Nonfiction
The Last Colony by Philippe Sands
To begin at the end: the poet and politician Aimé Césaire says, ‘a civilisation that plays fast and loose with its principles is a dying civilisation.’ Césaire’s words come at the very end of The Last Colony, a final…
Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope by Joëlle Gergis
If there is only one nonfiction book you read this year, it really should be this one. Its author, Joëlle Gergis, is one of Australia’s leading climate scientists and she believes this book is the most important one she will…
Sundressed by Lucianne Tonti
With supermarket shelves depleted of loo roll, endless deliverydelays, and a ship grounding that launched a thousand memes, the pandemic brought ‘supply chain’ into the common vernacular. Fashion, with its highly complex, outsourced and opaque supply chains, was one of…
August in Kabul by Andrew Quilty
August of 2021 was a miserable month; maybe the worst one that I had ever had. The last and bleakest of Victoria’s lockdowns had started. Every bitter night on the news, between screaming matches about Australia’s Covid response and the…
Legitimate Sexpectations: The Power of Sex-ed by Katrina Marson
There have been times over the last few years when I have felt gutted and diminished by the public discourse around issues of sexual education and behaviour. I know I am not alone in feeling this way. So it was…
Motherlands by Amaryllis Gacioppo
There is no word for our English-language notion of home in Italian; the closest is ‘casa’, but that has the more literal meaning as the physical place where one lives. Amaryllis Gacioppo’s parents are Italians from Sicily; they met in…
Melbourne on Film: Cinema That Defines Our City by Melbourne International Film Festival
Cities are central to the history of cinema. New York. Paris. London. Hong Kong. All cities with an identifiable, iconic visual language. Cities are both setting and subject. It’s not a stretch to say that cinema created cities – giving…
Desire: A Reckoning by Jessie Cole
A person could be forgiven for assuming a memoir with the title ‘Desire’ would be a no-holds-barred peek behind bedroom doors, especially when the back-cover blurb asks thequestion, ‘What does it mean to be awakened? To want? To love?’ While…
Words Are Eagles by Gregory Day
Occasionally I read a book that resonates so powerfully I am lost for words. It resists explication, often because I am still immersed in the writing and wish only to stay there. Words Are Eagles, Gregory Day’s exquisite collection…
Telltale: Reading, Writing, Remembering by Carmel Bird
When I was a child one of my favourite books was titled Help! I’m a Prisoner in the Library. The premise being you are thrillingly stuck, surrounded by bookshelves, where reading is the only option available to you –…
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