Susan Duncan, author of Gone Fishing, the sequel to the bestselling The Briny Cafe, tells us her five favourite books of all time. Cloudstreet  by Tim Winton It reminds me of what it is to be deeply Australian – the good, the bad, the ugly and the very, very funny. From separate catastrophes two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint cal... Read more

After my 2008 book Life in His Hands, about the Sydney neurosurgeon Charlie Teo and his patient Aaron McMillan, a young pianist who had brain cancer, I declared that I would never write another book about illness and death. But then my mother died. Mum faded away so slowly that I didn’t even admit to myself that she was dying. I was an only child and she had been divorced and on her own since I... Read more

At Booktopia, we have made Get Reading even better. We are giving away the entire collection of 50 books to one lucky person who buys from the Get Reading 50 between now and the end of September. How good is that? 50 books you get to keep Read more

What works so well about this book is that it is based on a fictitious water-accessed community already so familiar to us from Salvation Creek. More importantly it plays to that deep yearning for both community, and connection, that so many people experience. Read more

 The Booktopia Book Guru asks Susan Duncan author of The Briny Café Ten Terrifying Questions —————— 1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? I was born in Albury, on the NSW and Victorian border and raised until the age of ten, at nearby Bonegilla Migrant Camp. Later, I attended Clyde Sc... Read more