June New Releases 2026

A punk revival of Medea as a Mexican anti-angel of birth and death, from the International Booker Prize-nominated author of Reservoir Bitches.

In Northern Mexico, Paulina, Perla, Antonia, Reina, and Jordan are striving to survive the barrio — hustling on the edge of a cartel-run economy, nursing the wounds made normal in a world that eats its own. Hovering over their trials is a spirit with gothic flair, dressed in black and crowned with braids: Medea, a mythic mother of the Chihuahuan desert, ancient as the Aztecs but never too old to be petty.

From aiding a trophy girlfriend’s abortion, to accompanying a mother in her search for her lost child in the desert, to embracing those taken too soon in the narco’s brutal proxy wars, Medea fights for justice for her chosen mortals — her divine wrath the only power that could rival the corrupt, violent web spun by the cartel, the government, and the military. Dahlia de la Cerda’s magnetic prose draws readers right into the heart of that web — and links all our fates to the missions of Medea, equal parts midwife and gravedigger, a femme fatale god in a femicidal world.

‘Discover the secret intelligence of birds, revealed by one of the world’s leading researchers in avian innovation.’

Surveying a wide variety of birds, including crows, finches, tits, and parrots, Louis Lefebvre, a world-renowned expert in animal behaviour, describes the remarkable innovations and problem-solving abilities of species often dismissed as ‘featherbrains’. From crows using cars as nutcrackers to cockatoos crafting tools, Lefebvre reveals how birds exhibit creativity, social learning, and even cultural transmission — traits once thought to be exclusive to humans and other primates.

Blending his decades of scientific research with engaging anecdotes, Lefebvre examines the evolutionary forces that have shaped avian intelligence. He explores how birds adapt to urban environments, innovate in response to challenges, and pass down knowledge across generations. This goldmine of bird behaviour yields an ‘innovation quotient’ widely used by researchers to measure and rank how innovative a bird species is. Using his encyclopaedic knowledge, Lefebvre answers questions such as:

• When a bird species learns a new technique, how do their innovations spread?
• Why is research on bird cognition being used to train AI models and even robots?
• What makes certain birds endlessly innovative while others stubbornly repeat the same behaviours?

With vivid storytelling and groundbreaking insights, A Bird’s IQ invites readers to reconsider their perceptions, celebrating the ingenuity of birds and highlighting the interconnectedness of all intelligent life.

Following her ‘dazzling’ (The Guardian) debut, The Animators, Kayla Rae Whitaker tells the sweeping story of one Southern family’s rise and fall throughout the 1980s, a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the promise and limitations of the American Dream.

Baker-Taylor’s is a family business. Fran (née Baker) and Fred Taylor run a successful chain of discount retail stores in Kentucky and they’re cautiously expanding: Ataris and Hot Wheels, new branches and new management. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the American dream: rags to riches, a family dynasty built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each family member is struggling to keep up.

Money is transforming Fred, and the extremes he will go to fit in with the high society crowd are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Oldest son Josiah wants nothing to do with the family business, Sam is seeing things that might not really be there, and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers did. Meanwhile, Fran, her family’s stable core, is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker-Taylor’s, risking everything along the way.

While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran discover that in matters of love and money, once it’s gone, it’s gone — no returns, no exchanges.

Nine decades, one life — a remarkable memoir by an Australian living treasure.

Valerie Brown was a bookish, rebellious child who had made an important discovery when she escaped to the roof of her large family home. As she watched the activities of her family down below, she found that they did not match the ideals her parents had taught to her. Nor did her family’s actions meet the ideals put forward in the books she was reading.

This simple observation led to a lifetime of concern about the damage done to a society when there are gaps between their community’s good intentions and their practices. She and her team delivered pioneering change programs to bridge such gaps — in partnership with a prime minister, each of the three levels of government, four universities, multiple communities, and several activist groups.

Her interests in health and the environment led her to design and deliver initiatives such as the first Australian science degree in health education; change an outdated public health department into the emerging New Public Health; design and deliver the country’s first national drug summit; and establish community health training for doctors and nurses at Tribhuvan University in Nepal. After a stroke in her eighties, she recovered to supervise doctoral students and co-author five books on social change, including the highly successful Tackling Wicked Problems.

Valerie Brown AO is still promoting, discussing, and thinking about positive social changes. After nine decades, she is still that girl on the roof.