May is shaping up to be a monster month as far as new books are concerned. There's fresh fiction from Naoise Dolan and Deborah Levy, an essay collection from Samantha Irby, meanwhile Australian intellectual Ghassan Hage is set to launch a compilation of his influential research on racism, nationalism and colonialism – and how they all intersect. As for the other new books we're reading in May 2023? Find them below.

Personal Score, Ellen van Neerven

Release date: May 2

For a country that's obsessed with sport, we refuse to interrogate how it has the power to not only unite, but divide. From the moment they began playing football at a young age, this is something Mununjali Yugambeh, non-binary author Ellen van Neerven has understood, and in their new book Personal Score, van Neerven explores sport through a First Nations and queer lens. From the untold history of Indigenous sport and the implications of playing on stolen land to athlete activists and body policing.

 

Search History, Amy Taylor

Release date: May 2

The thing about modern dating is that past relationships, exes and dirty laundry all leave a digital paper trail. Search History protagonist Ana is learning this firsthand. After fleeing Melbourne in the wake of a breakup, Ana's situation is looking particularly drab. That is until she meets Evan, who is charming, kind, financially responsible – basically the antithesis of her dating history. But when she finally caves and stalks him on social media, Ana comes across the page of his previous girlfriend Emily, who died recently in a hit and run, and finds herself obsessively trawling her posts, making comparisons and wondering why Evan has never mentioned her?

 

August Blue, Deborah Levy

Release date: May 9

A novel I'll be purchasing as soon as it lands at my local bookshop. August Blue opens with Elsa M. Anderson, a classical piano virtuoso. Pottering through a flea market in Athens, Elsa watches a woman buy two mechanical horses. In that moment, she imagines the woman as her double, and the life she dreams up for the lady takes a shape of its own. From there Elsa chases her across Europe, whether that is knowingly remains to be seen. The story culminates in one final encounter during a fateful summer rainstorm.

 

Yearbook, Seth Rogen

Release date: May 12

Having written for Superbad and Pineapple Express, it makes sense that Seth Rogen would put eventually publish something of his own. Yearbook is a collection of essays that cover the actor's time at Jewish summer camp, doing standup comedy as a teenager, his own family history and stories from living in LA (which yes, mention drugs a lot). If nothing else, the drawcard is the book has promised to be funny and offer a lot of juicy tidbits about celebrities which he is sure will "create a wildly awkward conversation for me at a party one day".

 

The Guest, Emma Cline

Release date: May 16

Emma Cline publishes her first novel since The Girls, her 2016 debut that earned a spot on the Sunday Times best sellers list. With traces of Raven Leilani's Luster, The Guest follows Alex who, after a summer spent living with an older man on Long Island, is sent packing back to the city following a misstep at a dinner party. With little to work with, save for a talent for entertaining the desires of others, Alex manages to stay on Long Island, billowing in and out the gated communities and like a hurricane, leaving nought but destruction behind her. Mark it down as your feral girl summer read.

 

Quietly Hostile, Samantha Irby

Release date: May 16

There's nothing like a Samantha Irby essay to unclench your jaw and loosen your limbs. So we're glad another collection is on the way. What's changed since Wow, No Thank You? A lot actually. Irby has found fame in Hollywood, attended a major red carpet premiere, and after writing for And Just Like That... she's also received a lot of strange emails about Carrie Bradshaw. Strap in for more candid and comedic advice on all the gross and mundane details of life.

 

The Three Of Us, Ore Agbaje-Williams

Release date: May 16

Like Kiley Reid's Such A Fun Age and Candice Carty-William's People Person, The Three of Us deftly captures the subtleties that make or break a relationship. Set over the course of a single day, Agbaje-Williams tells the story in three parts, each one from the perspective of a wife, her husband and her best friend, the latter two of which despise each other.

 

Notes On Her Colour, Jennifer Neal

Release date: May 23

American-Australian author Jennifer Neal launches readers into a world of magical realism played out in humid Florida. We are introduced to Gabrielle and Tallulah, daughter and mother who have banded together in the face of a volatile patriarch, a man of colour trying to prove himself in the corporate world. Gabrielle can change the colour of her skin, a skill she inherited from her mother, but under her father's wishes everything from the crockery to the walls in their home is bleached a cool white – and the women must conform. But when Tallulah is hospitalised, the mother-daughter bond is weakened and Gabrielle must navigate the world around her – and her sporadic shifts in colour – on her own.

 

The Racial Politics of Australian Multiculturalism, Ghassan Hage

Release date: May 27

Whether you came to the research of Ghassan Hage at university or out of personal necessity, his influence on Australia's understanding of racism, nationalism and colonialism – and how they all intersect – cannot be overstated. Published by Sweatshop Literacy Movement, The Racial Politics of Australian Multiculturalism is an essential collection for the Ghassan Hage reader. It includes his seminal work White Nation, along with Against Paranoid Nationalism and the intellectual's later writings.

Celebrate the launch of Ghassan Hage's new book with an evening of conversation and performance at Sydney Writers Festival.

 

Love Language, Linda Marigliano

Release date: May 30

Beloved Australian radio presenter and podcaster, Linda Marigliano, examines her own relationship with people-pleasing, identity, family and performing in her upcoming memoir Love Language. After a lifetime of over-committing, approval-seeking and feeling stretched thin, Marigliano sifts through the complicated relationship with her mother, the sense of duty within her extended Italian and Chinese-Malaysian families, and the unique demands of her career and love life to understand how her acts of service has begun to serve everyone except herself.

 

The Happy Couple, Naoise Dolan

Release date: May 30

The Happy Couple is on route to examine the ubiquitous marriage plot through five characters all linked by a wedding set to take place in one year's time. You have the happy couple: Luke and Celine. Then there's the best man, Archie, who is in love with Luke and without the desire to change that. Celine's chain-smoking sister Phoebe is the bridesmaid, and has no wedding aspirations of her own. The way she sees it, her role is to get to the bottom of Luke's frequent disappearances. Meanwhile, wedding guest Vivian watches on with enough emotional distance to see with clear eyes. If the plot reminds you of Four Weddings and a Funeral, me too.

 

Half Deaf, Completely Mad, Tony Cohen & John Olson

Release date: May 30

A music memoir with the approval of Nick Cave. Before legendary Australian music producer Tony Cohen died in 2017, he had granted researcher and archivist John Olson access to unseen recordings with Cold Chisel, Michael Hutchence, The Cruel Sea, Cat Stevens, Split Enz and more, along with personal reflections from his time producing music during the 70s, 80s and 90s and defining the sound of Australian punk.

 

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