A very personal odyssey
Kate Grenville’s new book, Unsettled, takes the reader back through lands taken, not taken up.
Books
Author stripped of award over Hamas ‘martyr’ posts
Karen Wyld who labelled the Hamas architect of the October 7 attacks a ‘martyr’ has had her prestigious taxpayer-funded fellowship rescinded.
Diane Stubbings — Theory & Practice: Between creativity and destruction lies insight
In Theory & Practice, Michelle de Kretser blurs the line between memoir and fiction to explore the uneasy space between feminism and desire, modernity and prejudice, theory and the messy facts of life.
The lawyer, the dictator and the Nazi war criminal
Author and lawyer Philippe Sands was asked to represent the Chilean dictator in court. His wife said she’d leave him if he took the gig.
Writers, say a frozen-smiled ‘hello’ to Dominic Amerena
When news ripples through about the next big thing – the dazzling debut, the new kid on the block – one has to fight one’s inner Macbeth in order to give the tacker an even break.
Fond farewell to a truly unique writer
Tracy Sorensen, who has died at 61, wrote two wildly original novels, including one narrated by a tumour inside a body
Come Writers & Critics
An inmate’s memoir, a stunning debut, and more from literary editor Caroline Overington’s wrap of news from the world of books
Tequila wars: inside the gold mine of blue agave
We’ve come to associate Mexican cartels with drugs and bloodcurdling slaughter. But in the early 1900s, Mexico’s first cartel was formed around tequila.
World War II turns another page
Print-book sales of children’s titles that are focused on World War II spies and fighters and the Holocaust are rising because of an ‘insatiable interest’.
Trent Dalton’s forthcoming novel is his most personal yet
If this announcement – wait, what, a new Trent Dalton novel?! – seems to have come out of nowhere, it has. Few people knew Trent Dalton was writing another book, and he says it came out of him like a fever breaking.
How love works in an open marriage
Do you still have sex with your husband? These and other impertinent questions are asked and answered in a new memoir by a woman in an open marriage.
In the era of Ozempic, this feels like a necessary novel
Lonely Mouth is told from the perspective of Matilda, a 33-year-old woman whose life revolves around her place of work: a vibrant Sydney restaurant, Bocca.
Writers need to eat: the crushing poverty of a life in the arts
Like so many young Australians, my life is a subscription service. My dream of buying a decent place where I live is unrealistic; simply renting and keeping it together is already a struggle.
Nagi takes the cake, and wins food fight, at book industry’s ‘night of nights’
Nagi Maehashi has taken the cake for cookbooks at the 2025 Australian Book Industry Awards, while ailing singer John Farnham rises to the top.
‘We’re taking all mention of JK Rowling out of the marketing’
Best-selling children’s author Jessica Townsend instructed her publisher to remove JK Rowling comparisons from the promotional material for her blockbuster Nevermoor series.
Explosive finale caps journey
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue is a locked-room mystery on a train
Big bickies are at stake in this Instagram food fight
There’s been a caramel slice recipe on the side of the Nestle condensed milk tin for something like 50 years. What makes Nagi’s special?
One-woman wonder at Opera House
Books and plays about female warriors and other news from the book world.
Travels with my angst
Chris Hammer turned his hand to novels and sold millions. He hasn’t given up his campaign for the nation’s rivers.
Book review: He Would Never
Holly Wainwright’s explosive new novel is about adults out camping with their maturing teenage kids.
Inside the risky lives of gold rush sex workers
Males outnumbered women in Victoria by a fair margin in the 1860s, meaning there were for many men, no potential romantic partners. Papillon catered to some of their desires.
What can we learn from the end of World War II?
It is convenient to forget that some men and women greatly enjoy war, even (or especially) when they themselves are in mortal danger.
How music keeps the doctor away
A new book argues for the therapeutic benefits of music.
Inside the minds of the misunderstood
Author Daniel Tammet, 46, found fame two decades ago for some astounding mental feats.
Cormac Reilly is back as mystery emerges from mud
In this exclusive extract from Dervla McTiernan’s new novel, a mutilated body is pulled from a bog in Galway.
Culture of Anzac: Dawning of the ‘fair go’ nation
Australia’s World War I legend still informs the Australian mind and identity, in mysterious and compelling ways.
Censor OKs Gender Queer comic for teens
Australia’s censor has approved a comic book that illustrates sex and masturbation, after a two-year legal dispute and a court-ordered review.
‘What have I done?’: a student exchange to Iceland starts dismally
Rotten shark for dinner, standoffish host parents: Hannah Kent’s year in Iceland was isolating and bleak, but she remains homesick for the culture she now loves.
Finding peace in injustice
American Amanda Knox says she is still trying to come to terms with her life in – and out – of prison.
Australian identity: what can we take from the ‘myth of Gallipoli’
Polymath Steve Vizard endorses the idea that the ‘myth of Gallipoli’ acts as ‘Australia’s putative creation story’. But a lot of things that are not religions can look a bit like religions.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/page/2