May new releases

‘You’re a politician, a public figure. What on earth were you thinking?’

Up-and-coming junior minister Gregory Buchanan has had a portrait painted of himself by the acclaimed artist Sophie White — a painting she intends to enter in this year’s Archibald Prize. Until then, Gregory has hung it in pride of place on his dining-room wall. It’s a life-sized standing portrait, practically photographic in nature. And it’s a nude.

His wife will be home soon and he thinks the painting will be a pleasant surprise. Even more surprising will be an unexpected accumulation of guests: his sardonic mother, his fundamentalist mother-in-law, his lycra-clad cycling-enthusiast sister, and the state premier, Louisa Wetherly — a senior minister has just resigned in scandalous circumstances, and she needs Gregory to step into the spotlight ahead of the coming election.

It’s going to be a wild afternoon, and an even wilder campaign — to do something about Gregory’s naked ambition.

Spring, summer, autumn, and winter: wherever you are, the seasons come and go, bringing changes both welcome and unexpected.

Japanese by birth, but transplanted to Europe in adulthood, Miki Sakamoto has spent a lifetime tending her garden and reflecting on its mysteries. Why do primulas bloom in snow? Do the trees really ‘talk’ to one another? What are the blackbirds saying today? And is there a mindful way to deal with an aphid infestation?

From rising early to walk barefoot on the grass each morning, to afternoons and evenings spent sipping tea in her gazebo or watching fireflies as she recalls her childhood in Japan, in Zen in the Garden Sakamoto shares observations from a life spent in contemplation — and cultivation — of nature. She shows us that you can create Zen in your life, wherever you live and whatever form your outdoor space takes.

A behind-the-scenes account of how a rural community found its own voice, elected its own independent representatives, and inspired a national movement that is transforming Australian politics.

Twelve people met for the first time at their local library in the rural and regional electorate of Indi in north-east Victoria one winter’s day in 2012, driven by a growing sense of despair about how their community was being represented. Beginning with shared values, they formed Voices for Indi, and set about engaging everyday people. They didn’t realise that the Indi Way — a new relationship between the community and its member of parliament — was being forged.

With the selection of Cathy McGowan as their independent candidate for the 2013 federal election, they hoped to make one of the safest Liberal seats in the nation marginal. In fact, after a highly innovative grassroots campaign, they delivered the Coalition its only loss. In 2016, McGowan repeated her feat, and in 2019 Indi made history when Helen Haines became the first independent in the Australian parliament to succeed a retiring independent MP. Haines was returned at the 2022 election with an even higher vote, joining the largest-ever cross bench in the House of Representatives.

This is the inside story of of how and why it all began, and has developed, told by many of the people closely involved. It is a revealing account of a community using values-based, respectful processes to rewrite the political playbook. And it shows why others — including over 40 ‘Voices for’ groups, and the Teal independents — have been inspired to do the same.

Collected wisdom from the internet’s best-loved advice columnist.

I recently learned from one of my co-workers that my boss gathered everyone together after I was hired and told them that I was nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, which isn’t true — I’d been very clear that I’m a trans man who uses male pronouns. How should I handle this?

My husband keeps leaving his toenail clippings around the house. I’ve started slipping them into his coffee cup. Is there a better solution?

I think I’m in love with my brother’s wife. What should I do?

A collection of the weirdest and wildest questions sent to Slate’s longtime agony aunt, internet darling Daniel M. Lavery, whose sympathetic, thoughtful, good-humoured advice is read by millions.

Featuring new material as well as fan favourites, this is a must-have for Dear Prudence fans and a dose of good sense, compassion, and understanding in an increasingly fractured world.

A professor falls in love with a mechanical ballerina in a mordant and uncanny fable of contemporary Hong Kong.

In the mountainous city of Nevers, there lives a professor of literature called Q. He has a dull marriage and a lacklustre career, but also a scrumptious collection of antique dolls locked away in his cupboard. And soon Q lands his crowning acquisition: a music box ballerina named Aliss who tantalisingly springs to life. Guided by his mysterious friend Owlish and inspired by an inexplicably familiar painting, Q embarks on an all-consuming love affair with Aliss, oblivious to the sinister forces encroaching on his city and the protests spreading across the university that have left his classrooms all but empty.

Thrumming with secrets and shape-shifting geographies, Dorothy Tse’s extraordinary debut novel is a boldly inventive exploration of life under repressive conditions.

The incredible, true story of a breathtaking rescue in the frenzied final hours of the US evacuation of Afghanistan — and how a brave Afghan mother and a compassionate American officer engineered a daring escape.

When the US began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Afghan army instantly collapsed, Homeira Qaderi was marked for death at the hands of the Taliban. A celebrated author, academic, and champion for women’s liberation, Homeira had achieved celebrity in her home country by winning custody of her son in a contentious divorce, a rarity in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society.

Despite her fierce determination to stay in her homeland, it finally became clear to Homeira that escaping was the only way she and her family would survive. However, like so many, she was mired in the chaos that ensued at Kabul Airport, struggling to get on a plane with her eight-year-old son, Siawash, along with her parents and the rest of their family.

Meanwhile, a young US foreign service officer, Sam Aronson, who had volunteered to help rescue the more than 100,000 Americans and their Afghan helpers stranded in Kabul, learned that the CIA had established a secret entrance into Kabul Airport two miles away from the desperate crowds crushing toward the gates. He started bringing families directly through, and on the very last day of the evacuation, Sam was contacted by Homeira’s literary agent, who persuaded him to help Homeira get out.

The story that follows is unbelievable but true. Zuckoff’s firsthand accounts come exclusively and directly from Homeira, Aronson, and Homeira’s literary agent. The Secret Gate is beyond riveting, and will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

A gripping new investigation into the underbelly of digital technology, which reveals not only how costly the virtual world is, but how damaging it is to the environment.

A simple ‘like’ sent from our smartphones mobilises what will soon constitute the largest infrastructure built by man. This small notification, crossing the seven operating layers of the Internet, travels around the world, using submarine cables, telephone antennas, and data centres, going as far as the Arctic Circle.

It turns out that the ‘dematerialised’ digital world, essential for communicating, working, and consuming, is much more tangible than we would like to believe. Today, it absorbs 10 per cent of the world’s electricity and represents nearly 4 per cent of the planet’s carbon dioxide emissions. We are struggling to understand these impacts, as they are obscured to us in the mirage of ‘the cloud’.

Some telling numbers:

• If digital technology were a country, it would be the third-highest consumer of electricity behind China and the United States.
• An email with a large attachment consumes as much energy as a lightbulb left on for one hour.
• Every year, streaming technology generates as much greenhouse gas as Spain — close to 1 per cent of global emissions.
• One Google search uses as much electricity as a lightbulb left on for up to two minutes.
• All of humanity produces five exabytes of data per day, equivalent to what we consumed from the very beginnings of the internet to 2003 — an amount that would fill 10 million Blu-ray discs which, piled up, would be as high as the Eiffel Tower.

At a time of the deployment of 5G, connected cars, and artificial intelligence, The Dark Cloud — the result of an investigation carried out over two years on four continents — reveals the anatomy of a technology that is virtual only in name. Under the guise of limiting the impact of humans on the planet, it is already asserting itself as one of the major environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.