SYDNEY WRITERS FESTIVAL: Niki Savva, Ahona Guha, Bora Chung, and Michael Visontay

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ABA BOOKDATA ADULT NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

The best of Niki Savva’s scene-setting newspaper columns from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, along with a riveting and deeply informed analysis of Australia’s epoch-making 2025 election.

Labor’s landslide victory on 3 May 2025 wreaked havoc across the political landscape. It triggered ministerial assassinations, trashed reputations, destroyed careers, fractured the Coalition, and threatened to fracture it again. It took the Liberal Party to the brink of extinction and turned Anthony Albanese into a Labor hero.

When the Coalition government was overthrown in 2022 after nine years in office, it was tempting to portray the loss as merely a personal repudiation of Scott Morrison. Then, when opposition leader Peter Dutton torpedoed the referendum on establishing an Indigenous Voice to parliament, his standing as a political leader improved and the prime minister’s nosedived. That was when, according to Niki Savva, the conservative Coalition thought it had the upcoming election in the bag.

But Niki had noticed the ground shifting: the emergence of the teal independents and the long-term threat they represented to the Liberals; the false dawn of Dutton saying no to the Voice referendum; and the overlooked reality, even back in August 2023, that, ‘The 2022 federal election result was no ordinary defeat … It delivered last rites to the broad-church party that Robert Menzies created.’

In her highly popular columns, Niki Savva captured all this and more in her typically uncompromising, penetrating, and prescient way. Now, following on from So Greek, The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers, and Bulldozed, she also provides a detailed, considered analysis of what went on behind the scenes, accompanied by her trademark access to important players and eyewitnesses, of an election that transformed Australian politics.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE
A FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST TRANSLATED NOVEL

Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny, and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time’s greatest imaginations.

In a labyrinthine research facility, where those who open the wrong door might find it’s disappeared behind them or that the echoing footsteps they’re running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift under the watchful eye of the building’s enigmatic senior guard.

Each evening, as the fluorescent lights hum and the silence grows heavier, the guard shares another tale of cursed objects and lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow, or revelation. But these are not mere ghost stories. They’re warnings. Lessons. Or, perhaps, confessions ...

As the nights stretch on and reality frays, our protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent and that the objects they guard aren’t just cursed.

They’re waiting. Watching.

Understanding relationships isn’t just about other people — it starts with understanding yourself and where you’ve come from. 

In How We Relate, clinical and forensic psychologist Dr Ahona Guha takes us on an illuminating journey through the psychology of human connection. Drawing from her many years of clinical experience, she reveals how our earliest relationships shape every connection we form — from family and friendships to romance and work.

How do childhood blueprints influence adult behaviours? Why do some friendships fail while others flourish? What makes the difference between healthy and toxic dynamics? With warmth and practical insight, Guha explores the hidden patterns that govern our interactions, offering concrete strategies for breaking free from destructive cycles.

Whether you’re struggling with difficult family members, navigating workplace politics, or seeking deeper intimacy in love, this book provides the psychological tools to understand yourself and transform your relationships. How We Relate is your guide to building the meaningful connections you deserve.

One hundred years ago, Gabriel Wells, a New York bookseller, committed a crime against history. He broke up the world’s greatest book, the Gutenberg Bible, and sold it off in individual pages. This is the story of an Australian man’s hunt for those fragments and his family’s debt to an act of literary vandalism.

In 1921, Wells’ audacity scandalised the rare-book world. The Gutenberg was the first substantial book in Europe to have been printed on a printing press. It represented the democratisation of knowledge and was the Holy Grail of rare books.

Was the break-up a sacrilege or a canny deal? New Yorkers were divided. For every frown of disapproval, there was a lick of the lips. It was the Roaring Twenties, the Gatsby era of fabulous wealth. Tycoons were in a feeding frenzy to acquire items that would demonstrate their refinement. Wells marketed the pages as ‘Noble Fragments’, they sold like hot cakes, and he died a rich man.

Half a century later, Sydney journalist Michael Visontay stumbled upon a mysterious legal document that linked Wells to his own family. He became obsessed by the Gutenberg’s invisible imprint on his life, and set out to track down the pages of the broken bible.

Part detective story and part memoir, Noble Fragments is an expedition into the arcane world of book collectors and their eccentric passions, and a journey of discovery about how Wells’s gamble set off a chain of events that changed a family’s destiny.