Nonfiction

Bruno Leti: Series: A Life of Images by Bruno Leti & Thomas Middlemost (ed.)

Reviewed by Zoë Croggon

Bruno Leti: Series: A Life of Images examines enduring themes within the 60-year career of Australian artist Bruno Leti. The book is not so much a comprehensive catalogue of works as much as a study of Leti’s artistic process. The…

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The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Reviewed by Marie Matteson

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee returns with The Song of the Cell, his third work on the exploration of medicine and the human body. As Mukherjee states simply in his introduction, it is an attempt to understand…

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A Guest at the Feast: Essays by Colm Tóibín

Reviewed by Tristen Brudy

‘It all started with my balls.’ So opens Colm Tóibín’s latest: a collection of essays that are personal, political and poetic. Separated into three sections, part one of this collection is biographical in nature, with the first essay – concerning…

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A Kind of Magic by Anna Spargo-Ryan

Reviewed by Jackie Tang

Anna Spargo-Ryan’s A Kind of Magic is a memoir of a mind and the courage it takes to build a sense of self. Spargo-Ryan has lived with mental illness as a constant in her life. As a child, she was…

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Koala: A Life in Trees by Danielle Clode

Reviewed by Margaret Snowdon

Koala is more than just a fascinating book about these marsupials, it’s also an enjoyably informative chronicle of this continent from ancient prehuman times to the challenges of the present. By enjoyable, I mean as a reading experience. In fact…

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The Bodyline Fix by Marion Stell

Reviewed by Julia Jackson

If the Federal Government had put a republic referendum to the Australian people at the conclusion of the infamous Ashes Test series of 1932–33, it may well have been successful. Marion Stell’s magnificent new book, The Bodyline Fix, transports…

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Childhood by Shannon Burns

Reviewed by Mark Rubbo

Hailing from the Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth North, Shannon Burns’ parents were young and working class; for most of their lives they survived on welfare payments. His mother was the wild daughter of Greek parents; his father was the son…

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Time of My Life by Myf Warhurst

Reviewed by Pierre Sutcliffe

Time of My Life is as delightful as you would expect from one of the most charming people to ever grace the television screen in this country. Myf Warhurst begins her story with recollections of growing up in the small…

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Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland by Jim Davidson

Reviewed by Bernard Caleo

This gorgeously titled book delivers the Heroic Age epic of little magazine publishing inAustralia, ‘little magazines’ being a way to describe literary/cultural periodicalsinspired by the avant-garde Chicago journal, The Little Review. Jim Davidson tracks the decades-spanning careers of the two…

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People Who Lunch by Sally Olds

Reviewed by Nishtha Banavalikar

People Who Lunch is the debut essay collection by Melbourne- based writer Sally Olds. Each essay takes on its own character, binding together social observations on workand leisure from the past, present and future. Throughout the collection, Olds laces together…

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