Steinhoff was the darling of investors, asset managers, analysts and financial journalists. But its success was built on shaky foundations.
Alexis Wright, pictured here in 2007 after winning the Miles Franklin award for her book Carpentaria, is one of many writers first published by University of Queensland Press.
Dean Lewins/AAP
The University of Queensland Press has a peerless record of discovering, nurturing and supporting Australian writers. A new anthology is a cross-section of many of their writings.
The confidence to navigate the borders between cultures and languages is essential in the world today. Why not start the education this holiday, with adventure stories?
The confidence to navigate between cultures and languages is essential in the world today. Start the education this holiday, with adventure stories from Guam to the North Pole.
Whichwood is one of five great reads for teens that highlight authentic experiences, marginalized voices and critical thinking.
(Dutton Books)
What future the Great Barrier Reef? What future energy policy? Two new publications on the ongoing battles of climate politics deserve close attention.
Zimbabwean police beat up a man protesting the reintroduction of local banknotes.
REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
Qunta advocates a reparations fund to accelerate corrective policies, that schools be freed from colonial indoctrination and that African culture should be mainstreamed, especially African languages.
Cecil John Rhodes: master of all he surveys - but not of a secret society.
Reuters/Eddie Keogh
The book contains major flaws, the chief of which is the lack of solid, supporting evidence. Brown claims that ‘Rhodes documented everything’ – which was not actually the case in this regard.
What better way to spend your year-end holiday than absorbed in a good book or ten?
Shutterstock
There isn't a lot of time for recreational reading when you're running a university. But when year-end holidays roll around, Africa's vice chancellors can finally read for pleasure.
Sacks’ works have introduced readers to the marvellous complexities of the mind.
Mars Hill Church Seattle/Flickr
The popular neurologist revealed earlier this year that he only has months to live – a statement which casts his recently-released memoir, On the Move: A Life, in a new light.
Selling students short comes at an important time for higher education in Australia: funding uncertainties and questions over academic standards have never been more pronounced.
from www.shutterstock.com.au
Richard Hil’s Selling Students Short: Why You Won’t Get the Education You Deserve is a timely exposé of the difficult conditions facing students at Australia’s increasingly corporatised universities.
Salman Rushdie claims not to have realised his GoodReads ratings were public.
EPA/Helmut Fohringer
Negative reaction by other authors to Salman Rushdie’s book ratings demonstrates how sensitive writers can be. But why shouldn’t an author give however many stars they like to a book?
Some 23 years after his death, Australian artist Brett Whitely's vision continues to have resonance and will likely remain a defining representation of late 20th century Australia.
Good reviewers don’t need editors to fight their battles.
Luke Larsson
It is perfectly understandable for an editor to be protective of his own patch, but it is worrying when the editor of a national magazine, which claims to be the leading independent Australian literary…
A new collection takes stock of the four decades that have passed since the publication of Dennis Altman’s landmark book, Homosexual.
malstad
Noted Works is a new series on The Conversation devoted to long-form reviews of significant new books. See the end for further details. Dennis Altman was a young, articulate activist and out gay man when…
All serious writers should take their own work, and the efforts of others, seriously.
photosteve101
There should be no hard and fast rules concerning book reviewing. That’s because reviewing constitutes a worthy genre in its own right, one that should not be limited by guidelines or mandates. Criticism…
Let’s not underestimate the intellectual goodwill that sustains our literary culture.
Antoine Robiez
Book reviewers and the editors of periodicals that commission them are used to sour assessments of their worth, but Professor John Dale’s article on The Conversation yesterday is in a class of its own…