Play On! The Hidden History of Women’s Australian Rules Football (Brunette Lenkic & Rob Hess, Echo Publishing)
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
Play On! is a meticulously researched chronology of the genesis, evolution and trials of women’s footy. The sport has long been buried beneath the budget and reverence of men’s football,...
The Great Multinational Tax Rort (Martin Feil, Scribe)
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
Martin Feil has over 20 years’ experience in advising multinational companies and the Australian Tax Office. In this timely book, Feil argues that the tax minimisation practices of multinational companies...
Why the Future is Workless (Tim Dunlop, NewSouth)
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
According to some of the best research, close to 50% of all jobs will be automated in the next 20 years. Whether these jobs will be replaced, as has happened...
Wool Away, Boy! A Ripping Memoir of Life in the Shearing Sheds (Alan Blunt, William Heinemann)
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
‘The traditional shearer’s campfire yarning, joking, chiacking and debating over politics, general news, women, sport and family were morphing from culture to folklore,’ writes Alan Blunt. It’s a change that...
Celeste (Roland Perry, ABC Books)
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
This is the 30th book from Roland Perry, who is well known for his books on Australian military history and cricket. Its subject is a courtesan who lived in Paris...
Between the bars: Elspeth Muir on ‘Wasted’
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Elspeth Muir’s memoir Wasted (Text) explores Australia’s drinking culture through her relationship with her younger brother Alexander, who died when he jumped off a Brisbane bridge while drunk. It is...
Hiding in plain sight: Liam Pieper on ‘The Toymaker’
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Liam Pieper’s The Toymaker (Hamish Hamilton) tells the story of privileged, wealthy Adam and his grandfather Arkady, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz. It is a novel about how ‘flawed human...
On tour: Anne Bishop
Thursday, 26 May 2016
US fantasy writer Anne Bishop is travelling to Sydney and Perth in June. Her latest book Marked in Flesh (Penguin US) is the fourth book in ‘The Others’ series. What...
Love Elimination (Sarah Gates, Mira)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Readers who enjoy the drama of television shows such as The Bachelor will appreciate the premise of Love Elimination by Sarah Gates. Anna Hobbs is so close to her dream...
After the Carnage (Tara June Winch, UQP)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Tara June Winch focsuses on shared humanity in this collection of short stories. Her protagonists belong to groups dismissed by the white, straight, middle-class eye: in ‘Happy’, a gay couple...
Shibboleth and Other Stories (ed by Laurie Steed, Margaret River Press)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Entitled Shibboleth, after the winning story by Jo Riccioni, this absorbing anthology of entries from the Margaret River Short Story Competition demonstrates the calibre of the short-story scene. The contributors...
The Priests (James M Miller, Finch Publishing)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
In this harrowing memoir, James Miller, a successful solicitor and academic author, describes a young adulthood stolen and a life spent in hell. In 1978, at the age of 15,...
Their Brilliant Careers (Ryan O’Neill, Black Inc.)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
We don’t see much formally innovative, experimental writing in Australian fiction—realist narratives tend to rule the roost. Also rare is genuinely fine comic writing. Enter then Ryan O’Neill, who, with...
City Dreamers: The Urban Imagination in Australia (Graeme Davison, NewSouth)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Australia has long looked to the bush as a formative element of our national character despite being one of the most urbanised countries in the world. Our cities have shaped,...
Wasted: A Story of Alcohol, Grief and a Death in Brisbane (Elspeth Muir, Text)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
After tobacco, alcohol is shown to cause the most drug-related deaths in the world. It’s one of many facts that are threaded through Elspeth Muir’s intricately crafted memoir Wasted. But...
The Paper House (Anna Spargo-Ryan, Picador)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Anna Spargo-Ryan has a strong voice on social media and in shorter-form writing, advocating for mental-health awareness by being honest about her own raw experiences with mental illness. Her debut...
The Island Will Sink (Briohny Doyle, Brow Books)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Local literary journal The Lifted Brow makes its first foray into trade publishing with this debut speculative-fiction novel by regular Brow columnist Briohny Doyle. In the middle-distant future, major ecological...
Ghost Empire (Richard Fidler, ABC Books)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
In Ghost Empire radio presenter Richard Fidler recounts his travels to Rome and Istanbul with his 14-year-old son, exploring the fabled Land Walls of Constantinople and undertaking a rite of...
The Toymaker (Liam Pieper, Hamish Hamilton)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
From the first few pages of The Toymaker it’s obvious that Liam Pieper isn’t pulling any punches: he has your attention straight away as his privileged, wealthy protagonist Adam makes...
Position Doubtful: Mapping Landscape and Memories (Kim Mahood, Scribe)
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Artist and writer Kim Mahood grew up on Tanami Downs Station in the Northern Territory. She has always felt the strong pull of the land and its Indigenous people, and...
Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing (Ashleigh Wilson, Text)
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
It just so happens that I was reading Our Man Elsewhere by Thornton McCamish and considering what makes a good biography when Ashleigh Wilson’s Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the...
Writing to the Wire (ed by Dan Disney & Kit Kelen, UWA Publishing)
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
What place is there for poetry in Australia’s highly divisive and politicised public debate about refugees and immigration? It’s a question the editors of this significant new collection of both...
Truly Madly Guilty (Liane Moriarty, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Liane Moriarty is an author with a dedicated fan-base, and it seems only fair to preface this review by saying I have not read any of her previous novels. Not...
Skylarking (Kate Mildenhall, Black Inc.)
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Kate Mildenhall’s debut novel Skylarking is a historical novel reminiscent of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites and Shirley Barrett’s Rush Oh!, though perhaps for a younger readership. It’s a story of...
Remaking history: Kate Mildenhall on ‘Skylarking’
Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Kate Mildenhall’s Skylarking (Black Inc., August) is a historical novel about an intense female friendship. Reviewer Angela Andrewes spoke to the author. Skylarking is based on historical events. What drew...
Ruins (Rajith Savanadasa, Hachette)
Friday, 29 April 2016
Told from five viewpoints—mother, father, daughter, son, servant—Rajith Savanadasa’s debut novel is a ‘family bildungsroman’ which unfolds during the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war. Latha, aging servant...
On tour: Hanya Yanagihara
Friday, 29 April 2016
What would you put on a shelf-talker for your latest book? A fairytale about male romance set in someplace that feels a lot like New York City in a time...
On tour: Herman Koch
Friday, 29 April 2016
Dutch writer Herman Koch is the author of the satirical novel The Dinner (Text). His latest book Dear Mr M (Text) will be released in August. He is travelling to...
Rebellious Daughters (ed by Maria Katsonis & Lee Kofman, Ventura Press)
Friday, 29 April 2016
Rebellious Daughters features a stellar line-up of Australian female writers sharing touching stories of rebellion, family life, coming of age and motherhood. Edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman, this...
The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft (Tom Griffiths, Black Inc.)
Friday, 29 April 2016
History, writes Tom Griffiths, is ‘the fundamental fabric of a common humanity’. In The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft, the Canberra-based academic and historian examines how writers...
