Here are the highlights of my reading in 2019. These books hummed through the haze of the devastating bushfires Australia has experienced in the last few months of 2019 and into 2020. If you’re suffering from the smoke – grab one and head inside to read!

Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar – ‘Ideas came to me like wolves down shadowy creek beds in failing light. I could let them kill me or wait for them to approach – get to know them, you know? There was nothing between but lies.’ A gripping tale.

Wintering by Krissy Kneen – Kneen’s taut Tasmanian thriller is a nuanced tale in which a glow-worm specialist’s partner disappears and she must face some darker elements of Australian culture, and in herself, and battle on. Creepy and atmospheric.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean – The 1986 fire in Los Angeles Public Library destroyed or damaged more than half a million books. Six years of eavesdropping by Orlean and this book is the dazzling phoenix that arose from the ash.

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli – This much-lauded novel is an engrossing account of a family’s road trip from New York to the Mexican border and the impact of America’s harsh border protection system on Latin American children. There are big issues here – and small voices.

Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin – A story ‘should almost be a feeling, a thing that has happened to you rather than something that you necessarily understand on an intellectual level straight away,’ says McLaughlin. Her stories do this.

All the Ways to be Smart by Davina Bell (writer) and Allison Colpoys (illustrator) – ‘Smart is not just ticks and crosses, smart is building boats from boxes.’ Through whimsy and wonder, children 3+ learn there are myriad ways to be clever.

All Things Consoled by Elizabeth Hay – Hay’s brave and beautiful memoir about caring for her parents in the lead up to their deaths is her first foray into nonfiction, and it hooked me (as most of her novels have too).

Watermark by Joanna Atherfold Finn – This debut short story collection melds vivid description with convincing characterisation. In ‘Tessellating Shapes’ Austin, Anna and Lachy’s heartbreak felt so real I could have hugged them. Endings linger like a flipper-kick to the guts.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb – After an unexpected breakup, Gottlieb traces her own forays as a patient and therapist alongside a handful of her patients’ therapeutic journeys. ‘In therapy we aim for self-compassion,’ she says. Fly-on-the-wall fascinating.

Halibut on the Moon by David Vann – In by far the darkest and most disturbing novel I read this year, Vann reimagines his father’s final days and articulates the crazed despair of the deeply depressed. ‘Killing or cards … It’s all we know.’

Here Until August by Josephine Rowe – You could buy Rowe’s new collection for ‘Glisk’ alone and not be disappointed. This story won the 2016 Jolley Prize, and it’s one I return to often. Wading, wondering, waiting: 10 elegant narratives of disquiet to savour.

The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie is another memoir by a daughter doing her best in the face of her parents’ decline – but it’s a world away from many such memoirs, with its gallows humour and tart tone. It also won the 2019 Stella Prize.

Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee “Less than one in three Australian women who are sexually assaulted ever go to the police. What if we all went at once?”, Lee writes in her bestselling memoir about bringing her assailant to trial and courageous steps she took to improve Australia’s criminal justice system.

No One by John Hughes is a strange and unsettling novel that begins with its protagonist driving and hitting something on Lawson Street, outside Redfern station. When he returns later, the blood on the road convinces him it really happened. But where is his victim? Why does he always feel guilty?