Nonfiction

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West

Reviewed by Ellen Cregan

Lindy West’s is the voice we need in 2019 – she’s snarky, sensible, accessible, inclusive and aware, and above all, hilarious. In The Witches are Coming, West takes her reader on a journey through pop culture, visiting Adam Sandler…

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Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I, 1978–1987 by Helen Garner

Reviewed by Mark Rubbo

When Helen Garner’s debut novel Monkey Grip was published in 1977, a couple of larrikins made some beer money by publishing a pamphlet, ‘Who’s Who in Monkey Grip’ and there might be a temptation for someone to do the same…

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Finding the Heart of the Nation by Thomas Mayor

Reviewed by Mark Rubbo

In 2017, over two hundred and fifty Indigenous representatives from around the country gathered at Uluru and unanimously adopted the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The last paragraph reads, ‘In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be…

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Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni

Reviewed by Alison Huber

What might make a woman – perhaps an educated woman from a stable family situation – travel to Syria to join the Islamic State? This is the foundational question of the brilliantly provocative and genuinely eye-opening Guest House for Young

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Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta

Reviewed by Elke Power

Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk is an extraordinary reading experience. It’s both philosophical and practical, and underpinned by a compassionate yet realistic humanity. At the core of Sand Talk is a deep respect for Indigenous Knowledge, to which long-term thinking is…

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White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad

Reviewed by Kara Nicholson

In 2018, journalist Ruby Hamad wrote an article for The Guardian Australia titled ‘How white women use strategic tears to silence women of colour’. It received worldwide praise andcondemnation. An African American television journalist from Kansas City had her employment…

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Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Reviewed by Mark Rubbo

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe’s examination of the Troubles in Northern Ireland from thelate 1960s to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, won the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing. Keefe, an Irish American, tries to understand how a…

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The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

Reviewed by Julia Jackson

Given the dastardly activities of some of our massive corporations of today, the antics containedwithin William Dalrymple’s latest offering shouldn’t really come as a huge shock to readers. I say they shouldn’t, but I blanched several times reading this. Hot…

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The Wooleen Way by David Pollock

Reviewed by Michael McLoughlin

’Pastoralism might be a dirty word in Australia. I think there is a certain correlation in Australian’s minds between pastoralism, colonisation, the displacement of Aboriginal people, and soil degradation. I think if we’re honest about it, we can see that

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Unrequited Love by Dennis Altman

Reviewed by Andrea Goldsmith

Dennis Altman is a close friend of mine, but I needed to read Unrequited Love to discover the richness of his life. His work in gay politics has taken him across the globe – and still does. (The unrequited love…

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