Bücher veröffentlicht von Brio Books

Winner of the Fantastica Science Fiction PrizeIt’s 2070, and the post-Collapse world is staggering toward another, perhaps final, destruction. Blanco, is a reluctant member of Mister Splinter’s Magnifico Cirque de Curiosities Travelling through dangerous lands, this heavily-armed band of freaks and circus performers survive by conning and killing, robbing and running – and putting on a show. But simple survival is not their real purpose. Their leader, seen only by his ‘doctors’, enforces brutal rule, and none are more harshly treated than Blanco, who becomes aware the circus is much more than it seems.  Worse, something is growing inside him, something that is changing and killing him. From the ruins of London, across Europe and Asia Minor to the remote Tien Shan mountains, Blanco and the circus fight toward a final showdown, for Blanco’s last chance of survival - and perhaps even for the entire human species. A page-turning spec-fic thriller and wild ride through the near future.

Shortlisted for the Association for the Study of Australian Literature Gold Medal and the Victorian Premier’s Literary AwardsHighly commended for the FAW Christina Stead Award, the Age Book of the Year and the National Book Council CUB Banjo AwardsAdopted as a baby towards the end of World War II, Robert Dessaix grew up haunted by ‘a shaft of silence’ surrounding the question of his natural mother’s identity, and of his own identity and sexuality. In this touching memoir, he recounts the story of a most unusual childhood on Sydney’s North Shore, of his fascination with Russia and the years he spent studying in Cold War Moscow, and of his restless wanderings around the world.Praise for A Mother's Disgrace by Robert Dessaix‘One of the most intelligently moving autobiographical narratives I have ever read. A book that is fascinating, engrossing … And a book that invites challenge.’ The Age‘A journey of identity by a virtuoso in language and master of narrative control … a brave, moving, funny, enthralling book.’ The Canberra Times

One Sunday afternoon in a secluded valley in Normandy, Robert Dessaix chanced upon the castle where the 20th-century French writer Andre Gide spent his childhood. Recalling the excitement he felt when he first read Gide as a teenager, Dessaix sets off to recapture what it was that once drew him so strongly to this enigmatic figure.On a magic carpet ride from Lisbon to the edge of the Sahara, from Paris to the south of France and Algiers, he takes us to the places where the Nobel Prize winning author, in ways still scandalous to modern sensibilities, lived out his unconventional ideas about love, marriage, sexuality and religion.Praise for Arabesques by Robert Dessaix‘Magical and inviting … these arabesques afford the reader inordinate pleasure.’ Livres-Hebdo (France)‘Surrender to the ravishments first, get lost, skid with thrilled indecisiveness across the mosaic tile of each page. Venture out with the author onto the roads and dizzying crossroads he negotiates as he plots a course between past and present, old haunts and new horizons, in the lands of Araby …’ The Age

‘House in Gastouri for rent for 2 mths. Occupant travelling. Reasonable rent.’In a village on the island of Corfu, alone in the cottage of a man he’s never met, a young Australian actor pieces together the strange life story of the Australian writer whose house he’s living in. As he explores his surroundings and makes new friends, his own life begins to appear to him like an illuminating shadowplay of his absent host’s.Set in the physical landscapes of the Greek islands, Adelaide and the suburbs of London, Robert Dessaix’s second novel is about the nature of friendship, love, the ordinary and extraordinary. At its core is a perfectly placed meditation on literary landscapes – Homer, Sappho, Cavafy and Chekhov – and the part art can play in making our lives beautiful.Praise for Corfu by Robert Dessaix‘Robert Dessaix is one of Australia’s finest writers, as this sad, funny and moving novel proves.’ John Banville‘Robert Dessaix is some kind of national treasure because he represents with a kind of Helpmann-like elegance and virtuosity the side of our sensibilities we publicly repress.’ Australian Book Review

Winner of the NSW Premier's Literary AwardWhen Dr William Macbeth poisoned two of his sons in 1927, his wife and sister hid the murders in the intensely private realm of family secrets. Macbeth behaved as if he were immune to consequences and avoided detection and punishment.Or did he? Secrets can be as corrosive as poison, and as time passed, the story haunted and divided his descendants. His granddaughter, Gail Bell, spent ten years reading the literature of poisoning in order to understand Macbeth’s life. Herself a chemist, she listened for echoes in the great cases of the nineteenth century, in myths, fiction, and poison lore.Intricate, elegant, and beautifully realised, The Poison Principle is a masterful book about family secrets and literary poisonings.Praise for The Poison Principle by Gail Bell‘Miraculously well written, compellingly readable ... a book of rare distinction.’ The Times‘[Bell’s] solution to the mystery was – and is – a triumph of perseverance ... enthralling.’ The Guardian‘[The Poison Principle] … measures out, in small loving spoonfuls, grains of information about [a] family story … Between the quiet drip feed of her personal memoir, Bell mixes in stronger flavors: ingredients from criminology and psychology, botany and chemistry.’ The New York Times‘A gift of a story and Bell tells it to near perfection.’ The Age‘An elegantly written memoir about her search for the truth behind her family’s darkest secret … a fine thriller, a richly detailed pharmacopoeia and a splendid dissertation on references to poison in literature.’ The Sydney Morning Herald

Four days before Christmas in 1920, Dorothy Mort shot her lover dead in cold blood. The tragic end to her affair with dashing young doctor, cricket star and War hero, Dr Claude Tozer, scandalised Sydney. Dorothy''s respectable husband was devastated.Following a trial that mesmerised the public and sent the media into a frenzy, the troubled North Shore mother of two and budding actress was declared ''not guilty on the ground of insanity''.After nine years in Long Bay Gaol, Dorothy was released and returned to live quietly with her husband . . . But was she really mad, or bad, or neither? And what was the secret that her husband kept for the rest of his life?In an absorbing blend of investigative non-fiction and biography, Suzanne Falkiner delves into the case that has intrigued Sydney for almost 100 years.''Suzanne Falkiner''s Mrs Mort''s Madness is not a cricket book: it is a carefully assembled but highly readable account of a sensational crime. ... Nearly a century after it transfixed Sydney, Suzanne has at last rounded the story out.'' - Gideon Haigh