Books Archive

  Trump is the “saddest word” for human rights, Australian author Dennis Altman said at the launch of his new book Unrequited Love: Diary of an Accidental Activist last month. Best known as an influential global gay rights activist, Altman’s new book deals …

Ebola, swine flu, SARS: we’ve seen many epidemics erupt in recent times, resulting in scores of deaths around the world. What we haven’t seen is a contagion resulting in deep, dream-filled sleep. Yet this is the calamity that befalls a small American …

When was the last time you stopped to think seriously about play? Chances are, it wasn’t when you were engaging in sport, or tackling a hobby with friends. We usually simply enjoy playing, and rarely give it much deeper thought. Yet, play …

A British nanny glides into a regimented family, upending its members’ structured lives and rigid routines. This may sound like a Mary Poppins scenario, but it isn’t. This is Dawn French’s new novel According to Yes: an often-gritty and poignant account of …

If you make a revolution, make it for fun, don’t make it in ghastly seriousness, don’t do it in deadly earnest, do it for fun. Don’t do it because you hate people, do it just to spit in their eye. DH Lawrence, A Sane Revolution Standing …

Garth Nix moderated a panel of three young adult fiction writers who discussed the genre and why it has been very successful. The panel featured Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction, Margo Lanagan, US writer Laurie Halse Anderson This …

Thousands of people queued up on the weekend to take part in the various discussions and workshops on the closing days of the 2015 Sydney Writer’s Festival at Sydney’s arts hub in Walsh Bay. One I attended was Everyone’s a Critic, But …

Alan Cumming was in conversation with David Marr at the Joan Sutherland Theatre to discuss his memoir Not My Father’s Son, as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival on Wednesday May 22. In easy-going, jovial spirits at the Opera House, the multi-award …

Emerging young writer Rogelio Alfonzo Mendoza has an abundance of energy and imagination. Born in Venezuela and now living in Sydney, Australia, Mendoza is tomorrow launching his new book Behind the Quiet Fences. The attraction to the thriller genre goes back many …

Alfred Nobel’s last will caused a sensation when it was publicly revealed after his death in 1896. The industrial magnate and inventor of dynamite had left his family members small, personal bequests, and allocated the rest of his vast wealth to creating …