honouring her jeweller father’s wish to save his work, hidden in their cellar. She sees her mother and brother to safety first, as flames devour the city.
Present day, and Boston gemologist Kate Kirby is hired by Luxury magazine to get the first glimpse of the restored “buried treasure”, which will uncover a personal history of self-sacrifice and secrets.
Falastin by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley
Cooking
Modern Palestinian-inspired cooking that tempts your tastebuds and brings Middle Eastern flavours to the home cook with 110 recipes.
Ottolenghi restaurant co-founder, the Jerusalem-born Sami Tamimi, collaborates with food writer Tara Wigley to take us through Bethlehem, Nablus, Haifa, Galilee, the West Bank and more, telling the stories behind the food.
