Michell de Kretser is one of Australia's most important writers over the last 25 years. Born in Sri Lanka, she moved to Australia when in her teens, and published her first book in 1999, and has published 8 books and won numerous awards. Her novels are characterised by their international focus, her characters are varied, many of them have travelled widely or are migrants, and have a global perspective. Scary Monsters is two books in one, they can be read in any order, and their connection is thematic rather than directly linked.

Patricia Grace is one of NZ's preeminent writers. She has published 7 novels, 7 short story collections and a number of books for children, and won numerous awards since her first book in 1975. She was the first Māori woman to publish a story collection. Now, late in life (she is 84) she brings us a fascinating memoir, written in a chatty, intimate style. She discusses racism, family, writing and landscape, her formative experiences, her activism, what it is to live as a Māori through the 20th Century and into the 21st.

The food writer, TV presenter and chef, Anthony Bourdain, took his own life in June 2018. He was 61. A long-time collaborator, Laurie Woolever, has interviewed 90-odd people who had worked with Bourdain in various capacities, his wives and his brother, to try to understand his life and what might have led to his choice to end his life. It's chronological, and has contributions of varying length from all the interviewees at various stages of his life.

David Reynolds drives across the USA on Highway 50, from Ocean City, Delaware to San Francisco, California. This is not a particularly likely route, as it passes through some isolated and unfashionable parts of the States, but it serves Reynolds purpose very well. He's driving back roads as John Steinbeck did in Travels With Charlie, and William Least Heat-Moon in Blue Highways, better to meet with 'real Americans', and take the pulse of the nation by going to cafes and bars, and finding Trump supporters and haters.

This charming, wry, and very funny book charts Stanley Tucci's life as a food lover and keen cook. It includes a number of delectable family recipes and hilarious anecdotes from his life as an actor, and concludes with his moving description of his experience and recovery from cancer of the tongue, which threatened his ability to appreciate food. He's a very good writer, self-effacing, sophisticated and insightful. A lovely, lovely book!

This is a wide ranging collection of personal essays by one of America's leading novelists of the last 20 years. It's a delightfully warm and humorous collection, although it deals with some serious subjects, and it is at times almost unbearably moving. Patchett is a very astute observer of human behaviour and motivation, and a reflective thinker. I found this difficult to put down, it's quite brilliant.