Heat 2, the literary sequel to Michael Mann’s classic cops-and-robbers film, is weird. Would it stand alone as a novel? Possibly not. But reading it is an incredibly pleasurable experience.
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Articles on Book reviews
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What happens when a promising young writer comes under attack from the written word?
To his credit, former South African president Thabo Mbeki set up anti-corruption institutions that survived his own efforts to erode them.
Sam Vincent’s new book is a comic portrait of a farming apprenticeship, an interrogation of industrial agriculture and an example of how farmers are connecting with the land’s traditional owners.
In his third book, An Ordinary Ecstasy, Luke Carman conducts an immersive conversation with literature and life.
Jay Carmichael’s novel explores how Australian same-sex attracted men lived during the repressive period after the end of the second world war. But does it impose present concerns on the past?
A new book by Australian photo-journalist Andrew Quilty records the last chaotic days of the failed American nation-building exercise in Afghanistan.
A lucid, demanding book on the psychology and neurobiology of trauma has become a publishing phenomenon. It resonates, writes Nick Haslam, with an age in which people are seeing trauma everywhere.
A blend of fact and fiction, Nimblefoot imagines the life of a long forgotten Australian sporting hero.
These two new romances starring bold, culturally connected heroines from Redfern and Western Sydney break the genre mould – but remain faithful to what readers love about romance.
Selby Wynn Schwartz’s inventive, poetic reimagining of lives like those of Virginia Woolf and Sarah Bernhardt – against a backdrop of Sappho – has just been longlisted for the Booker Prize.
The Matter of Everything is a partial account of the history of physics, which leaves out a lot, including the story of some key women scientists.
In his 1972 novel The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin powerfully dramatised women’s suburban alienation and men’s resistance to feminist change. Michelle Arrow traces its enduring influence.
Tariq Ali’s scathing new book assessing Winston Churchill’s life and legacy paints him as a racist opportunist but overstates Churchill’s enduring influence on politics today.
The five shortlisted novels share various threads concern – childhood stories, themes of migration and male violence – but are infused with a sense of play and measured optimism.
Can you be a woman with agency, be a feminist and have faith? After her marriage breaks down, former Pentecostal preacher Louise Omer travels the world in search of answers.
Shades of classic literature are discernible in The Diplomat, a novel that delves into the disreputable worlds of art and drug addiction.
Two new books examine the life and legacy of an inspiring poet whose work resisted patriarchal constraints.
This book succeeds well in describing and criticising, through many examples, how whiteness works.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied left Australia in 2017 after being hounded by right wing media and politicians. Has Australia changed since? In her new book of essays she believes a better way is possible.
Top contributors
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Executive Dean (interim) Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Professor, Chair of Australian Literature, The University of Western Australia
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Adjunct professor, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer, Writing, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology
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Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape
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Professor of English Literature, University of Southern Queensland
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Matthew Ricketson is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Communication, Deakin University
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PhD Candidate, School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne
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Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University
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VC Fellow, La Trobe University
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Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University
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Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University
