Simon Clark

It’s just over a week until Christmas and the AU Books Team have been busy making their lists, rating their books, and agonising over their choices for their favourite books of 2025. It’s never an easy task and it’s practically impossible to pick just one, so we let them pick a few. Of course this list is not all encompassing and by no means covers everything we’ve loved this year.

Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula will play host to a celebration of human connection and celestial wonder in August next year with the Iceland Eclipse Festival. Running across four days and with a solar eclipse to kick things off, the limited capacity festival will see punters rubbing shoulders with astronauts, global innovation leaders, and a whole host of music artists from Iceland and beyond, with the first wave of artists, speakers, and guests were announced this week.

Somehow it’s June already and we’re nearly halfway through 2025. It’s been a busy year release wise and shows no signs of slowing down either. As always we’ve got ten more new releases to add to our Discovery playlist on Spotify and Apple Music, including two tracks we had premieres for earlier in the week. Tasmanian singer-songwriter Maddy Jane takes home our Track of the Week with her powerful new single “Thylacine”.