Many great men are remembered for only one thing, and for Charles Todd it is building the Overland Telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin in the 1870s. David Dufty’s book Charles Todd’s Magnificent Obsession is not a biography but rather a venture story set against...

Ann Liang’s first novel for adults reimagines an ancient Chinese tale of deception and betrayal – and the life of a legendary beauty. Based on the story of one of the Four Beauties of ancient China, Liang’s novel is a gripping tale about love, war, sacrifice and...

The author of Love Objects and An Isolated Incident turns to historical fiction to tell the story of a young ninth-century woman whose quest for knowledge will not be denied. Rapture is a romance. Not just because it follows the love and passion of an unconventional...

Rodney Hall has won the Miles Franklin Award twice (Just Relations, The Grisly Wife); his new novel is a panoramic alternative history of the twentieth century. Queen Elizabeth II visited Brisbane on 9 March 1954 as part of her longest-ever Commonwealth tour. A...

Award-winning novelist Amitav Ghosh turns to non-fiction to chart the greed and racism at the heart of British and American opium sales to China. In researching his Ibis Trilogy novels – Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015) – which...