LEE KOFMAN The Dangerous Bride: A memoir of love, gods and geography. Reviewed by Walter Mason
Beyond monogamy: Lee Kofman’s original, intelligent memoir explores the sexual landscape. In an increasingly censorious age, Lee Kofman’s memoir gives the finger to the anti-sex Establishment. The Dangerous Bride is an account of a lifetime flirting with non-monogamy,...
PETER FREEMAN The Wallpapered Manse. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
Shortlisted for the 2014 NSW Premier’s History Award, this is a fascinating story of renovation and the recovery of more than just a house. Moruya’s old Presbyterian manse was for years derelict and uncared for. In late 2009, when it was offered for sale, Peter...
HELEN MACDONALD H is for Hawk. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
There are many reasons to love this book – it is a quiet, yet tough-minded, humane triumph. This multiple-prize-winning book (it won the Costa Book of the Year and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction) about a woman and her goshawk could be classed as memoir, or...
EILEEN ORMSBY Silk Road. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
A toxic mix of timing and questionable ethics: the fascinating true story of the dark web’s most famous site. Silk Road is a story about a trade route, a trade route equivalent to the Silk Road network established during the Han dynasty of China, which linked the...
BARBARA EHRENREICH Smile or Die: How positive thinking fooled America & the world. Reviewed by Adrian Phoon
Is positive thinking bad for you? Essayist Barbara Ehrenreich thinks so. Smile or Die: How positive thinking fooled America & the world might sound positively (or negatively) Grinch-like. But Barbara Ehrenreich, who previously wrote a book about the history of...
MICHAEL MORI In the Company of Cowards: Bush, Howard and injustice at Guantanamo. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
Military lawyer Michael Mori’s defence of David Hicks carried a high price, but in the end he got his client home. The only piece of good luck David Hicks had was being assigned Major Michael Mori as his defence lawyer at the military commission set up to try the...
NRB Editors nominate their favourite books of 2014
From crime to literature, through ASIO and memoir to the bush – our Editors failed to coincide on a single title. Not all of these books were published in 2014, but they were our stand-out reads of the year. Jean’s picks: Elizabeth is Missing Emma Healey....
SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM Warning: The story of Cyclone Tracy. Reviewed by Kathie Rea
What happened to Darwin, and the response to it, sends a warning as we prepare for more extreme weather events. This Christmas Eve marks 40 years since Cyclone Tracy flattened the city of Darwin. Christmas decorations and dazed half-naked people amid the ruins of...
ANNA KRIEN Night Games: Sex, power and sport. Reviewed by David Day
2014 Davitt Award-winner Night Games uses the rape trial of an AFL player to frame an examination of the darker side of male sporting culture. Australians’ deep, absorbed love of sport is such that it plays no small role in helping shape our broader culture and...
KRISTY CHAMBERS It’s Not You, Geography, It’s Me. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The author of Get Well Soon! My (un)Brilliant Career as a Nurse takes more luggage than a backpack on her travel adventures. As a rule of thumb, the worst travel experiences tend to make the best stories, and the best travel experiences are bilge in the story...
DON WATSON The Bush: Travels in the heart of Australia. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
The Bush offers a narrative that includes Indigenous people, colonialists, settlers and migrants in a wide-ranging and sophisticated appreciation of our bush heritage. Colonial and post-colonial Australians have always had an ambiguous relationship with the bush. For...
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