MANDY BEAUMONT The Furies and AMY REMEIKIS On Reckoning. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Mandy Beaumont’s novel and Amy Remeikis’s essay share powerful themes. Two books released in this nascent year recount women’s trauma and silencing by men, and their rage. In On Reckoning, an essay in Hachette’s ‘On’ series, Guardian journalist Amy...
AMANI HAYDAR The Mother Wound. Reviewed by Sanchana Venkatesh
Last month Amani Haydar’s powerful memoir won the non-fiction prize at the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. When Amani Haydar was five months pregnant with her first child, she received the unimaginable news that her mother, Salwa Haydar, had been...
ROBYN FLEMMING Skinful. Reviewed by Mary Garden
Robyn Flemming’s memoir encompasses the adventure of being a global nomad within a story of addiction and healing. Over the past several decades, there have been countless books falling under the umbrella of ‘addiction memoir’, most of them focusing on alcohol...
DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA A Ghost in the Throat. Reviewed by Anna Verney
Contemporary Irish poet Doireann Ni Ghriofa explores the life and work of eighteen-century poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s prose debut A Ghost in the Throat is both intimate and scholarly, ranging across multiple literary forms. Clothed...
MATTHEW NICHOLSON, BOB STEWART, GREG de MOORE and ROB HESS Australia’s Game: The History of Australian Football. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
As a single-volume history of the growth and development of Australian football, Australia’s Game has much to recommend it. When a book consists of 784 pages and 54 chapters, it’s a big book. But when it also contains 2517 endnotes and has a bibliography that includes...
GABRIELLE CHAN Why You Should Give a F*ck About Farming. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
In this survey from the ground up, Gabrielle Chan argues we all have a stake in the future of farming. Do you give a f*ck about farming? You’d perhaps be forgiven for a low-energy response to this brusque question. There’s a lot going on at the moment, and you might...
BILLIE JEAN KING All In: An autobiography. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
Billie Jean King was a champion on and off the tennis court, working for inclusion and civil rights as she made tennis history. Whenever Muhammad Ali met up with tennis legend Billie Jean King, he liked to say, ‘Billie Jeeeean, you’re the Queen.’ And ‘the Queen’ she...
NRB readers’ favourites for 2021
Which were the reviews you enjoyed the most this year? We’ve come up with the ten most popular reviews we’ve run this year, based on reader views. Inevitably it skews a little to reviews we ran earlier in the year (as there has been more time for readers to...
JANET McCALMAN Vandemonians: the repressed history of colonial Victoria. Reviewed by Lucy Sussex
Historian Janet McCalman discovers what happened to the freed convicts who settled in Victoria. New Zealanders like to call convicts ‘Australian royalty’, omitting the inconvenient fact that boundaries and identity were hardly fixed in stone back then. A convict could...
GIDEON HAIGH The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Gideon Haigh has written a captivating account of the legal career of one of Australia’s most enthralling public figures, Herbert Vere Evatt, and a defining court case. Better known as ‘Doc’ or ‘Bert’, Evatt was Minister for External Affairs and Attorney General...
CAROLE ANGIER Speak, Silence: In search of WG Sebald. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Carole Angier’s biography of writer WG Sebald examines his German origins, English exile, and his hugely influential books. In the preface to Speak, Silence, Carole Angier addresses the difficulties of writing Sebald’s biography when so many significant aspects...
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