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What makes a person a criminal — the choices they make, the circumstances they inherit, or the society around them?Const...
29/09/2026

What makes a person a criminal — the choices they make, the circumstances they inherit, or the society around them?

Constance Debré’s Offenses, translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman, takes a real murder case and uses it to ask unsettling questions about crime, punishment and responsibility. A nineteen-year-old man kills his elderly neighbour over a relatively small drug debt, and Debré, drawing on her experience as a criminal defence lawyer, looks beyond the crime itself to the lives, poverty, social structures and failures of justice surrounding it.

At just 96 pages, Offenses is a compact book with a very large question at its centre: is a criminal born or made?

Offenses is on our shelves at Black Swan Bookshop. Come and browse, or visit our website (link in bio) and we can put a copy aside or post one anywhere in Australia.
Profile Books constance debré

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.— W. B. Yeats
28/09/2026

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
— W. B. Yeats

Utsuwa Katachi: Japanese Ceramics and Forms, by Tomoo Shoken, looks closely at the beauty of Japanese ceramics made for ...
27/09/2026

Utsuwa Katachi: Japanese Ceramics and Forms, by Tomoo Shoken, looks closely at the beauty of Japanese ceramics made for everyday life. The Japanese word utsuwa means vessel or container, but here the emphasis is on something more intimate: forms shaped by human hands, intended to be held and used. The book brings together 100 works by 29 contemporary ceramic artists, from bowls and plates to teapots, sake vessels and jars, photographed in a way that allows the individual character of each piece to emerge.

A beautiful book for anyone interested in ceramics, Japanese aesthetics, craft — or simply the quiet beauty of useful things.

Utsuwa Katachi is on our shelves at Black Swan Bookshop. Come and have a look, or visit our website (link in bio) and we can put a copy aside or post one anywhere in Australia.

At the end of autumn 2025 we got to hang out with Hannah Moloney and the wonderful crew from Gardening Australia in our ...
24/09/2026

At the end of autumn 2025 we got to hang out with Hannah Moloney and the wonderful crew from Gardening Australia in our garden in the Derwent Valley. Our little segment will be aired on October 2nd on Gardening Australia ABC iview on an episode that looks at creatives and their gardens. Hope you can tune in to this wonderful show. 🌱💚
Derwent Valley and Highlands Tasmania Tasmania Tasmanian Sarah Okenyo ada

The Latin phrase memento mori means “remember that you must die”, or simply, remember that you are mortal. In that same ...
21/09/2026

The Latin phrase memento mori means “remember that you must die”, or simply, remember that you are mortal. In that same vein, C. S. Lewis once wrote that one should “die before they die” — die a series of small deaths to our egos.

In Christian Watson’s picture book How Lucky Am I, Watson elegantly finds a home for these ideas in his character Mr Skelly, who moves through richly illustrated pages pondering the meaning of love, time, relationships, loss and life in its whole, and, in doing so, turns to perhaps the most powerful tool we have: gratitude.
Congratulations Christian Watson | 1924us on a creating a real gem.
💎💀📚♥️
How Lucky Am I is waiting on our shelves at Black Swan Bookshop. If you’d like to support our family-run independent bookshop, come and have a look, or visit our website (link in bio) and we’ll put a copy aside or post one anywhere in Australia.

What happens when a poet devoted to Tasmania’s wild places becomes trapped at the bottom of an abandoned mine?Adam Ousto...
18/09/2026

What happens when a poet devoted to Tasmania’s wild places becomes trapped at the bottom of an abandoned mine?

Adam Ouston’s Mine takes that claustrophobic predicament and opens it into something much stranger and more expansive. As its unnamed poet lies injured in the darkness, memories, voices and fragments of Tasmania’s history begin to converge — from the mining landscapes of the West Coast to the North Mount Lyell disaster and the extraordinary story of Mawson’s Antarctic expedition.

And then there is the form: Mine unfolds as a single, continuous sentence, creating a breathless stream of memory, history, landscape and thought. It’s an intriguing piece of Tasmanian literary experimentation, particularly for readers drawn to books that take risks with what a novel can be.

Have a look at Mine next time you’re in the shop. And if you’d like to support our family-run independent bookshop, pop in and see us or visit our website (link in bio) to have a copy put aside or posted anywhere in Australia.
Adam Ouston Barry Scott

“So often, in the past too, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me and reminded me that there are good things in the world...
15/09/2026

“So often, in the past too, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me and reminded me that there are good things in the world.”

Vincent van Gogh wrote these words to his brother Theo in a letter from Amsterdam on 30 October 1877. At the time, Van Gogh was studying for university entrance examinations and was spending much of his time reading, studying and visiting churches. He wrote that he would invent errands simply to give himself an excuse to visit the bookshops, where he found comfort, inspiration and encouragement.

Nearly 150 years later, the world still spinning haphazardly on its axis, his words still ring true!
♥️📚♥️

A dog becomes an unexpected guide through grief, love and the long process of finding your way back to yourself in Fatim...
14/09/2026

A dog becomes an unexpected guide through grief, love and the long process of finding your way back to yourself in Fatima Bhutto’s The Hour of the Wolf.

This intimate memoir begins with Coco, Bhutto’s fiercely loyal Jack Russell terrier, but gradually opens out into something much larger: reflections on motherhood, family, loss, literature, art, politics and our relationship with the natural world. Alongside these meditations, Bhutto writes candidly about a coercive relationship that shaped more than a decade of her life, and the difficult work of recognising what has been lost.

Short, searching and beautifully wide-ranging, it is a memoir about the strange ways animals can teach us about love, time, tenderness and what it means to be free.

The Hour of the Wolf is on our shelves at Black Swan Bookshop. If you’d like to support our family-run independent bookshop, pop in and see us, or visit our website (link in bio) to have a copy put aside or posted anywhere in Australia.
Daunt Books Publishing

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,The reason, I tell you, is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt co...
13/09/2026

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:

His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name.

— T. S. Eliot, The Naming of Cats

Twombly at home among the picture books, considering his name…

What happens when we stop thinking of clothing as something that simply covers the body, and start seeing it as part of ...
13/09/2026

What happens when we stop thinking of clothing as something that simply covers the body, and start seeing it as part of the way the body is understood?

Costume Art, the catalogue accompanying the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2026 Costume Institute exhibition, explores fashion as an artistic language — and the dressed body as central to questions of identity and representation. Andrew Bolton brings together historic and contemporary garments alongside artworks, drawing connections between fashion, sculpture, painting and the human form.

With designs by figures including Alexander McQueen, Madame Grès, Rick Owens and Madeleine Vionnet, the book considers age, size, gender and disability, while questioning the idealised bodies traditionally presented in art and fashion.

A substantial, beautifully produced volume for anyone interested in fashion, art and the fascinating relationship between the two.

Support our family-run bookshop by popping in to browse, or visit the link in our bio to order a copy for delivery anywhere in Australia.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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