The old German saying Stadt Luft Macht Frei (“urban air makes you free”) is the defining injunction of modernity. Modern western cities were launched as the vessels of liberation from a human era darkened…
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Articles on Books
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Detectives don’t walk down just any old mean street. They prefer them well trodden. London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo are all favoured haunts for crime fiction writers. In Spain, the unchallenged capital…
Time to adjust your sets. Since October last year, this column has focused on television, but “Square Eyes” has now metamorphosed into “Portable Magic”, and will discuss books, reading, and literary culture…
This year marks 40 years since the temple of airport fiction lost its Chief Vestal. Author Jacqueline Susann maxed out her mortal coil back in 1974, on September 21, felled by cancer. She was only 56…
If you had to argue for the merits of one Australian book, one piece of writing, what would it be? See the end of this article for information on how to get involved. Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter was…
In Other People’s Countries, a memoir of his Belgian childhood, Patrick McGuinness writes: “I sometimes think it’s getting worse, this past business, that it’s rising up in me like damp creeping up a wall…
Mills & Boon, the guilty pleasure of many a reader over the decades, is shunning the Kindle in favour of launching its own app. You can now download your favourite bodice ripper and read it discreetly…
If you had to argue for the merits of one Australian book, one piece of writing, what would it be? Welcome back to our occasional series in which our authors make the case for a work of their choosing…
As the award season gets into swing, the number and quality of books published in 2013 show that this was another bumper year for work by Australian women. The winner of the 2014 Stella Prize for Australian…
Novelist, short story writer, journalist, film critic, writer of screen plays, Gabriel García Márquez was a man of many facets and extraordinary skill. He achieved that rare feat for a Latin American writer…
In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the conspirator Cassius bitterly describes the position of Caesar in Rome. He says: … [H]e doth bestride the narrow world Like a colossus, and we petty men Walk…
Today we eagerly embrace new technology for fear of being left behind. A toddler with an iPad in hand is a welcome sign of a child learning to succeed in a digital world. Remainders of the pre-digital…
A furious debate has been raging for some years now between adults. Are you a Kindle lover or a devotee of the good, old-fashioned book? As the e-book spreads into children’s publishing, some look in terror…
It is nearly 50 years since Australian writer Elizabeth Harrower’s previous novel The Watch Tower appeared. Why, after producing four novels between 1957 and 1966, did she stop writing? Or at least stop…
The winners of the enormously respected Pulitzer Prizes have been announced, and of the 21 award categories for journalism and the arts, three caught my eye in particular. Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch won…
If you had to argue for the merits of one Australian book, one piece of writing, what would it be? Welcome back to our occasional series in which our authors make the case for a work of their choosing…
Interest in all things Bloomsbury certainly seems to have taken an upturn. The National Portrait Gallery is planning an exhibition of the seminal modernist writer Virginia Woolf, to open later this year…
Bob Carr is at least as vain as your average politician. The unusual thing is that he knows it. And the shocking thing is that he doesn’t seem to mind letting us know that he knows it. Such are the complex…
I have often argued that I would not let any teacher into a school unless – as a minimum – they had read, carefully and well, the three great books on education: Plato’s Republic, Rousseau’s Émile and…
If you had to argue for the merits of one Australian book, one piece of writing, what would it be? Welcome to our occasional series in which our authors make the case for a work of their choosing. See…
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Lecturer, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
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Honorary Associate in Creative Writing, The Open University
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Executive Dean (interim) Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra
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Lecturer of English, University of Liverpool
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Visiting Fellow, Centre for Cultural and Creative Research, University of Canberra, University of Canberra
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Professor in Publishing Studies, University of Stirling
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Dean of Research (Creative), University of South Australia
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Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Education, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, Monash University
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Professor, University of Stavanger
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Adjunct assistant professor, University of New England
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Emeritus Professor of Australian Literature, University of Sydney
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Director, Monash University Publishing, Monash University
