Christos Tsiolkas Book order

A compelling contemporary love story between two middle-aged men, told with grace, heart and wisdom.

An audacious and transformative novel on the past, the present and the power of writing from the award-winning author of Damascus.

A stunning, powerful new novel from the acclaimed author of The Slap and Barracuda.

This title tells the story of one family, trapped between conflicting identities - while the parents were born Greek and Italian, the three sons, Dom, Tommy, and Louie, have grown up as Australians. Haunted by their history and increasingly unable to relate to each other, Tommy inexorably descends into a cycle of violence, pornography, and madness

Contemporary fiction. Love, sex, death, family, friendship, betrayal, tenderness, sacrifice and revelation. This incendiary collection of stories from acclaimed bestselling international writer Christos Tsiolkas takes you deep into worlds both strange and familiar, and characters that will never let you go.

Daniel Kelly, a talented young swimmer, has one chance to escape his working-class upbringing. His astonishing ability in the pool should drive him to fame and fortune, as well as his revenge on the rich boys at the private school to which he has won a sports scholarship. But when he melts down at his first big international championship and comes only fifth, he begins to destroy everything he has fought for and turn on everyone around him.

Isaac is a young Australian photographer travelling through Europe in search of the old-world sophistication of his father's stories and dismayed at the homogenous and globalized contemporary society he encounters. However, as he moves from country to country, the facade is slowly stripped away, revealing a continent condemned by the ghosts of its unspeakable past. When Isaac reaches the Balkan village where his mother was born, he encounters ancient terrors not yet laid to rest.

Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. When a man slaps a child who is not his own at a neighborhood barbecue, the act triggers a series of repercussions in the lives of the people who witness the event.

Fred Schepisi's film, The Devil's Playground is an intimate portrait of Tom, a thirteen-year-old struggling in spirit and body with the constraints of living in a Catholic seminary. It is also the story of the Brothers and how they cope with the demands of their faith. Made in 1976, this semi-autobiographical films established Schepisi as one of Australia's most talented directors and was one of the first Australian films to be selected for Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Christos Tsiolkas invites you into his twenty-five year journey of viewing, reviewing and re-imaging the film. He remembers his first illicit experience of the film at the age of thirteen and describes how his views of it changed in later years. As he chronicles the impact of The Devil's Playground on the development of his sense of self and of his love of cinema, he also explores the film in terms of sexuality, politics, history and aesthetics. Tsiolkas' account of what The Devil's Playground said and didn't say to him is a passionate tribute to the power and possibilities of cinema.