Nonfiction
They Cannot Take the Sky by Behind the Wire
Australia’s immigration policy for asylum seekers is frequently debated in our media and homes, and yet, something crucial is too often passed over during these discussions. In his foreword to They Cannot Take the Sky, author Christos Tsiolkas writes…
The Family by Chris Johnston and Rosie Jones
Books about cults were big last year: Emma Cline’s The Girls, about the Manson family, was the talk of 2016. Locally, Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s The Love of a Bad Man included stories about the Mansons and Jonestown. And Scientology…
No Way But This by Jeff Sparrow
Jeff Sparrow writes that his journey in search of the athlete, singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson is not intended to produce a conventional biography but rather conjure up a ghost story about an incredible 20th century figure who is…
Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine
My favourite statistic from this book is that given ‘optimal breeding conditions’ in a typical hunter-gatherer society a woman has the potential to bear nine to twelve children across her lifetime, whereas common mythology holds that during that time a…
Heart by Johannes Hinrich Von Borstel
First published in German in late 2015, Johannes Hinrich von Borstel’s Heart: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Important Organ is Scribe Publications’ follow up to Giulia Enders’ extremely popular Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Under-Rated…
Confabulations by John Berger
Between water safety advisory bodies, there has recently been great dissention about what best to do when caught in a rip. The two most supported polemics assert that one should: A) swim parallel to the shore; B) relax into the…
Last Words by Barry Dickins
It is 50 years since Ronald Ryan became the last person to be hanged in Victoria. Ryan was serving an 8-year sentence for breaking and entering and together with another inmate broke out of Coburg’s Pentridge prison. During the breakout…
The Case Against Fragrance by Kate Grenville
The Case Against Fragrance will make you reassess the scents you encounter in your day-to-day life. A departure from her usual fare, the idea for this book came about while Kate Grenville was touring and promoting her previous title, One…
Still Lucky by Rebecca Huntley
Lately, the main conversation that I’ve been having at social gatherings is about how we are all living in a left-leaning ‘bubble’ that is not reflected in politics in Australia or elsewhere in the world. To be honest, it seems…
Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante
The Frantumaglia project (as it is referred to by her publishers) has evolved over the many years of Elena Ferrante’s writing career. She defines the word ‘frantumaglia’ as a ‘jumble of fragments’ and it is an expression her mother used…
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