BEN MACINTYRE A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the great betrayal. Reviewed by Peter Corris
The English class system helped Cold War spy Kim Philby, who used his friendships with other agents to thwart their operations. Back when I was working at the National Times, I had the good fortune to meet two men – David Leitch and Phillip Knightley – who’d written...
GABRIELLE CAREY Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and my family. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
Gabrielle Carey searches for clues to the life of Randolph Stow in this treasure hunt of family memoir and literary history. In her determination to ‘know’ Julian Randolph Stow – ‘Mick’ to his family and friends – Carey journeys through both...
MARION MADDOX Taking God to School: The end of Australia’s egalitarian education? Reviewed by Yvonne Perkins
Should religion be part of children’s education? And what kinds of religion are being taught in schools? Marion Maddox makes her case for a more secular system. Australians have never been satisfied with the way religion has been handled in education, but we have...
DAVID ASTLE Puzzled: Secrets and clues from a life lost in words. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
‘Fantastic nude profile plastered in central Tassie’: (13 letters)* – if you don’t know where to start, or even if you do, this is the book for you. David Astle – better known perhaps as the Sydney Morning Herald’s cryptic crossword devil-incarnate ‘DA’ – has been...
ROBERT WAINWRIGHT Sheila: The Australian beauty who bewitched British society. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
More social history than biography, this fascinating book brings to life the glamorous years between the world wars. Born in 1895 on a property near Goulburn, New South Wales, Sheila Chisholm spent her childhood like most other Australians: cavorting outdoors, getting...
LUKE HARDING The Snowden Files: The inside story of the world’s most wanted man. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
The full significance of the security documents Edward Snowden leaked has yet to emerge; this fast-paced account tells the story so far. No one knew who Edward Snowden was in May 2013 when he scraped 1.7 million classified documents from the National Security Agency...
DAVID MALOUF A First Place. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
David Malouf’s absorbing essays, full of erudition and with his trademark lucid prose, engage with the troubled issue of Australian identity. In this fascinating collection of essays, written between 1984 and 2010, David Malouf circles around that Australian...
KRISTINA OLSSON Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
This ‘shatteringly beautiful’ memoir of a mother forcibly separated from her baby son won the Non-Fiction prize at the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards. It is the summer of 1950. On a railway station in Cairns, in broad daylight, an infant is snatched from...
PAUL HAM 1914: The Year the War Ended. Reviewed by Rod Madgwick
Paul Ham provides a readable and fair-minded corrective to the history wars being waged in the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. If you have ever stood by the grave of an Australian, or any other soldier, who died in the First World War and wondered at the...
MANDY SAYER The Poet’s Wife. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The award-winning author of Velocity and Dreamtime Alice returns with the searing, soul-baring memoir of her marriage to Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. Mandy Sayer is 22 and still tap-dancing on street corners when she meets Yusef Komunyakaa during...
VANESSA BERRY Ninety9. Reviewed by Walter Mason
Goths, zines and inner-city life: this memoir of 1990s Sydney is nostalgic and multi-layered – and fun. One of the ways I love to torture myself is by reading about people who are immensely more creative, daring and productive than me. Writerly envy can be delicious,...
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