BENJAMIN LAW The Family Law. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
Family memoir at its giddy, poignant best – The Family Law captures with incisive wit what it meant to grow up Asian and gay on Queensland’s suburban Sunshine Coast. Fans of the recent SBS TV series of The Family Law will already be familiar with the idiosyncratic...
DINO HODGE (Ed) Colouring the Rainbow: Blak Queer and Trans perspectives: life stories and essays by First Nations people of Australia. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
The passionate life stories and the essays in Colouring the Rainbow reveal the challenges facing Queer and Trans Indigenous Australians. This powerful collection looks at the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sexuality and also places it within an...
STAN GRANT Talking to My Country. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
Part polemic, part memoir, Stan Grant’s new book is a passionate account of the toll of a lifetime of negotiating between two cultures. The contradictions of being black in Australia, shown so vividly in this book, are there right from the beginning, in the...
MARK FORSYTH The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the delight of not getting what you wanted. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
The Unknown Unknown illuminates the serendipitous pleasures of book buying. Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of Defense, is not one of my heroes. Yet as Mark Forsyth has argued in this exquisite little essay, Rumsfeld’s 2002 phrase ‘unknown unknowns’ (linking Iraq...
SHAKIRA HUSSEIN From Victims to Suspects: Muslim women since 9/11. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Do Muslim women need saving by the West? How have attitudes in the West changed towards Muslim women since those planes flew into the Twin Towers? Shakira Hussein’s book opens with a description of a celebrity fundraiser in New York for Afghan women. It is February...
JOHN NEWTON The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian native foods with recipes. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
Why don’t more Australians eat indigenous food? The Oldest Foods on Earth is a passionate and optimistic consideration of food, culture and ecology. John Newton’s long-standing interest in cuisine and culture has resulted in several awards and numerous...
ALAN SAMPSON Schools of Fish. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Alan Sampson’s memoir explores parenting, education, and the dangers of pursuing a narrow concept of success. This heartfelt winner of the 2015 Finch Memoir Prize is a well-paced story of parenting and career challenges, and the crisis that drove Alan Sampson to...
GERALD MURNANE Something for the Pain: A memoir of the turf. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Horse racing provides an enthralling key to Gerald Murnane’s world. Whenever I try to explain Murnane’s literary work I begin by saying that while he sometimes writes about families, religion and racing, a lot is to do with grassy plains with a double-storey mansion...
ADRIAN SIMON Milk-Blood. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Adrian Simon’s Milk-Blood is a character study in grit. This dramatic memoir provides another perspective on the infamous true crime story of Warren Fellows, an Australian drug trafficker sentenced to life imprisonment in Thailand – and Simon’s father. Reading...
ANDREW P STREET The Short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott. Reviewed by Chris Maher
This unashamedly partisan account of Australia’s recent political history is part comedy, part reality check. It’s been said that on the night Tony Abbott lost power, you could hear the sound of a thousand comedians crying. And not only in Australia – tears were shed...
KATE BOLICK Spinster: Making a life of one’s own. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
This dignified and lyrical memoir depicts the struggle for a convention-free spinster’s lifestyle. The anomalous spinster adorning the cover of this memoir shows Kate Bolick, looking gorgeous enough to be cast in Sex and the City, sitting alone on a lush settee,...
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