There’s something disturbing about a story tracking a character’s mental decline for thrills. Happily, Paula Hawkins’ new novel, A Slow Fire Burning, joins a genre of books bucking this trend.
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From Fiji to France to Central Australia, stories abound of lands lost beneath the sea. Some are likely founded on millennia-old memories of coastal submergence, offering us clues today.
Exclusion has been central to utopian ideas of Australia since before Federation. It still lingers. To progress in this climate-challenged century, Australia’s foundational wrongs must be righted.
Outnumbered 200 to one and using traditional weapons, Tongerlongeter and his warriors drove the colony to desperate measures. In other wars his self-sacrifice would have earned him a medal.
How an item of traditional Afghan dress became a staple of western “hippie” fashion from the 1960s right up to today.
By the end of the 19th century, the Devil had become a figure of myth. Ironically, that helped his image proliferate in popular culture.
When Britain legislated to abolish slavery in 1833, some former slave owners moved to the Australasian colonies. New research traces this movement of people, money and ideologies.
It’s no coincidence that more books about trees are popping up. There is an air of desperation in new books by Peter Wohllben, Janine Burke and others.
This ancient myth, in which a nymph transforms herself into a tree to escape the lustful attention of the god Apollo, has inspired countless retellings in art. Its themes resonate today.
Not only is the black swan important for many Aboriginal people, it was also a potent symbol within the European imagination — 1500 years before Europeans knew it existed.
For an ecologist working in a tangle of creeks in North Queensland, crocodiles are a tangible threat. We are food to them, yet we must learn to co-exist with these creatures.
Following scandals over illegal logging, and with an appetite for rare, old-growth wood, the guitar industry is rethinking its environmental footprint. Australian companies are leading the way.
How does the spirit of Byron Byron endure wave after wave of seekers and lately, Instagram influencers? Sally Breen took a road trip and found a something deeper in the beachy township.
The line between what is normal and what is pathological has blurred. We risk our collective sanity and our planet if we stick to business as usual.
Is there an essence of love? Is it ultimately about commitment? Philosophy can offer some answers.
Australian Indigenous languages use a fascinating array of expressions drawing on body parts to describe emotions. Here is a guide to some of the most intriguing ones.
Many Australians believe in the existence of the soul. Here is a brief guide to how the five major world religions imagine the soul’s origin and journey.
What happens when the distant frontier takes up residence in the family home? How are we to remember our flawed ancestors? A new book grapples with these questions.
Every day, the internet fills up with more and more dead people while our ability to reanimate them grows. The dead are more robust and more vulnerable — and we’re not ready for any of this.
The widespread conflict that accompanied Australian life for 140 years was arguably our most important war. We need a museum telling this story, funded on a par with The Australian War Memorial.
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