JOHN BIRMINGHAM Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney; DAVID HUNT Girt: The unauthorised history of Australia. Reviewed by Kurt Johnson
Leviathan and Girt are engaging because they do what official histories shy away from – they spin a ripping yarn. We Australians have a strained relationship with our past. As the ongoing culture wars rage ever louder, it might seem that we respond to our history...
GIDEON HAIGH A Scandal in Bohemia: The life and death of Mollie Dean. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
In exploring the death – and life – of Mollie Dean, Gideon Haigh covers a lot of fascinating ground. A young woman walks home after a Melbourne theatre performance, making a phone call to a friend along the way. Then, metres from her front door, she is...
DAVID RITTER The Coal Truth: The fight to stop Adani, defeat the big polluters and reclaim our democracy. Reviewed by Caleb Goods
The Coal Truth brings into sharp focus why the proposal to mine coal in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland is so critical to our common future. The unassuming word Adani has come to represent an immense conflict over how Australia’s, and the world’s, future...
JAMES COVENTRY Footballistics: How the data analysis revolution is uncovering footy’s hidden truths; PETER NEWLINDS with DAVID BREWSTER Around the Grounds: Magic moments from the life of a sports broadcaster. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Sport can be examined from many angles. The first of these books takes a single sport and the second a single life as its subject. I might be the worst person to review Footballistics since I decry the over-quantification of the game. If I’m allowed to wear...
DAVID CHRISTIAN Origin Story: A big history of everything. Reviewed by Mathilde Montpetit
Clearly written and ambitious, David Christian’s Origin Story manages to weave a comprehensive narrative about the evolution of the universe and the human species. Origin Story begins with a manifesto: a defence of Christian’s field. Big History, he explains, is the...
DURGA CHEW-BOSE Too Much and Not the Mood. Reviewed by Clare O’Brien
Honesty and self-actualisation are at the core of this debut collection of essays by Durga Chew-Bose. The 14 pieces in Too Much and Not the Mood, varying in length and form, draw inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary, as does the book’s title. The...
HUGH MACKAY Australia Reimagined: Towards a more compassionate, less anxious society. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
For decades, Mackay has warned in mild tones about the social costs of our retreat into consumerism: now he is calling us out more stridently. It’s been a while since I reviewed one of Hugh Mackay’s books, and when I heard him being interviewed on Radio National about...
JUDITH BRETT The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, the new biography of Australia’s second, fifth and seventh Prime Minister, is a magnificent sweep of a book that demanded to be written. Deakin has been the subject of previous biographies and author Judith Brett quickly establishes her points...
ALEXIS WRIGHT Tracker. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
In Tracker (winner of the 2018 Stella Prize), hundreds of stories are told to build up the portrait of an immensely complex and gifted man. This is a big book about a big personality but it’s not a traditional biography. Most of it consists of transcribed...
BRI LEE Eggshell Skull: A memoir about standing up, speaking out and fighting back. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Writing with raw energy and cool intelligence, in Eggshell Skull Bri Lee reminds us of the prevalence of abuse and injustice in our communities. The first pre-trial hearing Bri Lee worked on as a judge’s associate in the Queensland District Court involved a...
KATE LEAVER The Friendship Cure. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
There’s an antidote to loneliness, one Kate Leaver believes in powerfully, as her debut book The Friendship Cure shows. There is serious competition for the title of most pressing health epidemic of our time, including workplace stress, mental illness...
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