Whether your mum is a history buff, art enthusiast, food and wine connoisseur or anything in between, we've got the perfect book for her this Mother's Day.

Politics and Current Affairs

• Oil Under Troubled Water by Bernard Collaery
  Charged, with Witness K, for allegedly breaching the Intelligence Services Act, Bernard Collaery provides the whole sordid backstory to "Australian politics' biggest scandal".
• Accidental Feminists by Jane Caro
  Women over fifty-five are of the generation that changed everything. We didn't expect to. Or intend to. We weren't brought up much differently from the women who came before us, and we rarely identified as feminists, although almost all of us do now. Accidental Feminists is our story.
• White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad
  A confronting reality check for the privileged position of the white woman.
• The Conversation Yearbook 2019 edited by John Watson
  A little bit of authority goes a long way in an opinionated world. Australia's most erudite thinkers share expert views on the issues that shaped the nation in 2019.

Memoirs and Biographies

• Speaking Up by Gillian Triggs
  As president of the Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs advocated for the disempowered, the disenfranchised, the marginalised. She withstood relentless political pressure and media scrutiny as she defended the defenceless for five tumultuous years. Speaking Up shares with readers the values that have guided Triggs' convictions and the causes she has championed.
• One Hundred Years of Dirt by Rick Morton
  One Hundred Years of Dirt is an unflinching memoir in which the mother is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a meditation on the anger, fear of others and an obsession with real and imagined borders. Yet it is also a testimony to the strength of familial love and endurance.
• Other People's Houses by Hilary McPhee
  In Other People's Houses publishing legend Hilary McPhee exchanges one hemisphere for another. Fleeing the aftermath of a failed marriage, she embarks on a writing project in the Middle East, for a member of the Hashemite royal family, a man she greatly respects. Here she finds herself faced with different kinds of exile, new kinds of banishment.
• My Family and Other Animus by James Jeffrey
  An ode to family life in all its glorious mess and chaos.
• Kindred: A Cradle Mountain Love Story by Kate Legge
  He was an Austrian immigrant; she came from Tasmania. He grew up beside the Carinthian Alps; she climbed mountains when few women dared. Their honeymoon glimpse of Cradle Mountain lit an urge that filled their waking hours.

Food and Cooking

• The Secret Ingredient by Chloe Shorten
  With treasured recipes, Chloe Shorten shows how eating together as a family offers more than a meal: it can nourish relationships and nurture your children. Chloe reveals ways to encourage the connections we make at the family table.
• Sunday's Kitchen by Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan
  Sunday's Kitchen tells the story of food and living at Heide, the home of John and Sunday Reed.
• Margaret Preston: Recipes for Food and Art by Lesley Harding
  Drawing on recipes from handwritten books found in the National Gallery of Australia and richly illustrated with Preston's paintings, prints and photographs, this book sheds new light on the fascinating private life of a much-loved Australian artist.
• Australia's First Families of Wine by Richard Allen and Kimbal Baker
  Australia's First Families of Wine celebrates eleven of Australia's most iconic and important wine families and the vineyards and businesses they have built.

History

• The Convent by Stuart Kells
  The Convent: A City Finds its Heart tells the story of the Abbotsford Convent's rich history and the efforts to preserve it. It is an uplifting tale of community activism-a tangible reminder that the magic of the past can endure and what people-power can achieve.
• The Colonial Kangaroo Hunt by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver
  From the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1770 to classic children's tale Dot and the Kangaroo, Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver examine hunting narratives in novels, visual art and memoirs to discover how the kangaroo became a favourite quarry, a relished food source, an object of scientific fascination, and a source of violent conflict between settlers and Aboriginal people.
• The Knowledge Solution: Australian History edited by Anna Clark
  Acclaimed historians and writers reveal defining moments of Australian history and what impact they'll have on our future.
• The Invention of Melbourne by Jaynie Anderson, Max Vodola and Shane Carmody
  The Invention of Melbourne defines the relationship between an architect of genius, William Wardell, and the first Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, James Goold, an Irishman educated in Risorgimento, Italy. The contribution made by Wardell and Goold to the built environment of Melbourne remains significant. Together, they actively and creatively shaped the city that became a major international metropolis.

The Arts

• Papunya by Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon
  Papunya: A Place Made After the Story is a first-hand account of the Papunya Tula artists and their internationally significant works emanating from the central Western Desert.
• La Mama by Adam Cass
  Celebrating 50 years of the La Mama Theatre Company.
• Whiteley on Trial by Gabriella Coslovich
  It was a cause célèbre: the biggest case of alleged art fraud to come before the Australian criminal justice system, a $4.5 million sting drawing in one of the country's most gifted and ultimately tragic artists, Brett Whiteley, a heroin addict who died alone in 1992. Whiteley on Trial investigates this remarkable case and exposes the avarice of the art world, the disdain for connoisseurship and the fragility of authenticity.
• John Perceval by Traudi Allen
  With his undeniable precociousness, John Perceval came to the attention of the art cognoscenti in his early teens. In this fully revised and updated analysis of his art in the context of his life, Traudi Allen shows how, despite having been positioned as the younger follower of Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker and Fred Williams, he was, in fact, sometimes the mentor. The full complexity of his work and his personality is rigorously and engagingly analysed here, in a story that is as sweet and fascinating as it is tragic.