Biography and memoir
Press Escape by Shaun Carney
Shaun Carney started his career in journalism as a 20-year-old cadet at Melbourne’s Herald and moved a few years later to the Age. After a 26-year career there, holding many influential positions, Shaun Carney couldn’t see what the future…
The Boy Behind the Curtain by Tim Winton
Helen Garner’s Everywhere I Look, a collection of personal essays and diary notes, delighted readers and it went on to become one of our bestsellers. I’ve got a feeling that Tim Winton’s collection, The Boy Behind the Curtain…
Grant & I by Robert Forster
As Robert Forster tells it near the end of his affecting, up-tempo memoir, the decision to write Grant & I was not his. The morning after his death by heart attack in 2006, aged 48, the voice of Grant McLennan…
The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s father was the first in his family to go university. They were working class, from Tottenham, a suburb of London. He’d shown a talent for mathematics and became an academic; her mother was an actress. They were…
In The Darkroom by Susan Faludi
If this book was written as fiction, you’d never believe it because you’d think it was too far-fetched. In 2004, Susan Faludi received an email from her father (whom she hadn’t seen in twenty-five years) telling her that he’d undergone…
Sex Object by Jessica Valenti
There is no shortage of strong opinions about Jessica Valenti. A feminist writer, long-time blogger and founder of the site Feministing, Valenti made her career online. The response to her writing – equal parts support from fans and contemptuous vitriol…
Negroland by Margo Jefferson
In this crisp, elegant memoir, Margo Jefferson recounts her experiences growing up within Chicago’s black elite. The memoir takes its title from the name she uses to refer to herself and her peers, a society she describes as, ‘a small…
Wasted by Elspeth Muir
In 2009, Elspeth Muir’s youngest brother, Alexander, went out drinking with friends. That same night, he climbed over the railing of the Story Bridge and jumped 30 metres into the Brisbane River below. His body was pulled out of the…
Avalanche by Julie Leigh
Julia Leigh is a fiction writer known for her brilliant, spare prose and eye for detail. Avalanche is a memoir documenting her experience of trying to become pregnant through IVF. Leigh’s opening sentence is a beauty: ‘For a great many…
In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories. She has since published two novels and another collection of stories, picking up numerous…
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