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Articles on Books

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‘All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost’ - ancient Elvish verse of prophecy. Shutterstock/Serhii Bobyk

How to invent a Tolkien-style language

Quenya, Sindarin, Klingon and Dothraki – there’s an art to making up languages.
EL James: the infamous ‘Fifty Shades’ author. REUTERS/Neil Hall

What makes a book ‘good’?

A poor review doesn’t make for a bad book. But a good one doesn’t make for a good one either.
Journalists Alexander Clifford of the Daily Mail and Alan Moorehead of the Daily Express in the North African desert, 1942. Imperial War Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.

‘Our man elsewhere’: Alan Moorehead in war and peace

Alan Moorehead’s accounts of the second world war revealed his vital and gripping talent, but his peacetime novels were stilted and corny. A new biography delves into his life and language.
All to often, true crime books have glorified male violence and reproduced crude sexist stereotypes. Jari Schroderus

True crime interrogates toxic masculinity, at last

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.
Argentinian artist Raul Lemesoff drives his vehicle called “Arma de Instruccion Masiva” (weapon of mass instruction) through Buenos Aries. What is Australia doing to protect its publishing industry? Marcos Brindicci

Friday essay: thriving societies produce great books – can Australia keep up?

Books contain ideas. They enable minds to shine. Our publishing industry is under pressure on many fronts – yet cultural matters seem of little significance to the federal government.
Discworld is a wildly inventive literary creation that sprawls over dozens of books. David Skinner

A beginner’s guide to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

This Saturday it will be a year since Alzheimer’s stole Terry Pratchett from the world. We mark the occasion with a beginner’s guide to his most enduring creation, the 41-book Discworld series.
William Yang’s beautiful photography crackles with life. All the World’s a Stage, Geoffrey Rush,Exit the King, Belvoir, 2007 © William Yang.

Stories of Love and Death: casting a new light on William Yang

William Yang has, maybe more than anyone else, shaped Sydney’s view of itself. A new book, William Yang: Stories of Love and Death, collects his iconic photographs, with scrawled annotations.
Since 2009, record sales have soared. 'Records' via www.shutterstock.com

How digital technology spawned retro’s revival

While technological advances have rendered some products obsolete, they’ve also spurred the growth of niche markets that cater to people looking to reject mass-produced goods.
In the current publishing climate culture is always subsumed to business. Daniel Wehner

Publishing should be more about culture than book sales

The perception of publishing as a business, even a creative one, means that the question of book sales dominates our conversations about it. But publishing offers far more to our culture than that.
Jane Austen horror has burgeoned into a distinctive subgenre of adaptations. Kevin Harber

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: it’s the Jane Austen horror show

England’s green and pleasant land will be beset by a plague of the living dead, corpses will dig their way out of graves … Jane Austen horror is now a distinctive subgenre of Austen adaptations.
The foot is the basic unit for what we consider to be romantic and beautiful: poetry. Khánh Hmoong

Explainer: poetic metre

Poetic terminology can be alienating, off-putting. Whispering “dactylic hexameter” in people’s ears won’t necessarily tempt them into reading heroic verse. But there is hope – and poetry – for us all.
On the anniversary of his death, we reflect on how J. D. Salinger’s writing first influenced the world and how it continues to do so now. July Morning | RU

Six years on: the enduring influence of J. D. Salinger

Today marks six years since celebrated writer J. D. Salinger died at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire, at the age of 91. But his influence remains well and truly alive.

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