Not all Anzac stories are the stuff of legends

The Anzac legend has been considered a foundation of Australia's national character for more than a century. But the myth has sometimes fallen uncomfortably short of reality, and facts that don't fit the warrior-hero narrative have been excised, ignored or papered over. From deserters on the Western Front and Aboriginal veterans of World War I who agitated for their political rights to allegations of atrocities and war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan, the three leading historians who have edited this volume have assembled a collection of "stories of Australian service that challenge the hegemony of Anzac in Australia today".

John Blair. Princeton University Press. $59.99.

Archaeologist, historian and Oxford professor emeritus John Blair digs deep into the origins of humanity's fear of, and macabre fascination with, the undead. From ancient Mesopotamia to present-day Haiti, he recounts stories of restless corpses rising from the dead, early vampire panics and "corpse killing" epidemics in the 17th century. Archeological digs have revealed bodies that have been decapitated or nailed down. One unearthed a woman buried in 16th-century Poland with a sickle positioned across her throat and a padlock on the big toe of her left foot. Someone superstitious or fearful evidently assumed such measures would keep her in her coffin.

Christina Applegate. Headline. $34.99.

Christina Applegate, who was 15 when she began playing airheaded Kelly Bundy in raunchy sitcom Married ... with Children in 1987, had planned to burn the diaries she'd poured her hidden hopes, hurt and doubts into since childhood. Instead, the 54-year-old turned them into this ferociously frank, funny and profane memoir about the abusive men she survived from a young age, the sexualised celebrity that came with her big TV break, the breast cancer diagnosis that led to a double mastectomy and the multiple sclerosis that forced her out of acting just as Netflix series Dead to Me showed her in a new light.

Lucinda Holdforth. Summit Books. $29.99.

"Who wants to declare that living longer is a problem for our economy and for our society?" Lucinda Holdforth asks in the introduction to this somewhat provocative book. Holdforth argues that society's obsession with longevity is creating not only a black hole for taxpayer funds but a huge and powerful political cohort that will stymie Australia's progress by delaying the invigoration of generational change. Some of the biggest victims, she writes, are aged people themselves, "kept alive by a medical system that is brilliant at setting people up to lead a low quality of life for a very long time".

Lauren Keegan. Affirm Press. $34.99.

The author of All The Bees In The Hollows returns with a wonderfully atmospheric and compelling historic novel set in Scotland in 1695. Malie grew up hearing the tales of selkies: shape-shifting women who shed their sealskins to seduce fishermen on the Orkney shores. That's the story of how her parents met, and it must be true, because one day her mother slipped into the sea and was never seen again. Now, married and expecting her first baby, Malie feels a wildness in her and a deep yearning for the sea. This haunting tale deals with motherhood, grief, violence and female oppression.

Mary-Lou Stephens. HQ Fiction. $34.99.

The Tasmanian-born author of The Jam Maker and The Chocolate Factory threads intrigue, romance, deceit and drama into more real-life Tassie history, this time with a dual timeline set in 1939, as jewel thief Sabine Winters escapes to Hobart from Europe just as the glamorous Wrest Point Riviera hotel has its grand opening, and 1973, as croupier Jenny Davies prepares for the grand opening of the glamorous but controversial Wrest Point Hotel Casino. Mary-Lou Stephens stirs in some blackmail, spies, Nazis, a detour to South America and the gift of a mysterious key to thicken her plot and bring the history to fictional life.

Annie Buist & Graeme Simsion. Hachette. $34.99.

From the duo behind The Glass House and Two Steps Forward comes a profound and engrossing medical drama that takes us into the world of physical and mental health, and how they're connected. Trainee psychiatrist Dr Hannah Wright is back where she worked as an intern, except instead of dealing with patients' broken bodies she's tackling their mental health. Christina is planning to sue her obstetrician - Hannah's ex-boyfriend - for mental distress during labour. And that's just the beginning. Hannah finds herself navigating unexpected friendship and a new relationship before her grandmother unleashes an explosive secret.

Stephen, illustrated by Rudi de Wet. Affirm Press. $22.99.

Yes, we are going there. Did you seriously think that Australian authors of children's books would draw the line at irresistibly rascally titles like Do Not Open This Book or Koalas Stole My Undies or The Day My Bum Went Psycho? No, writer Steve MinOn and illustrator Rudi de Wet have dared to create a picture book for littlies that requires their favourite grown-up reader to say a particularly giggle-worthy word - but not in a rude way. Intended to be read aloud by (brave) adults, the repetition, rhymes and wordplay, plus the bold illustrations, aim to help young readers get to the bottom of words hidden within other words.

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