Books

Alice Pung reckons she grew up not always understanding where she fit in. But, things have changed and she now has a distinctive voice in her writing. The Chinese-Australian author has published her memoirs, several books of young adult fiction, and has had pieces feature regularly in The Monthly. And that’s all when she’s not…

Musicians seem to be a pretty multi-talented bunch. Some of them find themselves in television and movies el la Cher and others find themselves walking the runway like Young Thug. What you might not expect however, is the amount of musicians who have delved into a different sort of profession. Writing children’s books! Rockstars expanding…

Another month. Another five books. We might be getting closer to Christmas, but there’s nothing particularly “festive” about this month’s five titles. Though they’d all make wonderful gifts for the book lover in your life. It is a particularly fiction heavy list this month, with a debut short story collection, a highly anticipated second novel,…

Inaugural novella, Echo Boom, by Jameson Ketchum has landed, with music journalist, publicist and Hopecore Magazine columnist Ketchum taking us on a diarised journey through the words and mind of fictional “writer” Edward Caspian. An over thinker to the end, Caspian, guides the reader through his twenty-nine year friendship with his friend, Giles Green, who has…

Combining memoir, social science, and collected stories, author Sohaila Abdulali provides readers with a well-researched exploration of the many discursive threads surrounding rape and sexual assault. It is, quite simply, a vital piece of literature for the post #MeToo world and beyond. All around the world, definitions differ, and coping mechanisms vary, making the topic both…

Australia’s favourite storyteller, Di Morrissey, returns with her Twenty-sixth book, Arcadia, a modern mystery born in a timeless Tasmanian forest. Set in the 1930’s, Arcadia tells the story of a young new wife, Stella, as she arrives at her husbands isolated property in Tasmania, where she finds love and beauty nestled amongst the nearby untouched forest. The…

Established in 2016, the Feminist Writer’s Festival aims to support and promote feminist writers in Australia. For the first time this biennial festival came to Sydney, and over the course of two and a half days this writer attended a total of ten talks. Topics of the talks ranged from Writing and Speaking Indigenous Lives…

New York, 1997. Marina, an academic who has been working on a book about members of the Hasidic community meets Constance, a young Rwandan woman who has come to America after the genocide. Marina watches as Constance walks away from her young son as he has a tantrum in the street and is struck by…

Queerstories is a popular event where Australia’s best LGBTQI+ writers gather for some good, old-fashioned storytelling. The show began at the Late Night Library in Kings Cross, Sydney and has gone on to tour other states and towns. It makes sense that, because this all began in a library that people should be able to…

Summer is closing in, and you know exactly what that means. Australia is home to some of the biggest and brightest selections of entertainment and there is no doubt that coming up there will be something for everybody. From Jazz Festivals to Comedy shows, November is jam-packed with ah-mazing events and we aren’t going to…

After escaping Jackalfax for good, and discovering her powers as a Wundersmith, twelve-year-old Morrigan Crow is excited to finally be starting her training at the elite Wundrous Society. But, others within the Society are convinced Morrigan is dangerous, and with Wunsoc members going missing, her patron Jupiter North doesn’t have time to help her navigate…

McWhirters, a heritage listed building sitting on the corner of Brunswick and Wickham, is a Brisbane landmark, these days operating as a shopping centre, an apartment block, and a very obvious map marker for those lost in the depths of the Valley. But, in What Will Be Worn: A McWhirters Story, the name emblazoned on…

Brisbane author David Cohen has put together a much anticipated collection of short stories in the form of his new book The Hunter and Other Stories of Men. The collection contains eighteen stories, most around the ten page mark, whilst some of which were published in various publications between 2004 and 2017. With some of the stories…

Twenty years ago, Helen Franklin did a terrible thing. Unable to forgive herself, she lives a life of self-imposed penance, scraping together a living as a translator in Prague and denying herself the simplest of pleasures. But when her friend Karel hands her a strange manuscript, detailing sightings of a tall woman in black haunting…

Best known as one sixth of legendary comedy troupe Monty Python, Eric Idle never rested on his laurels – though he was quite happy to make a bit of cash from them when the opportunity arose. Covering it all, from his working class childhood and the rise of the Pythons, to the creation of the…

Milkman by Anna Burns has been announced as the winner of the 2018 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The 56 year old author is the sixteenth woman, and remarkably the first Northern Irish writer to win the prestigious award. Burns drew upon the experiences of her home country to write her third full length novel….

The shortlists for the 2018 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards have been announced today, bringing together some of Australia’s most prominent and decorated writers. The Fiction shortlist, for example, features two former Man Booker winners, and two Miles Franklin winners.  The Awards recognise Australia’s literary talent across six different categories: fiction, non-fiction, Australian history, young adult…

Next month, some of Australia’s leading feminist writers and thinkers will be heading to Sydney for the Feminist Writers Festival. Held in conjunction with the UTS Centre for Social Justice and Incusion, it will be the first time the festival has been held in Sydney. Over three days, thirteen sessions, and featuring over forty speakers,…

If you’ve stepped into any store over the last couple of weeks you’d probably have noticed that the countdown for Christmas is well and truly on. This also means there are no shortage of new books being released into the world. Earlier this month, on the so-called “Super Thursday” there were 544 new books released…

We are wrong about most things. That may be a bitter pill to swallow but as The Perils of Perception proves, it’s true. This non-fiction book is an intriguing study into just how ignorant our society is. It draws on 100,000 interviews from forty countries. The take home message? We should be afraid. Very afraid….

Edinburgh 1847. Evie, a prostitute visited by apprentice doctor Will Raven, is dead. Raven is shaken by the discovery of her twisted corpse, and, as other victims began to appear across the city’s Old Town, he sets out to get to the bottom of the gruesome deaths. Teaming up with the fiercely determined Sarah Fisher,…

Stuart Coupe is part of the (black t-shirt) fabric of Australia’s music industry. In a career spanning four decades, he has worked as an author, journalist, promoter, artist manager, publicist and broadcaster. Coupe has written several books about Australian music. His latest one, Roadies, features stories from the hard-working men and women who toil behind-the-scenes…

I don’t normally read non-fiction or memoir, but something about the premise of Nell Stevens’ second book, Mrs Gaskell and Me (also known as The Victorian and the Romantic) appealed to me when I first started hearing about it on social media a few months back. On the surface, it has a simple premise; it is a literary memoir…

Clementine Ford is back with her trademark brand of no holds barred feminism, brandishing an outstandingly fierce follow-up to 2016’s Fight Like A Girl as her weapon of choice. Boys Will Be Boys sees the Aussie writer take on toxic masculinity, patriarchal power, and the harrowing effects they have on us and our society, regardless…

Imagine actress Parker Posey is occupying the seat beside you on a plane, her beloved pooch Gracie on her lap. Imagine she’s feeling rather conversational. Parker Posey, that is, not Gracie. That’s the basic premise of You’re On An Airplane, the first memoir from the versatile performer and star of Dazed and Confused, the recent…

In Mira Robertson’s debut novel, her eponymous heroine, Emily Dean, is sent to stay with her grandmother and great uncle on their property while her mother recovers from what I can only presume is a nervous breakdown of sorts.  It’s most definitely not a farm, as Emily is told by her family, though to the…

When actor and activist Harry Cook migrated to Australia at the age of ten homosexuality had only been recently decriminalised. A few years later he would struggle with coming-out to his parents. He says acceptance was hard, because there weren’t many queer-positive stories around at the time (in fact, homophobic propaganda was rife during the AIDs…

There’s no question that Australia’s roadies know their way around a microphone. A concert set-up doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere. It take tireless crew members toiling away to unpack, set-up, test and re-pack the staging and equipment; and repeating this process as they travel to different towns and venues. For too long, roadies may…

Today the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize has been unveiled, with the thirteen strong longest whittled down to just six. The six authors making the cut are Anna Burns, Esi Edugyan, Daisy Johnson, Rachel Kushner, Richard Powers and Robin Robertson. Although, still a strong shortlist, it is not without its surprises. There’s no room on the…

“Our house is a very, very, very fine house.” Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young might have been singing about the suburbs, but the same can be said about the Sydney Opera House. A building beloved by Sydneysiders and tourists alike, many people may not realise the project was a doomed one. It was almost thwarted…