by NRB | 4 Jul 2024 | Crime Scene, Non-fiction |
Love a good word list? More than 50 years since it was first compiled, this glossary of prison slang is a fascinating window into the past. In the early 1970s, two researchers for the yet-to-be-published Macquarie Dictionary, Sue Butler and Vanessa Mack, asked the...
by NRB | 2 Jul 2024 | Non-fiction |
Andrew Fowler argues that the AUKUS submarine deal compromises Australia’s sovereignty and exposes the country to the danger of nuclear waste. Vassal state: a state with varying degrees of independence in its internal affairs but dominated by another state in its...
by NRB | 13 Jun 2024 | Non-fiction |
Geoffrey Robertson argues that the United Nations needs to establish a new court in order to bring Vladimir Putin to justice. Geoffrey Robertson is an internationally renowned lawyer specialising in human rights, and is a champion of the role of the courts in...
by NRB | 6 Jun 2024 | Non-fiction |
Nova Weetman’s memoir about the loss of her husband and its impact on her family is both intimate and surprisingly uplifting. Nova Weetman has written a beautiful book about death and being left behind. I was moved by the story of the passing of her partner,...
by NRB | 21 May 2024 | Non-fiction |
This memoir of a young woman’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury becomes an unputdownable detective story. Broken Girl, Caroline Laner Breure’s memoir written with Bradley Trevor Greive, opens with light, breezy snapshots of a young woman ready to burst forth...
by NRB | 9 May 2024 | Non-fiction |
Mary Garden’s memoir reveals her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her sister – and an extraordinary case of plagiarism. Mary Garden has written a fascinating and brutally frank memoir of her troubled relationship with her sister and the impact it has had on...
by NRB | 23 Apr 2024 | Non-fiction |
Rory Stewart’s memoir of his ten years as a Conservative MP reveals the instability of UK politics in the decade to 2020. At the age of 36, after stints as the deputy governor of two provinces in Iraq, having founded a successful charity in Afghanistan, written a...
by NRB | 2 Apr 2024 | Non-fiction |
These stories of refugees who have found new lives in Australia encompass enormous suffering, courage, and determination to survive. ‘We are not numbers or statistics. We fled from our homelands because we were standing up for what we believed was right. We had...
by NRB | 28 Mar 2024 | Non-fiction |
Cancel culture is nothing new: Scott Eyman’s biography shows how Charlie Chaplin’s fame was no protection when the tide turned against him. I flip-flopped into success from being a frightened, lonely person … Success brought life into focus and showed me the...
by NRB | 14 Mar 2024 | Non-fiction |
Renewable energy requires significant quantities of minerals. Can mining companies be trusted to supply them responsibly? Christopher Pollon is a Canadian journalist who has spent the past two decades ‘writing about natural resources, including the environmental and...
by NRB | 22 Feb 2024 | Non-fiction |
Graeme Davison’s book is an elegant waltz through one family’s history and its connection to large events, from immigration to world wars. One of Australia’s leading historians, Graeme Davison notes in his introduction that ‘history is usually written forwards’...
by NRB | 20 Feb 2024 | Non-fiction |
Sarah Ogilvie tells the stories of the thousands of volunteers whose assiduous reporting created the Oxford English Dictionary. About eight years ago, Sarah Ogilvie was making a nostalgic visit to the Dictionary archive in the basement of the Oxford University Press....