Who blew up the Bruny Bridge? From Heather Rose, the Stella-prize winning author of The Museum of Modern Love, comes her latest novel Bruny (Allen and Unwin 2019): a political satire, a fable, an allegorical tale about climate change and globalisation, about the collection of personal information, back room deals and cheap foreign labour, about elections and conspiracies and protest groups and international mediation. It is also Heather Rose’s love song to Tasmania – a state of unspoiled beauty and nature at its most majestic, a state separated from the Australian mainland, a state apart. This is a novel about family and loyalty, about secrets and lies, about sacrifices and choices and a strange new world.

The author of The M Word (Murdoch Books Allen and Unwin 2020) is Dr Ginni Mansberg, the host of television shows Medicine or Myth? and Embarrassing Bodies Down Under. The subtitle on the cover is ‘How to survive in Menopause’ but the word ‘survive’ has been crossed out and replaced with the word ‘thrive’. And that is this book in a nutshell – a comprehensive, medically-based, well-researched exploration of the facts around menopause, including the symptoms, the treatments (both traditional and alternative) and the emotional rollercoaster along the way. As a treating medical practitioner, and also a woman over 50, Dr Mansberg’s extensive and in-depth examination of this issue is done with the goal of helping women (and their men) understand this time of life and design a plan not just to survive or get through it, but to actually thrive and enjoy the advantages of your changing body that come from reaching a certain age.