The debut novels of two forceful, intelligent journalists are bold, brash stories of powerful women at the top of their game. One details a horrific sexual crime, the other ugliness in the art world.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Books + Ideas – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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Storyselling, unlike narration, attempts to eradicate uncertainty. It cannot perform the important task of imagining the future.
Indigenous people have long spoken about coercive practices of officials and experts around birth control, as late as the 1960s. Now historians are finding evidence in the government’s own records.
In Black Duck, Bruce Pascoe traces a calendar year on Yumburra, the farm his bestseller Dark Emu helped to purchase.
The End of the Morning is Charmian Clift’s most successful piece of fiction. But it is only a piece and one that leaves two matters unresolved.
In her new book, Who’s Afraid of Gender?, feminist philosopher Judith Butler explains how gender and sex are socially constructed, while fighting critics who see gender as a threat to the social order.
Donor conception, surrogacy, artificial womb technologies … a new book delves into how families are changing.
Jodi McAlister is an expert in romance – and The Bachelor – in her day job. Her entertaining rom-com trilogy tells egalitarian stories of romance in the setting of a reality-TV dating show.
So much is being lost due to climate change, one can feel deranged. But the world still hums with beauty and astonishment – there is much for us to save.
Winnie Dunn has made it her project to bring a more sensitive intercultural understanding to an unfamiliar readership
Australian literature is a rich and largely untapped source of information about how Australians think about AI.
Writer and psychotherapist Adam Phillips is often hailed as one of the world’s great essayists. His new book – exploring the topic of giving up, among other things – is both erudite and slippery.
Nathan Thrall’s harrowing account of an avoidable tragedy doubles as a devastating analysis of the everyday realities of occupation, in the context of Palestinian and Israeli history.
Lives that matter: new novels by Trish Bolton and Graeme Nash defy the stereotypes of older women in fiction.
Writers have long rhapsodised about real estate – or the difficulty acquiring it – but contemporary authors are asking awkward questions about the inequities of our property obsession.
Svend Brinkmann’s idea of thoughtfulness is not just about exercising our rational powers to solve puzzles, but the existential dimensions of thinking.
British writer Angela Carter was a creative trailblazer. And in 1979, she published a book attempting the near impossible, claiming Sade –pornographer and literary bad boy – as a proto-feminist.
A novel about first-wave feminists cleverly critiques the movement’s privilege. The first fiction from Nakkiah Lui’s imprint highlights uncomfortable truths. And a debut about teen girls is ‘too naive’.
Crimes of the Cross tells how clergy and leaders in the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle covered up allegations, protected abusive priests and failed to care for survivors.
Catherine Chidgey’s disquieting, award-winning novel The Axeman’s Carnival explores the disintegrating relationship of a rural couple from the perspective of their pet magpie, Tama.
Governments need to follow through on what we know will work, not give in to the housing policy din.
We don’t ban queer teachers in public schools anymore, but it’s still allowed in some religious private schools – which the new Law Reform Commission report wants to address. What can history teach us?
At a time when women had limited rights, writers found ways to raise the issues of coercion and control.
Until August is the fruit of Gabriel García Márquez’s labour against adversity, a moving testament of his love for and commitment to literature.
Is it really OK that the Americans, Canadians, French and New Zealanders manage to do better by their cartoon and comic heritage than Australia?