Scribe Publications

Scribe Publications Scribe is an independent Australian book-publishing company, founded by Henry Rosenbloom in 1976.

Announcing ... 🐏 THE MIDNIGHT TIMETABLE 🐏⁠⁠The newest offering from the Booker Prize shortlisted author Bora Chung () an...
09/07/2025

Announcing ... 🐏 THE MIDNIGHT TIMETABLE 🐏⁠
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The newest offering from the Booker Prize shortlisted author Bora Chung () and translator Anton Hur ()! ⁠
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This new novel-in-ghost-stories is set in a mysterious research centre that houses cursed objects, where those who open the wrong door might find it’s disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they’re running from are their own …⁠
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The acclaimed Korean horror and sci-fi writer’s haunted institute isn’t just a chilling place to play. As in her astounding collections Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia, these violent allegories take on the horrors of animal testing, conversion therapy, domestic abuse, and late-stage capitalism. Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny, and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time’s greatest imaginations.⁠
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‘I love the creatures who populate the Haunted Institute of Bora Chung’s mind — handkerchiefs with vendettas, jackets that weep in marbles, wounded, oracular sheep ... A fascinating novel of shifting realities centered by a steady, humane heart. Bora Chung is a master of concocting dreamscapes that linger.’⁠
Marie-Helene Bertino, author of Beautyland ⁠
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🌒 COMING 30 SEPTEMBER 🌓⁠
Pre-order available online now

BEYOND SUBURBIA⁠⁠The next book by acclaimed photographer Warren Kirk (), author of Westography, Suburbia, and Northside....
08/07/2025

BEYOND SUBURBIA⁠
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The next book by acclaimed photographer Warren Kirk (), author of Westography, Suburbia, and Northside.⁠
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In the margins between the city and the bush, Warren Kirk uncovers the quiet poetry of Victoria’s hinterlands, with an introduction by Don Watson.⁠
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These richly textured photographs capture the overlooked buildings, people, and landscapes of rural and semi-rural Australia. Meticulously observed and rendered with enormous sensitivity, this collection is more than a photographic journey — it’s an elegiac meditation on place, people, and memory. Kirk continues his remarkable project of preserving vanishing Australian scenes, inviting viewers to witness the extraordinary within the seemingly mundane.⁠
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Out September 2 🤍 pre-order available now at scribepublications.com.au

'Children need to be able to read, to have something to read — and to have⁠somewhere safe and warm to read it. If these ...
07/07/2025

'Children need to be able to read, to have something to read — and to have⁠
somewhere safe and warm to read it. If these three needs are met,⁠
miracles can happen. This is why public libraries are galaxies,⁠
wildwoods, time machines, and engines of social mobility —⁠
and why cutting the funding of libraries is both economic and⁠
emotional idiocy. This is why enabling children to fall in love with⁠
books at home and at school is not a luxury but a necessity. This is⁠
why reading is among the greatest gifts a child can be given.⁠
⁠
The book you hold here in your hand is a celebration of those⁠
gifts and their giving. It gathers wonders and opens possibilities.⁠
It recognises the radical powers of reading: to transport, to⁠
propel, to inspire, to save, to hope.'⁠
— Foreword by Robert Macfarlane ⁠
⁠
The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation, inspired by Robert Macfarlane () and curated by Jennie Orchard (.orchard), is a generous anthology of essays about the joys of giving books to children and young people, from some of the world’s most beloved writers.⁠
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All royalties from the book are being donated to two organisations promoting literacy and education for girls and young women, Room to Read () and U-Go (), founded by John Wood. ⁠
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✨️ The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation is out now ✨️

🦋 THE BUTTERFLY THIEF 🦋 The new book from Walter Marsh (waltermarsh), author of critically acclaimed YOUNG RUPERT. ⁠⁠The...
04/07/2025

🦋 THE BUTTERFLY THIEF 🦋 The new book from Walter Marsh (waltermarsh), author of critically acclaimed YOUNG RUPERT. ⁠
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The story of the most audacious serial heist in the history of Australia’s museums — and the British gentleman adventurer who pulled it off and got away with it — in a scientific true crime caper stretching around the globe.⁠
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In January 1947, a chance discovery rocked the world of natural science: over 3,000 rare and precious specimens of butterflies had vanished from Australia’s most prestigious museums in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. The culprit was Colin Wyatt, a Cambridge-educated ski champion, mountaineer, wartime camouflager, artist, and amateur naturalist. ⁠
⁠
Drawing on unpublished case files, dossiers, and private archives, The Butterfly Thief pieces together Wyatt’s enigmatic life story and his decades-long impact on the world of natural history. Along the way, award-winning journalist Walter Marsh reveals a deeper history that begs an uncomfortable but vital question: What if Western museums were crime scenes all along?⁠
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‘The Butterfly Thief is the most delicate of books that, like its insect namesake, unfurls its brilliance slowly and then all at once. Walter Marsh has given us his “lepidopteran Sherlock Holmes” book in all its delightful eccentricity. This is a work filled with artefacts, curios, and the ephemera of human striving...'⁠
Rick Morton, author of Mean Streak and One Hundred Years of Dirt⁠
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🇦🇺 30 SEPTEMBER⁠
🇬🇧 6 NOVEMBER ⁠
🇺🇸 11 NOVEMBER⁠
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Preorder is available now at scribepublications.com.au ⁠✨️⁠ Link in our bio!

☁️ Happy JULY publication day ☁️ ⁠⁠This month we bring you four brilliant, bookish offerings. ⁠⁠📘 THE GIFTS OF READING F...
30/06/2025

☁️ Happy JULY publication day ☁️ ⁠
⁠
This month we bring you four brilliant, bookish offerings. ⁠
⁠
📘 THE GIFTS OF READING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION, inspired by Robert Macfarlane () and curated by Jennie Orchard (.orchard). Remember the books that shaped your childhood, sparked your imagination, and ignited a lifelong love of reading? In The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation, some of the world’s most beloved authors share their own transformative reading experiences.⁠
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📕 BURNING SEASONS by Nana Howton (). In 1970s Brazil, two teenage sisters are thrust into a chaotic world. Fear and hunger stalk them in a sugarcane town choked by a constant rain of ash, a testament to the toxic environment in which they are trying to grow. With only each other for comfort, they set out to search for their missing mother and the father they’ve never known.⁠
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📗 AUTOCORRECT by Etgar Keret (). Imagine a world in which you could take back the stupid thing you just said, unspill the coffee, avoid the accident, roll life back thirty seconds and do it over again — this time the right way. In Etgar Keret’s universe, all things are possible. A man can take a yoga class that genuinely transforms his life. An alien can offer a guided tour of the destroyed earth. And an angry squirrel can wreck a wedding.⁠
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📙 THE SISTERHOOD OF RAVENSBRÜCK by Lynne Olson (lynneolsonbooks). For decades after World War II, histories of the French Resistance were written almost exclusively by men and largely ignored the contributions of women. The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück corrects that omission, surveying the bond between four women who fought valiantly against N**i oppression. The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück is an illuminating, inspiring account. ⁠
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JULY GIVEAWAY 🎁⁠

If you’d like to go in the running to win one of our July books, head over to our Instagram account and check out the latest post.

Order copies via our website, link in the bio!⁠ ✨️

🍊 PEOPLE WITH NO CHARISMA 🍊⁠⁠'Grades mean nothing to me, my mother always said. What’s⁠important is how you express your...
26/06/2025

🍊 PEOPLE WITH NO CHARISMA 🍊⁠
⁠
'Grades mean nothing to me, my mother always said. What’s⁠
important is how you express yourself to the world. "Show⁠
yourself!" she would shout, spreading her arms wide.'⁠
⁠
From the International Booker Prize shortlisted author of What I'd Rather Not Think About, Jente Posthuma, and translator Sarah Timmer Harvey, shortlisted for the NSW Translation Prize, comes the new novel People with no Charisma. ⁠
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An unnamed narrator grows up overshadowed by her unconventional mother, an ex–Jehovah’s Witness and former television star with an inferiority complex. Her father is the head of a psychiatric institution, whose only form of parenting is to offer his daughter the same life advice he dispenses to his patients. Reserved and somewhat aloof, he chooses not to intervene when his wife obsesses about charisma, calorie counting, and turning their daughter into a child prodigy.⁠
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Rendered in her iconic black humour, Posthuma expertly dissects a fraught family history, exposing the absurdity that often lies at the heart of life’s most poignant and challenging moments.⁠
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Cover designed by Luke Bird ()⁠ 🦌⁠
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🇬🇧 OUT 17 JULY ⁠
🇦🇺 OUT 29 JULY⁠
🇺🇸 OUT 16 SEPTEMBER⁠
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Preorder available now at scribepublications.com.au ⁠✨️

‘A historical true crime story that skillfully connects a little-known 1940s serial murder case to still-relevant questi...
23/06/2025

‘A historical true crime story that skillfully connects a little-known 1940s serial murder case to still-relevant questions about society’s exploitation of violence against women … Graham’s loose, retro-style black-and-white art … captures the claustrophobic mood as terror sets in … Crime and history buffs alike will be drawn into this layered real-life mystery.’⁠
Publishers Weekly ⁠
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They blamed alcohol. They blamed men. But they blamed women most of all.⁠
⁠
The year is 1942, the place Melbourne. A brownout is in effect to dim the night-time lights of the city, and thousands of American GIs are based in Royal Park. As the latter make plans to defend the Pacific, the women of Australia have stepped up to support the war effort at home. But the times are about to change again, and the three sisters will have to navigate the consequences of a new threat as a series of grisly murders are committed in the eerie half-light of the brownout. ⁠
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Inspired by true events, The Brownout Murders tells a story of fear, fortitude, and social change — and how the independence of all women is too often set against the violence of a single man.⁠
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THE BROWNOUT MURDERS by Luke C. Jackson, Kelly Jackson and Maya Graham is out now 🍂

'Maybe this is the last time he will walk down the familiar corridor⁠as the man called Noon Merckem, that door there on ...
20/06/2025

'Maybe this is the last time he will walk down the familiar corridor⁠
as the man called Noon Merckem, that door there on the left with those⁠
welcoming panes of glass could mean the end of his existence, weak in⁠
the knees like a man being dragged to the gallows, that’s how he feels in⁠
this instant ...' ⁠
⁠
Flanders 1922. After serving as a soldier in the Great War, Noon Merckem has lost his memory and lives in a psychiatric asylum. Countless women, responding to a newspaper ad, visit him there in the hope of finding their spouse who vanished in battle. One day a woman, Julienne, appears and recognises Noon as her husband, the photographer Amand Coppens, and takes him home against medical advice. But their miraculous reunion doesn’t turn out the way that Julienne wants her envious friends to believe. Only gradually do the two grow close, and Amand’s biography is pieced together on the basis of Julienne’s stories about him. But how can he be certain that she’s telling the truth?⁠
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'It’s a prose style that, like Amand, seems to have no past, only a perpetually unspooling present … The Remembered Soldier develops an unforgettable picture of marital love.'⁠
Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal ⁠
⁠
THE REMEMBERED SOLDIER, the piercing new novel by Anjet Daanje is out now. ☁️

ACQUISITION ANNOUNCEMENT ⁠⁠It’s our great honour to announce that Earthquake: Signposts to the election that shook Austr...
17/06/2025

ACQUISITION ANNOUNCEMENT ⁠
⁠
It’s our great honour to announce that Earthquake: Signposts to the election that shook Australia by Niki Savva will be published by Scribe on 24 November 2025. The audio rights were acquired by Bolinda audio, and the audiobook will be released simultaneously with the print book. ⁠
⁠
Earthquake is the explosive new offering from Savva, acclaimed political analyst, one of the most senior correspondents in the Canberra Press Gallery, and author of four previous books, including The Road to Ruin, Plots and Prayers, and Bulldozed, the bestselling and award-winning trilogy about the Coalition governments that ruled Australia from 2013 to 2022. ⁠
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This new book is a collection of Niki Savva’s most groundbreaking columns from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, combined with riveting new analysis, about an epoch-making period in Australian politics.⁠
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In her characteristically uncompromising, penetrating, and prescient way, Savva masterfully tracks a compelling sequence of events that resulted in an improbable triumph for Labor and a historic drubbing for the Liberal Party. She provides a considered analysis of what went on behind the scenes — accompanied by her trademark access to important players and eyewitnesses — before an election that transformed Australian politics.⁠
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🇦🇺 Publishing in AU 24 November 2025⁠
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🎨 Cover design to be released soon⁠
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🔗 Pre-order at scribepublications.com.au

🕯️ Happy JUNE publication day ❤️‍🩹⁠⁠This month may be smaller in volume, but it's vast in terms of depth and historical ...
03/06/2025

🕯️ Happy JUNE publication day ❤️‍🩹⁠
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This month may be smaller in volume, but it's vast in terms of depth and historical significance. We bring you three brilliant new releases, a work of nonfiction, a novel, and a graphic novel, each one vital and compelling in its own ways. ⁠
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📘 THE REMEMBERED SOLDIER by Anjet Daanje, translated by David McKay, is an extraordinary love story and a captivating novel about the power of memory and imagination. After serving as a soldier in the Great War, Noon Merckem has lost his memory and lives in a psychiatric asylum. Julienne believes he is her missing husband, the photographer Amand Coppens. But can he be certain that she's telling the truth? ⁠
⁠
📕 PRIDE AND PREJUDICES by Keio Yoshida (). The right to life and the right to live life free from discrimination are rights that are codified and legally protected, but there is no binding treaty or convention in international human rights law with respect to LGBTQ+ rights. Human rights lawyer Yoshida analyses pivotal case law from around the world, and uncovers what more needs to be done to protect the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities.⁠
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📗 THE BROWNOUT MURDERS by Luke C. Jackson (lukecjacksonauthor) and Kelly Jackson, illustrated by Maya Graham (mayagraham_artist) is a gripping noir graphic novel set in 1942 Melbourne. Sisters Beatrice, June and Lizzie are contributing to the homeland war effort while thousands of American GIs are stationed in the city, when a series of grisly murders are committed in the eerie half-light of the brownout. The Brownout Murders tells a story of fear, fortitude, and social change — and how the independence of all women is too often set against the violence of a single man.⁠
⁠
------⁠
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JUNE GIVEAWAY 🎁⁠
If you’d like to go in the running to win one of our June books, follow the below instructions: ⁠

Go to the most recent post on our Instagram account,
⁠
» Leave a comment telling us which book you'd like and why⁠
» Tag a friend⁠
» Make sure you’re following !⁠
» Share this post to your story for an extra entry.⁠
⁠
* Giveaway open to Australian & NZ residents only. Entries close Monday 16 June.⁠
⁠
Order copies via our website, link in the bio!⁠ ✨️

'Nicholas Jubber leads the reader on an immersive global tour hunting the monsters that haunt our nightmares in Monsterl...
02/06/2025

'Nicholas Jubber leads the reader on an immersive global tour hunting the monsters that haunt our nightmares in Monsterland.⁠
⁠
Starting in Cornwall, England among the giants, Jubber then takes us with him to a village in Bavaria that worships a dragon; to Japan’s capital to visit the shrine of a beheaded ogre; to the Scottish Orkney Isles in search of Selkies; to a controversial ceremony in Morocco to exorcise the Jinn ...⁠
⁠
I enjoyed traveling with Jubber who writes eloquently of his experiences in the places that he visits ... learned that universally, monsters express people’s fears, and desires, from storms to strangers, escape to success. They are a way to explain the inexplicable, from sudden death to missing socks, they are the things we can’t control like mental health issues, or a means of diverting responsibility for mistakes or misfortune. Monsters are essentially distorted images of ourselves, and they are one of the things that makes us human.⁠
⁠
Part travelogue, part cultural history lesson, part psychosocial analysis, Monsterland is an illuminating and fascinating journey into the darkness of humanity. Highly recommended if your interest is piqued by any of these subjects.' ⁠
⁠
Shelleyrae's review of Monsterland by Nicholas Jubber is up on Book’d Out!⁠
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Copies available now 🐉 👹 🧌

'Manawatu has just released her second novel, Kataraina. Where Auē burnt, Kataraina heals; a soothing, rinsing, complex ...
02/06/2025

'Manawatu has just released her second novel, Kataraina. Where Auē burnt, Kataraina heals; a soothing, rinsing, complex novel.⁠
⁠
Kataraina follows the eponymous character who is whāngai (aunty) to orphan Ārama, known as Ari and one of the narrators in Auē. This book acts as both sequel and prequel; one needn’t read Auē to enjoy Kataraina, though their stories orbit each other in a tight dance.'⁠
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'Kataraina is told from a first-person plural point of view of the whānau (family), a collective perspective that spans centuries: “It’s an old story, and we can see it all as if we are there.” The story is nonlinear, and revealed in beautiful vignettes that weave together like the braided rivers of Kaikōura. The novel is as much about place – the braided rivers and the endangered kanakana (lamprey) – as it is about relationships between characters.' ⁠
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'Violence shimmers on the edge of the frame in Kataraina. It’s the uneasy feeling of observation, of tiptoeing on eggshells before another character stomps over them. Words are powerful matter and Manawatu wields language like an axe against a stump, splintering across the page.'⁠
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'Manawatu’s writing style is reminiscent of Melissa Lucashenko, Toni Morrison and Keri Hulme – insofar as the author seems to be communing with these powerful characters on the altar of the page, and we, the readers, are opportune witnesses.'⁠
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'Like Hulme, Manawatu is of Kāi Tahu (Ngāi Tahu) whakapapa (ancestry). Kāi Tahu has its own storytelling tradition, and it sits here within the New Zealand gothic like a glove, the past informing the present and all time.⁠
⁠
Her words are a balm; woven into the text is the guttural language of te reo Māori, using Kāi Tahu dialect. I felt my tongue change while reading Kataraina, and the experience felt tapu (sacred) as the language tumbled down the back of my throat to the guts.'⁠
⁠
– Tara June Winch's review of Kataraina by Becky Manawatu is up now at .⁠
⁠
Click the link in our bio to read this breathtaking piece in its entirety. ⁠
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💙✨️

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