Donald Horne saw Australia as a lucky country that was squandering its luck. His bold ideas captured the nation’s imagination. But being a public intellectual is no longer easy. Who will come up with the next grand ideas?
A new book expresses concern that the ‘average American’ has base knowledge so low that it is now plummeting to ‘aggressively wrong’.
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Tom Nichols’ book The Death of Expertise examines why the relationship between experts and citizens in a democracy is collapsing, and what can be done about it.
There are several ways into the book Shaping the Fractured Self: poetry of chronic illness and pain, edited by Heather Taylor Johnson. And there are many uses it might serve in the multiple worlds of poetry…
Leo Zeilig’s latest novel is set in the Robert Mugabe-ruled Zimbabwe.
Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
Leo Zeilig’s novel features a superbly crafted cast of characters. It’s a page turner for readers interested in the profound questions of radical politics and humanity.
The Green Bell illustrates a life of complete and careless love, and utter grief: author Paula Keogh and poet Michael Dransfield in the early 1970s.
Affirm Press
The lovers at the centre of The Green Bell - its author, Paula Keogh, and that passing meteor of Australian poetry, Michael Dransfield - met in the psychiatric unit of Canberra Hospital.
Climate fiction: A novel describes New Yorkers keeping on even after 50 feet of sea-level rise next century.
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A researcher on sea level rise and climate change impacts reviews Kim Stanley Robinson’s new novel, ‘New York 2140,’ which envisions the city’s future in the face of extreme sea-level rise.
Fragrance is intimately linked with our memories and feelings.
J. Sibiga Photography/Flickr
Surely only a weirdo wouldn’t enjoy the smell of flowers and pine forests? But as Kate Grenville writes in her latest book, fragrance causes untold misery to many of us.
A work of fiction gives an interesting insight into the real world of science research.
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Thomas Barlow is more used to writing factual reports on science innovation, so his first novel gives an entertaining insight into the science community.
Enough with the charming, naughty funny-guy rants. There are too many in a new anthology of Australian comedy writing – and women display a superior comic imagination.
Zimbabwean police beat up a man protesting the reintroduction of local banknotes.
REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
From poetry to factual narratives and personal memoirs, these books are worth reading.
The Andromeda Galaxy, just part of a finely tuned universe.
Flickr/NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B.F. Williams, and L.C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
A tone of bitter disillusionment dominates the book, which combines self-deprecating anecdotes with reflections on the unique strangeness of policing a post-apartheid South African city.
Are contemporary insults as witty as the scorn of the past?
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Scorn has a long and humorous history. But a new book on the subject, featuring quotes from Kanye West, Christopher Hitchens and of course, Donald Trump, rather lacks contemporary wit.
Qunta advocates a reparations fund to accelerate corrective policies, that schools be freed from colonial indoctrination and that African culture should be mainstreamed, especially African languages.
DeLillo’s latest novel dwells on the implications of accelerating technology – including the practice of freezing dead bodies in the hope that one day, they could become immortal.
All to often, true crime books have glorified male violence and reproduced crude sexist stereotypes.
Jari Schroderus
The genre that brought us the writings of Mark “Chopper” Read isn’t known for its impeccable gender politics. But two new books cast a critical eye on a culture of male violence.
Cecil John Rhodes: master of all he surveys - but not of a secret society.
Reuters/Eddie Keogh
The book contains major flaws, the chief of which is the lack of solid, supporting evidence. Brown claims that ‘Rhodes documented everything’ – which was not actually the case in this regard.
In a new book, former prime minister Paul Keating makes it clear that, from a young age, he was interested in power and the gaining of it.
AAP/Daniel Munoz
Kerry O'Brien has provided the platform for Paul Keating to define his political career, explain what drove his reform agenda and cement his position as one of Australia’s greatest leaders.