Biography and memoir
His Stupid Boyhood by Peter Goldsworthy
Peter Goldsworthy has laid himself open for inspection – like one of his cadavers from medical school – in this memoir.
Starting with his first sexual inclination, at age four, towards crank-handled cars (I recently heard a different explanation of…
Boomer & Me by Jo Case
When Leo starts school, his mum starts to notice little things that make him stand out. His first teacher calls him gifted; his reading and verbal skills are very advanced. But, as time goes on, other things that once may…
Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John by Helen Trinca
In 2012, Text Publishing released its Classics series, the aim of which was to shine a spotlight on some of our nation’s literary milestones, many of which had grown dusty in our archives, either due to institutional neglect or a…
Welcome To Your New Life by Anna Goldsworthy
Anna Goldsworthy’s debut memoir, Piano Lessons, followed her emergence into the world of classical music and subsequent rise to fame. Her second, Welcome to Your New Life, is a record of the birth of her first child. It…
Boy, Lost by Kristina Olsson
Bringing her journalistic skills to what is described on the cover as a ‘family memoir’, Kristina Olsson uses perfectly balanced prose to weave breathtaking beauty into this sad yarn.
As a 19-year-old, Olsson’s mother, Yvonne, got on board a train…
Ghost Wife by Michelle Dicinoski
In 2005, Michelle Dicinoski and her American girlfriend, Heather, decided to get married. The proposal came, wildly and beautifully, from Michelle musing casually about a road trip together to Canada. And of course, it had to be Canada, because neither…
Things I Didn't Expect (When I Was Expecting) by Monica Dux
It’s been nearly a decade since I was first expecting, and six years since my last child, but I seized on the chance to read what might be described as the anti-pregnancy book – the one that tells it like…
Bedsit Disco Queen by Tracey Thorn
Picture this. You’ve just had your breakout album and your career trajectory looks set for the stratosphere. Out of the blue, the management of U2 wants you to support them on a stadium tour of the USA. Would you take…
The Women: T.C.Boyle
T.C. Boyle has tackled extraordinary characters in previous novels, like John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Welville and Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle but none could ever eclipse the extraordinary, complex trajectory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Told from…
One Morning Like A Bird: Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller’s latest book is set in Japan around 1940, when Japan was at war with China, but not yet an enemy of the Allied Forces in World War II. The story centres on Yuji Takano, a young Japanese man…
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