My bookshelf

The best-selling author of The Fires of Vesuvius presents a comprehensive history of the social and political world of the Roman emperors including Julius Caesar, Nero, Alexander Severus, Caligula, and Marcus Aurelius.

The horror! The horror!. These are Kurtz’s final words in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the story of a man who travels into the jungle to seek his fortune and who instead finds an all-consuming moral and spiritual wilderness. Conrad’s enduring tale served as a touchstone for many works of fiction inspired by its sombre theme. This collection also includes an additional five of Conrad’s best stories.

This is Charles Darwin’s chronicle of his five-year journey, beginning in 1831, around the world as a naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration.

The Shipwreck of the Batavia combines in just the one tale the birth of the world’s first corporation, the brutality of colonisation, the battle of good vs evil, the derring-do of sea-faring adventure, mutiny, ship-wreck, love, lust, blood-lust, petty fascist dictatorship, criminality, a reign of terror, murders most foul, sexual slavery, natural nobility, survival, retribution, rescue, first contact with native peoples and so much more.

In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years. When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar’s father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime’s most notorious prison. Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballah Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is “persistent and cunning.” This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power.

Grace Tame has never walked on middle ground. From a young age, her life was defined by uncertainty — by trauma and strength, sadness and hope, terrible lows and wondrous highs. As a teenager she found the courage to speak up after experiencing awful and ongoing child sexual abuse. This fight to find her voice would not be her last. In 2021 Grace stepped squarely into the public eye as the Australian of the Year, and was the catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation and action. Australians from all walks of life were inspired and moved by her fire and passion. Here she was using her voice, and encouraging others to use theirs too. The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner is Grace’s story, in Grace’s words, on Grace’s terms. Like Grace, it is sharply intelligent, deeply felt and often blisteringly funny. And, as with all her work, it offers a constructive and optimistic vision for a better future for all of us.

The secret library is in the basement of a bombed building in a heavily shelled area of Darayya. Around it, shattered buildings that were once homes and offices lie in crumbling, treacherous piles. A desert of shattered grey concrete festooned with twisted metal and charred wires. Deep beneath this scene of frightening devastation lies the secret library. No signs mark its presence. Locals fear that Syrian government planes will bomb it if they know where it is. While the streets above echo with rifle fire and thunderous shelling the secret world below is a haven of peace and tranquillity. More than 14,000 books are stacked neatly on home-made shelves according to author and subject, and are checked in and out meticulously. Those within read quietly, drinking tea on comfortable sofas and chairs. A small oasis of normality in a country at war with itself. The secret library was the brainchild of a group of former university students whose education was interrupted when war broke out and then was ended altogether by the siege that followed. Teams of young enthusiasts regularly dodge snipers’ bullets and barrel bombs to bring the books to the library. Timber for the bookshelves is collected in a similar way. Darayya’s secret library is an extraordinary place, but this book is about more than that. It is also the stories of the many people who treasure it and the central role it has in their lives.

When Napoleon invades Russia in 1812, it forever changes those whose lives it engulfs. Although told on a panoramic scale Tolstoy’s epic novel focuses on the chaos of battle, the horror of death and bloodshed, and the expression of the noble virtues of love and valour through their impact on the lives of three principal characters: the courageous Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov and the nobly born beauty Natasha Rostov.