Historical fiction is booming. The much-publicised success of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites, Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is just the tip of the iceberg for a genre that rivals…
If you’ve been involved in internet discussions about sensitive topics like sexual abuse, you may have seen the letters “TW”, short for “trigger warning”. The convention originated primarily on feminist…
It could be claimed (and I am about to) that Gerald Murnane’s 1982 novel The Plains has the most compelling opening in Australian fiction: Twenty years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my…
Spies were a glamour news item in Western (and Soviet) press in the 1960s; it was the age of Kim Philby, British spymaster-cum-Soviet spy, and the endless media hunt for the “fifth man” of the Cambridge…
When you see almost complete shelves of abandoned copies of The Da Vinci Code and Fifty Shades of Grey in charity shops, their near total worthlessness seems to suggest that an individual copy of a book…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Before Kurt Wallander, before Harry Hole, and before Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the lone, towering figure of non-Anglo-American detective fiction was Maigret. Appearing in 75 novels and 28…
This article contains spoilers. Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps que la nôtre … Voila toute la difference. So begins The Repairer of Reputations, the opening story to Robert W Chambers…
What deadly affront would cause a group of conservative booksellers – and a rather attractive golden retriever – to protest by doffing their duds to pose in the buff? The cause was the savaging of a children’s…
While The Shock of the Fall, Nathan Filer’s recent Costa book winner, portrayed a system in which mental health staff spend too much time talking to other professionals rather than to patients, a report…
George Saunders has become the first to win the £40,000 Folio Prize for his collection of short stories, Tenth of December. A contentious prize, the Folio has raised questions about elitism in fiction…