This week, we’re handing over the Friday Five to Five Leaves Left – Hobart’s independent book and natural wine haven. As part of Tasmania Reads, a week-long celebration of reading and storytelling across the state, they’ve curated a list of five must-read books. From new releases to longtime favs, and international to local authors, these picks are ready to find a home in your hands—perhaps paired with a glass of natty wine!
Luke Carman
An Ordinary Ecstasy
“The seven stories that make up An Ordinary Ecstasy explore the lives of people whose days are marked by anxiety and tenderness and exaltation: the musician who rides the winding railway up into the mountains at dusk, the retiree walking the streets of his suburb at dawn, the lovers on the balcony of their hotel room watching surfers cut across the waves, the mates who travel north to Byron Bay in search of healing and revenge.“
Genre: Short Stories
In-Human
Anna Husk
“In Tasmania’s Oatlands, teenager Sally Hunter is becoming painfully aware of her new body and blossoming sexuality. But this is not an everyday tale of adolescence: Sally’s form and world is stretched and changed by her transformation into a werewolf, something unexpected, beautiful and bloody. The antithesis of Twilight’s sparkles and whimsy, Anna Dusk’s visceral writing style captures the reader like no other, with all the gore and brutality of death and murder coming to light as Sally unleashes her new self on the town.”
Genre: Horror, Fiction, Tasmanian Author
Gold Fame Citrus
Claire Vaye Watkins
“For the moment, the couple’s fragile love, which somehow blooms in this arid place, seems enough. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, the thirst for a better future begins.
Immensely moving, profoundly disquieting, and mind-blowingly original, Watkins’s novel explores the myths we believe about others and tell about ourselves, the double-edged power of our most cherished relationships, and the shape of hope in a precarious future that may be our own.“
Genres: Fiction, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Climate Change Fiction, Apocalyptic
Voices of the Southern Ocean | A Nipaluna/Hobart Anthology
“This Nipaluna/Hobart anthology features 50 writers, from across the city and some beyond whose work has engaged with the Southern Ocean. Through splash fiction, reflective prose, micro-nonfiction and polar poetry, these authors form a chorus of voices for the ocean, its creatures and its future.”
Genre: Fiction, Poetry, Natural History, Tasmanian History, Tasmanian Authors
Panthers and the Museum of fire
Jen Craig
“The narrator walks from Glebe to a central Sydney café to return a manuscript by a recently-dead writer. While she walks, the reader enters the narrator’s entire life with family and neighbours, narrow misses with cars, her singular friendships, dinner conversations, and work. We learn of her adolescent desire for maturity and acceptance through a brush with religion, her anorexia, the exercise of that power when she was powerless in every other aspect of her life.“
Genre: Fiction, Novella, Literature, 21st Century, Death
These books, (and many more), are waiting for you at Five Leaves Left.
Pop in, have a chat, let the team help you find your next great read or have a browse through their boutique selection of epic reads. Happy Friday and happy reading!
Visit Five Leaves Left today!
Instagram | Address: 41-43 Victoria Street, Hobart.
