'Opened the cover; lost the rest of the day. Incandescent, righteously angry, superbly constructed. I am grateful for the reading experience, and grateful that the book was written and published'
MICHAEL WINKLER, Miles Franklin shortlisted author of Grimmish
​'This is a book I wanted to race through and savour in equal measures. Simpson is a writer of astonishing insight into the ways humans simultaneously destroy and revere the environment, and The Thinning is an urgent, exceptional novel. Her best yet'
ELEANOR LIMPRECHT, author of The Coast
"It’s a terrific read, attentive to the cosmic and the microscopic, with the action propelled by the competing energies of light and darkness."
​​A dying world. A race against time. Two unlikely heroes.
LONGLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE FICTION INDIE BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ACT LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION
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We haven't always lived like this . . .​​
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Fin grew up by an observatory, learning about telescopes and planets, inspired by the passions of her mother and father, then leaders in their fields of astrophotography and astronomy. Those days are long over.
Now Fin, her mother, Dianella, and a band of outliers live deep off the grid, always on amber alert and always ready to run. ​In the outside world, extinctions and a loss of diversity threaten environmental stability.
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Fin finds herself thrust into an unlikely (and unwelcome) partnership with Terry, one of a new breed of evolved humans, the Incompletes.
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But Fin and Terry need to work together to reach the top of Mount Kaputar in time for a momentous solar eclipse - if they are to play their part in an elaborate plan to restore the natural world.​
'The Thinning blurs the lines between animal, human and adaptation, and provides a gripping glimpse of our possible future through a fascinating astrological lens. An emotional tribute to the natural world. Moving. Urgent. Beautifully written'
KAREN VIGGERS, author of The Orchardist's Daughter