Read your way through the Melbourne Writers Festival

The Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) kicks off today and runs for ten days (21 - 31 August). Here’s our recommended reading list to read your way through the festival!


This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner

As Helen Garner will be giving the opening address of this year’s festival (find out more here), it seems fitting to start with her utterly compelling new narrative non-fiction book.

On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Garner’s obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.


An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield

Following Garner’s address, Chris Hadfield will share his out-of-this-world experiences and the life-affirming lessons he has accumulated during his astronomical career. Find out more here.

In An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement - and happiness.


The Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism by Anne Manne

Written with the pace of a psychological thriller, The Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism is a compelling account of the rise of narcissism in individuals and society. Anne Manne examines the Lance Armstrong doping scandal and the alarming rise of sexual assaults in sport and the military, as well as the vengeful killings of Elliot Rodger in California. She looks at narcissism in the pursuit of fame and our obsession with ‘making it’. She goes beyond the usual suspects of social media and celebrity culture to the deeper root of the issue: how a new narcissistic character-type is being fuelled by a cult of the self and the pursuit of wealth in a hypercompetitive consumer society.

You can listen to Manne in conversation with Ronnie Scott tomorrow. Find out more here.


We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel made her the first black African woman to make the Man Booker Prize shortlist. In We Need New Names, Darling and her friends live in a shanty called Paradise. They dream of the paradises of America, Dubai, Europe, where Madonna and Barack Obama and David Beckham live. For Darling, that dream will come true. But, like the thousands of people all over the world trying to forge new lives far from home, Darling finds this new paradise brings its own set of challenges.

Bulawayo will perform a reading alongside Melbourne slam poet Maxine Beneba Clark at a free event on Saturday. Find out more here.


The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Saturday also sees Readings’ favourite Meg Wolitzer in conversation with Jane Sullivan (read more here) about her latest novel, The Interestings.

On a warm July night in 1974 six teenagers play at being cool. The friendships they make this summer will be the most important and consuming of their lives. In a teepee at summer camp they smoke pot and drink vodka & Tangs, talk of Gunter Grass and the latest cassette tapes; they also share their dreams and ambitions, still so fresh and so possible. But decades later not everyone can sustain in adulthood what had seemed so special in adolescence.


Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa

On Sunday, you can hear Omar Musa read from his extraordinary debut, Here Come the Dogs. Find out more here.

Christos Tsiolkas says of this book, ‘Omar Musa’s writing is tough and tender, harsh and poetic, raw and beautiful, it speaks to how we live and dream now. This novel broke my heart a little but it also made me ecstatic at the possibilities of what the best writing can do. His voice is genuine, new and exciting; his voice roars.’


Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett (available 27 August)

Skipping ahead to the following Wednesday, Sonya Hartnett will speak on her new book for adults, a dark suburban tale. Find out more here.

Colt Jenson and his younger brother Bastian have moved to a new, working class suburb. The Jensons are different. To Freya Kiley and the other local kids, the Jensons are a family from a magazine, and Rex a hero - successful, attentive, attractive, always there to lend a hand. But to Colt he’s an impossible figure in a different way - unbearable, suffocating. Has Colt got Rex wrong, or has he seen something in his father that will destroy their fragile new lives?


Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot by Masha Gessen

In Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, Russian-American writer and LGBT activist, Masha Gessen draws parallels between her personal fight against homophobia and the heroic story of feminist art collective Pussy Riot. This necessary and timely book is an account of the Pussy Riot protest, the ensuing global support movement, and the tangled and controversial trial of the band members. It explores the status of dissent in Russia, the roots of the group and their adoption - or appropriation - by wider collectives, feminist groups and music icons.

You can here Gessen speak about the book on Friday. Find out more here.


Mcsweeney’s: Issue 46 edited by Dave Eggers

While Egger’s McSweeney’s event has unfortunately sold out, you can still get your hands on the most recent issue of this magazine!

Issue 46 is the publication’s very first all-Latin-American issue and takes on the crime story as a starting point, expanding to explore contemporary life from every angle – swinging from secret Venezuelan prisons to Uruguayan resorts to blood-drenched bedrooms in Mexico and Peru, and even, briefly, to Epcot Center and the Havana home of a Cuban transsexual named Amy Winehouse.


Arms Race & Other Stories by Nic Low

The festival’s closing party this year doubles as the launch of Nic Low’s arresting debut short-story collection – complete with an end-of-the-world dance-battle showdown. Find out more here.

Data theft, internet memes, advertising, terrorism, indigenous sovereignty, drone warfare, opium addiction, syphilis, the moon landing, mining, oil slicks, climate change, giant octopuses: nothing is spared in this collection. Nic Low’s stories go beyond satire, aiming for the dark heart of our collective obsession with technology, power and image.


Browse the full program and book tickets on the MWF website.

Cover image for An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

Chris Hadfield

This item is unavailableUnavailable