The real-life Kosciuszko never even set foot in Australia, let alone climbed our highest peak. Is it finally time to call it by a name Indigenous people have used for tens of thousands of years?
British TV presenter and novelist Richard Osman, of best-selling The Thursday Murder Club fame, has temporarily parked the adventures of retirees for a new series. It’s laugh-out-loud funny.
After being offered security for an appearance at a local writers’ festival, Rachelle Unreich was reminded that her mother’s lessons are more important and relevant than ever in the face of rising anti-Semitism.
No Australian woman has ever won the Booker Prize but Sydney’s Charlotte Wood is now on the shortlist.
Stone Yard Devotional is among the six impressive nominees up for the UK’s biggest literary prize.
The beloved children’s writer often said Israel was like Nazi Germany. The author of a radical new play explains why now is the right time to examine his racism.
It’s a mystery even to dog lovers themselves as to why the loss of a mere pet can sometimes be more devastating than the death of a friend or family member. Markus Zusak believes he has the answer.
This is the story of Australia’s Overland Telegraph and the man who built them, an English grocer’s son named Charles Todd.
Heart-rending doesn’t begin to cover the scene of Joe Ball, standing outside the ambulance bay as his daughter’s heart speeds away from him forever.
The Australian singer who from early childhood had “a good feeling” in her bones about music, offers a message of hope.
A former scholarship kid from an exclusive all-boy private school has won a Prime Minister’s Literary Award for a story that celebrates his Greek ancestry.
Few things seem more unnatural than a mother abandoning her child. It’s enough to send a shiver down your spine. But are we judging women more harshly than men?
Mick Herron, the author of the Slow Horses series, is the unlikeliest star in publishing. Even he couldn’t have made this up.
I sometimes feel pity for accused murderers and perverts when the media details what police found in their homes during a raid. Go through mine and you’d probably be able to convict me of anything.
A stellar debut, a late-in-life romance, a no-nonsense cookbook and plenty more in this week’s wrap of news from the book world.
The love story between Charles Blackman and his wife, Barbara, revealed in a trove of letters
A new book charts the journey of a young immigrant, struggling to be part of the crowd on Cronulla Beach, to a confident woman holding her own in the waters off Manly.
Moon Unit Zappa opens up on life with her famous father, Frank Zappa.
For many women, the sex they have in their heads may be more stimulating than the physical nuts and bolts of any coupling, no matter how hot.
British historian William Dalrymple maps the vast arc that encompassed the Greek and Roman empires, much of Central Asia and eastwards as far as China, Korea and Japan.
Contemporary Australian novelist Rodney Hall, 88, sat down with historian Geoffrey Blainey, 94, to talk about writing. Turns out they’d met before.
New and notable books, as recommended by The Australian.
Shakespeare described King Henry V as a lightweight, but the real King was tougher, says Dan Jones.
Mystery surrounds the transformation of Mervyn Napier Waller from painter of seductive nudes to leading religious artist.
In the so-called Violated Letter, Dickens wrote that he and wife Catherine were ‘wonderfully unsuited to each other’ and that she had neglected their children.
I sometimes feel calmer after gaming than sleeping, writes philosopher Damon Young. It’s a numbed, contented vacancy — a holiday from consciousness.
Milk’s future is murky, dairy unable to hide from humankind’s stampeding desire for artificial things. Will eggheads manage to make udders redundant?
From the moment the results of the voice referendum started coming in, politicians, advocates and commentators have been trying to rewrite history. The truth? Ultimately, the political right chose not to play ball.
A new Vernon Ah Kee mural celebrates Brisbane writers as it wraps around independent bookstore Avid Reader.
Writer Masha Gessen, who in July was sentenced, in absentia, to eight years in a Russian jail after accusing Russian forces of war crimes, has been unable to board a plane to Australia to speak at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/page/8