Guardian Australia curates June 2026 literary landscape with nine distinct titles
From a thriller-in-verse to a political treatise on the attention economy, editors and critics at Guardian Australia have selected the most compelling Australian books scheduled for release in June 2026.
Guardian Australia editors and critics have released their monthly curation of upcoming Australian book titles for June 2026. The selection comprises nine distinct works spanning fiction, nonfiction, and cookery, featuring authors such as Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Andrew Upton, and Kishwar Chowdhury. The list highlights a diverse range of narrative styles, from suspenseful survival stories to allegorical fiction and political analysis.
The recommendations open with Kernot’s first adult book, a thriller-in-verse following January “Clare” Colson, who is haunted by the drowning death of her best friend. Now in her forties, Clare drifts through life in a haze of sedatives and insomnia until a chance encounter with an older man from her past offers a tense path to retribution. This is followed by Catriona Menzies-Pike’s survival novel, How to Love the World, which centres on a woman trapped by a falling bough in a forest, forcing her to grapple with family history and her connection to the land.
In nonfiction, Hannah McElhinney explores grief and health conspiracies in a gripping account of a relative’s death during an unnecessary medical procedure abroad. Meanwhile, Steph Harmon’s historical fiction novel, The Northern Tomb, spans 80 years of Chinese history, examining the isolation and intimacy between an elderly widower and his carer during the Covid lockdowns. The list also features Ed Coper’s political treatise, Angertainment, which analyses how anger is harnessed in the attention economy.
Cultural and culinary perspectives are represented by Kishwar Chowdhury’s cookbook, which examines Bengali food culture through an Australian lens, referencing her time on MasterChef Australia. Bobuq Sayed’s debut novel, No God But Us, tells the story of two queer Afghan men in exile who meet in Istanbul in 2015, navigating the complexities of borders and destiny.
The final entries include Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s first adult fiction thriller, At Sea, which features a Black Muslim engineer on a failing offshore oil rig, drawing on her background as a mechanical engineer. Rounding out the selection is Andrew Upton’s allegorical debut, Krank Fuss, set in Bavaria during the Second World War. The novel follows a chicken with a disfigured foot, written by a traumatised First World War veteran for his unborn daughter.