Death used to happen off the page in kids’ books, but not anymore. They kill each other in The Hunger Games, and 13 Reasons Why graphically describes the impact of teen suicide.
Alexis Wright won the Miles Franklin award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria.
AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Do you read Australia’s First Nations writers? If not, why not? The time is well overdue for non-indigenous Australians to engage with the original inhabitants of the country.
Platform 9 and ¾, the portal to Harry Potter’s magical world, at Kings Cross in London.
Harry Potter image from www.shutterstock.com
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the phenomenally successful series, turns 20 this month. Despite criticism of their status as ‘literature’, the books remain a magical experience for children.
A parade in St Petersburg last year celebrating Bloomsday, the day on which Ulysses is set.
Shutterstock
Around the world today, fans of James Joyce’s Ulysses will celebrate Bloomsday. This experimental novel can be bewildering to read, but for those who persist, it is a ‘feast’ of a book.
Filling in the gaps.
Jonathan Brady/PA Archive/PA Images
Whether the ubiquity of fiction has devalued truth or enhanced morality has been in doubt for over 2,000 years.
Dar Digest (story ‘Muhafiz’), February 2015. Free from the fetters of common natural laws, horror stories represent a society’s fears and prejudices.
J.Schaflechner
Thomas Barlow is more used to writing factual reports on science innovation, so his first novel gives an entertaining insight into the science community.
A number of novels provide links between risk-assessment, financial speculation, and terrorism. But simultaneously, real life terror in 2016 renders writing about it completely and utterly pointless.
A scene from the TV mini-series, ‘Mars’.
National Geographic
The recently broadcast TV mini-series, “Mars”, combines fiction and nonfiction in a way that places them in balance. This kind of combination is likely to feature in more television series and films.