Biography and memoir
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
I have a confession: I’ve been pining for this book since I saw it on the horizon over a year ago. Carmen Maria Machado is a magical writer with a penchant for the darker side of fairytale, TV, film and…
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
At twenty five, Anna Wiener quit her job as an assistant in New York publishing for the gold rush of Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurial start-ups were filled with optimism and a sense of possibility. A new style of workplace culture offered…
Your Own Kind of Girl by Clare Bowditch
Melbourne is a town of connections. I’m sure many of us have heard of Clare Bowditch, perhaps we have heard her on the radio, seen her on television, or follow her on Instagram. Perhaps you have sung with her, seen…
Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
In the final song of possibly her most famous album, Patti Smith proclaims ‘I don’t know what to do tonight / there must be something I can dream tonight’. Horses was released in 1975, but with the advent of her…
Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper
Megan Phelps-Roper was born into the infamous fringe Christian sect, the Westboro Baptist Church, well-known for its intense homophobia and picketing protests at soldiers’ funerals. Mostly made up of Phelps family members, the Westboro Baptist Church’s collective life is a…
The Innocent Reader by Debra Adelaide
Debra Adelaide is not the first author to pen a memoir of sorts by taking us on a journey of personal reading. You may have read Jane Sullivan or Ramona Koval’s books of a similar nature. All of these wonderful…
Other People's Houses by Hilary McPhee
At one time, Hilary McPhee’s life was in upheaval and she was struggling with the illness and death of her parents, a bout of cancer and the end of a long marriage. It was a period of deep desolation and…
The Girls by Chloe Higgins
I originally questioned the choice of title for this book as the words ‘girl/s’ are so commonly used in this context. I wondered if a different title could have been chosen. Now that I have read The Girls by Chloe…
Jack Charles: Born-again Blakfella by Jack Charles with Namila Benson
Told with heart-wrenching honesty and humour, Jack Charles’s story is a history of necessarychange. Charles is an actor, musician, potter and gifted performer, but in his seventy-threeyears he has also been homeless, a drunk, a heroin addict, a thief and…
The Way Through the Woods by Long Litt Woon and Barbara Haveland (trans.)
Long Litt Woon enrols in a ‘mushrooming for beginners’ course in her home city of Oslo. She’slooking for ways through her crippling grief after her husband’s sudden death, not realising she is about to uncover her new hobby, one which…
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