Our Team

Geordie Williamson has been chief literary critic of The Australian since 2008. He is publisher of the Picador imprint at Pan Macmillan, a former editor of Island Magazine and Best Australian Essays, and author of The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected figures from Australian literature. He lives in Hobart.

Latest

Book reviewArts

Aerial view taken of the Adelaide River, from a small fixed wing aircraft heading east to west inland at the end of the wet season in the Top End, Northern Territory Australia.

Does a river have rights?

Would it be all that weird to assign human-style rights to rivers? They seem alive to Robert Macfarlane.

Geordie Williamson

commentaryCommentary

Bojana Novakovic in Lady Macbeth at the Malthouse in Melbourne. Picture: Malthouse Theatre

Don’t censor the past if you want a robust culture

The Australian Classification Board wants to litigate the worthiness of books, films and television in the light of evolving community standards. It may not be outright censorship, but it’s certainly bowdlerisation of a kind.

Geordie Williamson

A YEAR OF READINGReview

A young woman reading a book while sitting on a chair at the beachhttp://195.154.178.81/DATA/i_collage/pu/shoots/805670.jpg

The most anticipated books of 2025

Chief literary critic Geordie Williamson previews the titles we can look forward to this year – in both fiction and nonfiction.

Geordie Williamson

Book reviewReview

EMBARGO FOR TWAM 29 APRIL 2023. FEE MAY APPLY. Australian Author Tim Winton at Nigaloo Reef, WA. Photo: Violeta J Brosig / Blue Media Exmouth / Supplied

Tim Winton takes a thoughtful look at humanity’s impact on the planet

If Tim Winton’s first novel concerned with climate change, 2013’s Eyrie, was a secular gospel – an account of redemption in a fallen world – then this is the Book of Revelation.

Geordie Williamson

WOODEN ODESReview

Michael Massey Robinson was a poet and author of the first published verse in Australia. Picture: State Library of NSW

The man who composed poetry so bad it got him transported

Australia’s first – and to this point, only – Poet Laureate was a man of undeniable industry but without talent to match. Though his gifts were limited, there’s a reason we’re returning to his story.

Geordie Williamson

Book reviewReview

2X50KHF PAGET SISTERS. English identical twins Celia (left) and Mamaine in 1935. 1935.

The gilded lives of the Paget twins

This is a thoughtful and intimate account of the lives of Celia and Mamaine Paget, whose lives were linked by friendship and marriage to a bohemian world of mid-century writers and intellectuals.

Geordie Williamson

SO-CALLED ‘LOST NOVEL’Review

UNDATED : Undated image of author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.P/

Should this book have been published?

The two sons of Gabriel Garcia Marquez have decided that the world should read his last book, written while the Nobel laureate grappled with dementia.

Geordie Williamson

ReviewReview