GRAEME DAVISON City Dreamers: The urban imagination in Australia. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Graeme Davison’s City Dreamers celebrates the visionaries of urban planning and looks at how their dreams have evolved. Historian Graeme Davison has spent much of his academic life thinking about cities, as is evident from his many essays, and especially from...
LEAH SWANN Sheerwater: extract
This week’s extract is from Leah Swann’s novel Sheerwater, a gripping story of missing children. When it opens, Ava is on the Great Ocean Road, driving to a new life in the little town of Sheerwater with her two young sons, Max and Teddy, her car jammed with their...
MALCOLM TURNBULL A Bigger Picture. Reviewed by James McKenzie Watson
Malcom Turnbull’s expansive autobiography, A Bigger Picture, is as much a rebuttal of critics of his prime ministership as it is a personal memoir. In it, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia defends his legacy, savages his opponents and describes a modern Australia...
TOM SEGEV A State At Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion. Reviewed by Renee Bittoun
Tom Segev’s biography illuminates the life and complexities of David Ben-Gurion, a central but divisive figure in Israel’s history. Ask Jews in Australia their views on Ben-Gurion and you will often get the reply that he is ‘a lion’, ‘a hero’,...
LAURA JEAN MCKAY The Animals in That Country: extract
How could Laura Jean McKay know that her novel about a pandemic would be published during an actual pandemic? Unlike Covid, however, the pandemic in her debut novel gives sufferers bright pink eyes and an ability to understand the language of animals. Jean Bennett is...
SUJATA MASSEY The Satapur Moonstone. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Sujata Massey’s 1920s crime series featuring lawyer Perveen Mistry continues in the absorbingly tangled mystery of The Satapur Moonstone. India 1922: The Crown Prince of Satapur, Jiva Rao, is only 10 years old. His father and his elder brother have died, so he...
LAURA SOUTHGATE The Boyfriend. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
Laura Southgate’s first novel highlights questions of agency and serves as a warning against allowing others to make choices for you. At seventeen, here’s what I know: a boyfriend falls desperately in love. It’s an affliction. He tells you he loves you, how much...
JULIE JANSON Benevolence: extract
This week we’re delighted to bring you an extract from Julie Janson’s new novel Benevolence. In this vivid and very moving novel, Indigenous author Julie Janson takes us back to the early days of Sydney and reveals them to us through the eyes of a young...
ROGER BELL In Apartheid’s Shadow: Australian Race Politics and South Africa, 1945-1975. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
The anti-apartheid movement in Australia had more of an impact on policies at home than is usually recognised. In his prologue Roger Bell refers to his childhood in country New South Wales where Aborigines lived ‘on the fringes of town’; something akin to the...
ARNOLD ZABLE The Watermill. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
Arnold Zable finds resilience and inspiration among the survivors of extraordinary suffering. In his quartet of stories, based on real people and events, Arnold Zable travels to places whose histories feature, within living memory, genocidal regimes that visited...
CHRIS FLYNN Mammoth: extract
In the storeroom of an auction house in New York in 2007, a mammoth and a dinosaur settle in for a chat … At least, their bones do. This unlikely conversation is the premise of Chris Flynn’s entertaining and thought-provoking new novel that ranges from prehistory to...
Recent Posts
HELEN PITT Luna Park. Reviewed by Ann Skea17 March 2026Helen Pitt uncovers the history of Sydney’s iconic Luna Park and the history of [ … ]
AARON ROBERTSON The Black Utopians: Visions of hope and resistance in America. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck12 March 2026What might utopia look like for African Americans? Aaron Robertson examines how [ … ]
FRANCIS SPUFFORD Nonesuch. Reviewed by Robert Goodman10 March 2026Award-winning author Francis Spufford’s new novel is a historical fantasy set [ … ]
ZEYNAB GAMIELDIEN Learned Behaviours. Reviewed by Sally Nimon5 March 2026The new novel from the award-winning author of The Scope of Permissibility [ … ]