March 2023
Inside the library where Marx and Engels wrote ‘The Communist Manifesto’
In continuous use for more than 350 years, Chetham’s is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world and includes books pre-dating the use of paper.
- Sue Bennett
October 2021
The big-impact books that matter most to this NGO founder
Sometimes Adara Group founder and chair Audette Exel reads all night, and often all weekend – especially in lockdown.
- Luke Slattery
June 2021
Why the internet won’t kill your new adventure read, the cookbook
Melbourne Food & Wine Festival creative director Pat Nourse on the appeal of the traditional recipe tome, plus his favourite food writers and best booze reads.
- Luke Slattery
April 2021
How rereading can be ‘discovering a different book’
Educator, manager and writer Glyn Davis talks about the tomes by his bedside and the title that brings people to tears.
- Luke Slattery
February 2021
What books does a book editor read?
For a book editor, is a day job also a night job? The line can definitely blur, says Hachette Australia’s Emma Rafferty in our regular What I Am Reading column.
- Luke Slattery
November 2020
Let’s talk about sex – and philosophy
Why don't philosophers talk about sex? Author Damon Young is changing the conversation and talks to AFR Magazine in this month's What I Am Reading column.
- Luke Slattery
October 2020
What this IT entrepreneur and peace crusader is reading
Steve Killelea is the author of 'Peace in the Age of Chaos: The Best Solution for a Sustainable Future'. Here's the book that's commanding his attention now.
- Luke Slattery
August 2020
How India and its literature won an Aussie fashion designer’s heart
Megan Park, who is also an author, opens the book for AFR Magazine in this month’s What I Am Reading column.
- Luke Slattery
July 2020
Madeleine Albright talks books, Aussie friends, China, Trump and more
Is the author and former US secretary of state a one-book-at-a-time person? On the eve of her new book release, she sits down with AFR Magazine for a Q&A.
- Updated
- Luke Slattery
June 2020
This chef and TV host has an unusual way to share his love of books
These days Gourmet Farmer's Matthew Evans has added another string to his bow – becoming his household's resident 'audiobook'.
- Luke Slattery
May 2020
Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty reveals his pandemic page-turners
When COVID-19 hit, books about living through perilous times captivated the medical researcher and author.
- Luke Slattery
March 2020
Why women should talk about desire, according to an author who knows
For her debut, Lisa Taddeo wrote one of 2019’s most talked-about books, blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction and examining female desire.
- Nicole Abadee
February 2020
Gina Rippon: The brains behind the book choices
As a reader, this neuroscientist likes to see how other people convey complicated scientific concepts.
- Nicole Abadee
January 2020
Why author Sisonke Msimang writes in the margins of books
Perth Festival's curator of Literature and Ideas believes much of what influences the way we read is who we are at the time.
- Nicole Abadee
October 2019
High-flying designer David Caon on the books that keep him grounded
At work, the creative mind behind the Qantas Dreamliner cabin refit has his head in the clouds. But when reading, he connects with the mundanities of life.
- Nicole Abadee
August 2019
James B. Young reveals the best books on central Australia
For AFR Magazine's regular What I Am Reading column, the Alice Springs-based shoemaker and outfitter talks about the stories that inspire his work.
- Nicole Abadee
July 2019
Blanche d'Alpuget on a life in books after Bob Hawke
The author of Winter in Jerusalem, and widow of Bob Hawke, on digesting the Bible and her latest instalment in the Birth of the Plantagenets series.
- Nicole Abadee