A new book explores how birds have adapted to our cities - from nesting in skyscrapers to snatching food - reflecting on the beauty and wildness they bring to urban landscapes.
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Articles on Book review
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From partying in California to activism in Australia, Grace Tame refuses to be defined by past traumatic events. The voice of her memoir, writes Camilla Nelson, is irrepressible.
Joyce Carol Oates saw Blonde, her epic novel interrogating the legend of Marilyn Monroe, as ‘my Moby Dick’. Mel Campbell celebrates Oates’ achievement, in the lead-up to the Netflix adaptation.
Four different authors – Sarah Moss, Roddy Doyle, Anne Tyler and Gary Shteyngart – tell four different stories of life in a time of COVID.
Breaking History reads like a dutiful student’s account of ‘what I did on my summer holidays’. But Kushner provides useful insights into the Washington and Middle Eastern policy-making processes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What is the appeal of cults? How do they work? And what is the damage they do? A new book, by the creator of the podcast Let’s Talk About Sects, answers these questions and more.
A new book telling the story of the last 25 years of the House of Windsor reveals a family that briefs against each other freely.
Two books on historical gay hate crimes – the murder of George Duncan in Adelaide, 1972, and army officer Warwick Meale in Townsville, 1942 – aim to create positive change by revealing past injustice.
Hannah Gadsby explores the unique challenges and gifts of being an autistic, gender queer outsider. Her memoir charts her path to comedy success – navigating trauma and self-knowledge along the way.
Helen Garner is the pioneer of fearless self-revelation in Australian literature. Writer Sean O'Beirne examines his own literary fear and fearlessness: should he ‘give’ more, as Garner does?
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Dean, Graduate Research, University of Canberra
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Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, The University of Melbourne
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Adjunct professor, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University
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Joanna Mendelssohn is a Friend of The Conversation.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Project Manager, Murdoch University
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Professor, Chair of Australian Literature, The University of Western Australia
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Course coordinator, The University of Queensland
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Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Susan Lawler is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University
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Professor of Psychology, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University
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Personal Chair, Literary Studies, Deakin University
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Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
