Helen Garner – författare

''There are very few writers that I admire more than Helen Garner''DAVID NICHOLLS

''The greatest, richest journals by a writer since Virginia Woolf''s''RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER

''Marvellous, all eight hundred pages of it''COLM TÓIBÍN

''The great Australian writer''s masterpiece''THE TIMESHelen Garner has kept a diary for most of her adult life. Now she is widely recognised as one of the greatest writers of our age. But, of all her books, it is her diaries that she likes best.

Collected for the first time into one volume, these inimitable diaries show Garner like never before: as a fledging author in bohemian Melbourne, publishing her lightning-rod debut novel while raising a young daughter in the 1970s; in the throes of an all-consuming love affair in the 1980s; and clinging to a disintegrating marriage in the 1990s.

How to End a Story reveals the inner life of a woman in love, a mother, a friend and a formidable writer at work. Told with devastating honesty, steel-sharp wit and an ecstatic attention to the details of everyday life, it offers all the satisfactions of a novel alongside the enthralling intimacy of something written in private and just for pleasure.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LESLIE JAMISON

''Acute, rigorous, pitch-perfect''NIGELLA LAWSON

''With sharp eyes and ears, Garner is a recording angel at life''s secular apocalypses''JAMES WOOD, NEW YORKER

''Dazzling, fearless greatness. I could not recommend this book more''INDIA KNIGHT

''An acclaimed celebrator of the poetic quotidian''ANNE ENRIGHT

ONE OF THE BBC''S 100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD''Seductive as hell. Brilliant, unusual, breathtaking'' Lauren Groff''There are very few writers that I admire more than Helen Garner'' David Nicholls''A revelation. Its pages radiate sex and heat, chlorine and rock''n''roll'' Madelaine LucasIn 1970s Melbourne, Nora is a happy woman.She is happy moving between the city''s communal households, with her little daughter. Happy with days spent at the public pool, and nights spent dancing and drinking and talking and smoking and loving freely.But then Nora meets Javo. Javo, with his crooked, wrecked, wild face and his violently blue eyes. And soon she is trapped in the monkey grip of his drug addiction and her own obsessive love for him.On its first publication in 1977, Monkey Grip was both a sensation and a lightning rod in its frank portrayal of the lives of a generation. Now a modern classic, it shows Helen Garner''s dazzling and radical literary voice.A W&N Essential with an Introduction by Lauren Groff

ONE OF THE GUARDIAN''S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY''This House of Grief, in its restraint and control, bears comparison with In Cold Blood'' KATE ATKINSON ''It grabbed me by the throat in the same way that the podcast series Serial did'' GILLIAN ANDERSON''Utterly gripping'' MARK HADDONFather''s Day, 2005. Just after nightfall, a discarded husband drove his three young sons back to their mother, his ex-wife.On that dark country road, barely five minutes from the children''s home, the old white car swerved off the highway and plunged into a dam. The father freed himself and swam to the bank, but the car sank to the bottom, and all the children drowned.The court case that followed became Helen Garner''s obsession, one that would take over her life until its final verdict. The resulting book is a true-crime classic and literary masterpiece, which examines just what we are capable of and how fiercely we hide it from ourselves.A W&N Essential with an introduction by Rachel Cooke

''A jewel of a novel about a perfect family falling apart''DAVID NICHOLLS''The Children''s Bach is Garner''s masterpiece''PUBLIC BOOKS''A perfect novel. I was so stunned that I wanted to run around the block''RUMAAN ALAMAthena and Dexter Fox are happy. They love each other. They are friends.They live with their young sons in a sparsely furnished house near the Merri Creek: its walls cracking, its floors sloping and its doors hanging loosely in their frames. There is a piano in their kitchen.But then, one day - years after their lives have taken different directions - Dexter runs into Elizabeth, an old friend from his university days. She brings into his world her loose-living musician boyfriend, Philip, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Vicki. And all at once, the bonds that hold the Fox family together begin to fray.Helen Garner''s perfectly formed novels embody Melbourne''s tumultuous 1970s and 1980s. Drawn on a small canvas and with a subtle musical backdrop, The Children''s Bach is a beloved work that weighs the burdens of commitment against the costs of liberation.A W&N Essential

In July 2023, in a quiet Australian country town, Erin Patterson - stay-at-home mother and true crime devotee - invited her husband''s devoutly Christian family to lunch. Within days, three of her guests were dead and the fourth was in a coma. They had all been poisoned by death cap mushrooms.

Two years later, Patterson stood trial, accused of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The court case gripped the nation and fascinated people all over the world.

Among those drawn into the drama were three renowned Australian writers: Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. Together, they joined the daily media scrum at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts and spent long days immersed in the case''s sinister and complex themes: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, marriage, money, mycology and murder.

The Mushroom Tapes is a true crime book like no other - a uniquely enlightening study of Erin Patterson and our collective obsession with her strange and terrible crime.