Old women remain the butt of jokes; they are some of society’s most marginalised people. But age also invites us to become our most authentic selves, writes Carol Lefevre.
Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham in a 2012 adaptation of Great Expectations.
Image: IMDb
This brainy feminist romp of a novel, loved by Rachel Cusk and Maria Semple, is often compared to Brideshead Revisited. But Carol Lefevre says it’s more like a sexy, sweary version of Nancy Mitford in 1960s London.
The Congo Basin’s rainforests in central Africa are sometimes called Earth’s second lungs (after the Amazon) because of its ability to store carbon.
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The author of Shuggie Bain returns to the public housing schemes of 1980s working-class Glasgow to explore the redemptive power of secure love and the dangers of violent, dominating masculinity.
Why don’t chimpanzees rule the world? Is storytelling - the mysterious glue that enables millions of humans to cooperate effectively - the answer?
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Straight from our experts, here are five books to help you understand what’s happening right now in Ukraine and Russia, from a must-read history of Ukraine to a literary classic with insights into the Russian soul.
Coal-mining communities are disappearing in the UK so it’s more important than ever to authentically document their way of life.
A Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces member hugs a resident leaving his hometown following Russian artillery shelling in Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, March 9, 2022.
AP Photo/Oleksandr Ratushniak
For nine years, The Stella Count has tracked the gender of authors reviewed in key Australian publications. The bias once firmly favoured men. But things have changed.
Black writers like Charles Chesnutt had to contend with a dilemma writers today know all too well: give the audience and editors what they want, or wallow in obscurity.