Nonfiction
Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman
If you’re looking for something fun and frothy to read as you snuggle under the doona this winter, Life Moves Pretty Fast would be an ideal pick. Hadley Freeman’s personalised handbook to North American movies from the 1980s is a…
Mothermorphosis edited by Monica Dux
Religion, politics and money are usually cited as the top three topics to avoid at a dinner party, but surely parenthood trumps them all. To the uninitiated, the mysterious world of ‘tummy time’, ‘co-sleeping’ and ‘toxins’ may easily be construed…
Mothers and Others
‘So here we are, another book about mothering.’ So begins Christie Nieman’s reflection (or perhaps rant would be more accurate) on the impossibility of being a woman over thirty and escaping the motherhood discussion. I have to admit to thinking…
Beyond Literal Belief by David Tacey
Extraordinarily provocative, at times I found Beyond Literal Belief shocking and even offensive. Yet it became clear that the author’s intention was not to destroy but to conserve the truth of faith. Stripped of the necessity for belief, Tacey’s work…
Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No. 1 Enemy by Bill Browder
Bill Browder comes from a family with an impressive communist pedigree. His grandfather, Earl Browder, was the leader of the Communist Party USA and his parents are well-respected left-wing academics. Browder feels himself to be out of place in his…
On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss
Eula Biss’s elegant examination of our fear of vaccination opens with Achilles being dipped into the River Styx and closes with the metaphor of a garden. In between, Biss talks about milkmaids and scientists, about triclosan and thimerosal, about Rachel…
Everything You Need To Know About the Referendum To Recognise Indigenous Australians by Megan Davis and George Williams
There are strong arguments on both sides of the debate for changing the Australian Constitution to recognise Indigenous Australians and this text looks at the legal and constitutional ramifications of making such a change. The book aims to educate the…
Fury: Women Write About Sex, Power and Violence edited by Samantha Trenoweth
It’s too easy to read statistics on violence against women and do nothing. The stats are alarming, but they rarely instigate change. Giving a voice to what’s being called a ‘silent epidemic’ needs more than numbers. Fury: Women Write About…
The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb
Journalist and TV personality Annabel Crabb is interested in the domestic lives of the career-driven. Her television show, Kitchen Cabinet, takes us into the kitchens of some of our most powerful politicians, and The Wife Drought delves deep into…
Blood and Guts: Dispatches from the Whale Wars by Sam Vincent
With print journalism on the decline it’s heartening to discover there’s still very much a place for investigative journalism in book form. Australian writers in particular are producing some fantastic works of gonzo journalism: Anna Krien, Jeff Sparrow and Helen…
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