IAIN MCINTYRE (Ed.) On the Fly! Hobo literature & songs 1879-1941. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
In his introduction to this fascinating collection of writing from the American hobo era Iain McIntyre tells us how that way of life, which began due to economic necessity, became so much more. The material gathered in On the Fly! reflects the politics of the early...
JANE LYDON and LYNDALL RYAN (Eds) Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre. Reviewed by Alexander Wells
The scholarly essays and personal reflections collected in Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre probe the broader meanings of one episode of shocking violence while also demonstrating the restorative power of historical truth-telling. In 1838, a group of armed...
Must-reads of 2018
From fiction to crime to history, essays, memoir and literary letters, the NRB editors choose ten of the reviews we published in 2018 of books we think deserve to go on your TBR pile. Jean’s picks: Ali Smith Winter The first of Ali Smith’s...
SYLVIA PLATH The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume II: 1956-1963, edited by Peter Steinberg and Karen V Kukil. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The iconic poet continues to fascinate and Sylvia Plath’s letters shed light on her astonishing work ethic, her marriage to Ted Hughes, and the final years of her life. This second volume of Sylvia Plath’s letters takes up her correspondence from where Volume I...
ROXANE GAY (Editor) Not That Bad: Dispatches from rape culture. Reviewed by Justine Ettler
Feminist Roxane Gay brings together dispatches from the front lines of rape culture. This anthology of personal essays asks one of the harder questions about rape: ‘What is it like to live in a culture where it often seems it is a question of when, not if, a...
LEIGH SALES Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, resilience and what happens after the worst day of your life. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
The striking feature of this book is how much of herself Sales reveals as she takes a close look at a number of people blindsided by the ‘poison darts of fate’. A kind-looking grey-haired man sitting across from me downstairs at the National Library of Australia...
TIM PARKS Out of My Head: On the trail of consciousness. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
Parks ushers us into the difficult world of science, where he gives a masterclass in the detailed analysis of scientific papers. Tim Parks is a prolific writer of novels and nonfiction, and a translator who lives in Italy and lectures at the University of Milan. A few...
JAN MORRIS In My Mind’s Eye: A thought diary. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Reading this memoir by Jan Morris is like having light, charming, gossipy meetings with an old friend. In My Mind’s Eye is a thought diary which, ‘having nothing better to write’, Morris thought she would ‘have a go at’. For 188 days, Jan (as she signs herself) shares...
LESLIE JAMISON The Recovering: Intoxication and its aftermath. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
Leslie Jamison illuminates her own downhill slide into alcoholism and eventual uphill lurch into continuous sobriety by a scholarly investigation of the lives and works of numerous alcoholic literary luminaries. It isn’t often that a member of Alcoholics Anonymous,...
HENRY REYNOLDS This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
In this book Henry Reynolds shows that today’s white activists for justice for Indigenous people are inheritors of a long tradition. Reynolds’s first book about Aboriginal and white relations, The Other Side of the Frontier, was published in 1981. For many people it...
LOUISA DEASEY A Letter from Paris. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
In this search for her father, Louisa Deasey affirms the value of love, generosity, and – crucially – encourages thinking about what a successful life really is. Louisa Deasey’s father, Denison Deasey, died when she was a child. With only one photograph of them...
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