Here at Litty Committee, we bloody love a book. So for this edition, we thought we’d bring some gorgeous gorgeous recommendations and mini book reviews
PenguinWho:Category:What I liked about this book:Junji ItoTomieSmashedJunji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & MuThe Hitchhiker’s Guide To The GalaxyWhere to buy:Amazon ($37.99)Booktopia ($39.35)
right to your front doorstep (or you know, your laptop screen).
But we knew we couldn’t do it alone, so we’ve asked some of our most trusted PEDESTRIAN colleagues to hit us up with the this year and by golly did they deliver.
Oh, and in case you missed it last month, there’s still time to get involved in the The prize opened on April 21 and will close on July 8.
The winner will score a cool $10,000 donated by Hachette Australia and a 12-month mentorship. If you’re an Aussie citizen or resident who’s over 18 and loves to write, this one’s for you. It’s open to anyone who has never had their work published by a commercial publishing house.
You can suss out all the details .
Here’s a breakdown of the best books we’ve read in 2022: from true crime to fiction to biographies. There’s something for everyone. And trust us, we have great taste.
Bella
YA Fantasy
It’s a YA fantasy about a girl called Kiva, who was sentenced to life imprisonment as a child. Zalindov is a brutal place where most people don’t even survive a month living out their sentence, but Kiva has managed to survive about 10 years in this “death prison”. When she receives a coded message that orders her to keep an incoming prisoner alive, she must “volunteer as tribute” in a series of deadly trials that require magic to survive (something she does not have).
I’m a sucker for a YA fantasy novel, but I was sold on this book when I found out it’s based on WA’s Fremantle Prison. It explores complex mental health issues such as depression. It has the most twist at the end of the first book that left me thinking about it for months afterwards. It’s also a complete series now since the final book, , was released at the end of May. Happy binging!
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Chris
Biography
If you ask a certain generation of punks, there’s no greater sin than selling out. But in the mid-’90s, when underground music broke into the mainstream, suddenly these alternate acts became the hottest acts around, with major record labels lining up around the block to give them major deals. While signing to a major label helped some bands blossom and become household names, other acts weren’t so lucky.
covers the origins of some of the biggest punk and alternative bands of the era, including acts like Green Day, Blink 182 and My Chemical Romance, and the effect that signing to a major label had on their careers and the genre of a whole. Through a series of profiles detailing both the success and failures, explores whether selling out is essential for a band to make it big, a necessary evil, a blight that runs against the genre’s sense of authenticity and anti-corporate beliefs, or maybe a grey combination of all of the above?
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Ellie
Biography and memoir
I’m definitely not ahead of the curve with this recommendation but > was so beautiful. So many happy and sad tears were shed as I read it. It’s perfect for ending a reading slump because you can knock through only a few pages and finish one story.
Also, this may be a downer, but I am terrified of anything bad happening to people I love and reading about how so many regular Aussies handled loss made me feel a little less scared.
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Josie
True Crime
I am a but haven’t read or listened to a new book in ages. I finally stopped re-listening to long enough to devour ‘ memoir on Audible.
I was hyped for it because as a forensic expert/investigator he’s worked on some massive cases (Golden State Killer, Jaycee Dugard, Laci Peterson) but I actually found the tea about his personal life the most fascinating. How he got married young and struggled to balance his career, his marriage and being a father. It’s nice to meet the person behind the heroic crime solving and discover he’s only human after all! (Also he has a nice soothing voice, a bonus.)
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Maggie and Jasmine
Fiction
This debut novel from Melbourne writer is truly something special. I won’t compare her to a certain author, but her observational and inwards-peering perspective makes for such personal and heartfelt writing. Set predominately in Southern Italy, it’s viscerally emotive and a pleasure to devour; I kept reaching for this book as a way to escape Melbourne’s winter. It’s a beautiful book that touches on family, friends and grief.
Set between Melbourne and Italy, this book is a beautiful tale of grief and love while feeling like you’re on a sun-drenched holiday yourself.
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Ruby
Manga
I love the vast majority of ‘s horror manga, from to . He’s truly the king of the craft. However, one book of his, that happens to be one of his shortest, was a huge hit for me. It’s called .
It’s a comedic manga that plays on the horror themes of his past work while overall being a very goofy and silly story about how him and his wife came to own their two cats. It’s the first time I’ve laughed out loud reading something since .
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Ky
Queer Fiction
What I liked about this book:
This book literally broke me. But like in a good way (I guess?). The writing in it is so sweet and tender and tells a queer love story in a way that I haven’t seen done before. It’s incredibly raw so it will definitely pull on your heartstrings (or rip them clean off) but it’s such a worthy read and so beautifully written.
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Kathleen
Biography
I definitely don’t consider myself a high-fashion girly, but when my colleague lent me this bio of I was intrigued.
What I found most compelling was the way this biography — which features more than 250 interviewees — charted the peaks and troughs of the magazine industry. Honestly, the stuff you could get high-fashion magsto pay for in the ’90s! And if you’re a from-the-couch fashion critic like me, learning about the event’s beginnings is super interesting.
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Happy reading!
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