Firstly, some things you should know. This book, originally written in French (Dicker is Swiss), sold more than two million copies in a year, won three French literary prizes and has been translated into 32 languages.
Joyful centres on asexual Leon Joyce, a private, wealthy dealer in fine and rare books who in his South Yarra house has three wardrobes full of women's clothing.
For Once in My Life is an unusual romance if ever there was one.
The adage ''never judge a book by its cover'' (and its title) most certainly applies to Sapphire Skies.
Suellen Dainty tells a good story, very relevant to our time, of four middle-aged male friends and the women in (or no longer in) their lives.
It's a wickedly striking cover. Against a white background, a stylised brush-over haircut sits above the thick black title, positioned just about where one of history's most distinctive moustaches once sat. Yes, Herr Hitler is back.
If you found a letter addressed to you, to be opened only upon the death of your partner, would you open it?
This is a thoughtful and provocative book about a Victorian family whose members are striving to become the best people they know how to be, but so different are their ideas of what that is and how you achieve it that the atmosphere at home is full of constant tension and creates much dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
Is there a heavyweight belt for boxing writing? There should be.
Despite the heatwave and smallpox epidemic sweeping through San Francisco, 1876 has been a good year for Blanche Beunon.
The reign of Henry VIII is a neverending source of interest to readers and historians. However, he only features laterally in this moving, troubling story.
Love in all its complexities comes under the microscope in the latest stand-alone novel The Forever Girl, by prolific Edinburgh-based author Alexander McCall Smith.
I make a point of never looking up details of overseas-published novels just in case they've received literary awards, but my guess is that & Sons will win something big, a Pulitzer maybe?
Australian Craig Sherborne's second novel pivots around a family of itinerants, or ''trants'', who roam the outskirts of Melbourne, trying to survive.
This has to qualify as one of the most unusual and unpredictable novels I have read.
The Score could have been one of those gloomy novels New Zealand writers are inclined to produce: the characters and storyline are ripe for it.
Reading Lamplighter is like coming across a small but exquisite stained-glass window in a darkened hallway; a burst of unexpected light and colour through which to catch a glimpse of a familiar but subtly transformed world.
Reading Cicada is like breathing in the Kimberley.
Reading this novel written by an author best known for her string of fine detective stories - Tony Hill novels, Kate Branigan novels and others - has to be quite different from reading Jane Austen's book that inspired it.
For a variety of reasons, I'm sceptical about self-published books.
