Nonfiction
Skin in the Game by Sonya Voumard
Sonya Voumard’s father was a ‘member of Melbourne journalism’s gregarious tribe’. At ten years old, when she was fascinated and spooked by stories of child abductions, her father laid out three newspapers on the kitchen table and they ‘talked headlines…
Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
In 1784, philosopher Immanuel Kant asked, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ It was, he argued, humankind’s emergence from its submission to the ‘dogmas and formulas’ of religious or political authority. The Enlightenment ushered in a new approach to society based on science…
The Water Will Come by Jeff Goodell
After witnessing the devastation from Hurricane Sandy which wreaked havoc on the East Coast of the United States, Cuba and parts of the Caribbean in 2012, Rolling Stone journalist Jeff Goodell headed to Miami to investigate how rising sea levels…
The Future is History by Masha Gessen
As I read the final chapters of Masha Gessen’s latest book on Russian politics, it is reported that hundreds of protesters have been arrested in cities across Russia. Putin’s number-one political opponent Alexei Navalny had just been jailed for organising…
Saga Land by Richard Fidler & Kari Gíslason
Personally, I could bore anyone on the subject of Iceland, but this book won’t bore you at all! As it seems anyone who has been to Iceland does, Richard Fidler and Kári Gíslason want to tell the stories of this…
Stories and True Stories by Helen Garner
I know I’m not the only Melbourne writer whose motto, at my laptop, is WWHGD (what would Helen Garner do?). From Monkey Grip – Readings’ first Australian bestseller – to last year’s collected non-fiction, Everywhere I Look, Garner has…
The Woman Who Fooled the World by Beau Donelly & Nick Toscano
You don’t need to have heard about Belle Gibson, the Instafamous ‘wellness warrior’ who made a fortune and built an empire on her claim to have treated her brain cancer (which she didn’t have) with diet and lifestyle. Then again…
The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook by Michael Brooks
The philosopher Zeno, of Elia’s arrow paradox, is frustratingly simple. When an archer shoots an arrow we perceive it to move towards the target. But we understand that in its journey there, the arrow exists in particular points on its…
Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young
Ashleigh Young is a voice to fall in love with. Her debut essay collection was recently named a winner of the prestigious Windham–Campbell Prize, and has just now become available in Australia thanks to independent publisher Giramondo. If you’re a…
Please Explain by Anna Broinowski
Author and filmmaker Anna Broinowski first introduced herself to Pauline Hanson as a ‘pro-refugee, pro-environment, pro-reconciliation leftie’. She had approached the notorious politician in 2009 with the idea of making a feature film about her extraordinary life story and Hanson…
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