Culture
Books
Women dominate Booker shortlist, but all bets are on Percival Everett
This year’s shortlist includes five books by women – the highest number in the prize’s 55-year history. But it’s the only man on the list who is holy tipped to win the coveted prize.
- by Stepanie Bunbury
Latest
Squatting at Kanye’s house, a festive mystery and other new books
Our reviewers cast their eyes over new fiction and non-fiction releases.
- by Cameron Woodhead and Fiona Capp
This meditation on memory, melancholy and ageing is quiet and clever
In Chinese Postman, Castro’s elderly protagonist, Abe, leads an unobtrusive life in the Adelaide Hills, sifting through desires met and unmet, letters read or discarded.
- by Leah Jing McIntosh
Olivia Laing digs into the politics and history of gardening
Olivia Laing’s new non-fiction work is both a memoir and an impassioned case for gardens and gardening
- by Jane Gleeson-White
For Lisa Marie Presley, drugs were the devil in disguise
From Here to the Great Unknown retells a deeply tragic family history burdened with addiction and trauma.
- by Nathan Smith
Mark Raphael Baker’s final book is a work of profound sorrow – and joy
Written as he was dying, Mark Raphael Baker’s book is a meditation on living well in the face of death.
- by Michael McGirr
Adrift in New York, an Indigenous woman finds her way in pure fantasy
Melanie Saward’s romcom is a surprising take on a popular genre.
- by Jessie Tu
‘Machine guns and men in trenches’: On the eve of battle, Albert Jacka made an awful discovery
In early 1917, as the Allies prepared to take Bullecourt on the Western Front, Jacka was sent into No-Man’s Land.
- by Peter FitzSimons
Duchess of York packs venue in first of five WA appearances
Seven hundred people packed a Perth resort on Friday night to see ‘Fergie’ talk about her charity work and why she’s choosing to publish in Western Australia.
- by Emma Young
Opinion
WordPlay
Haitch is for horrified: How my column launched a H-bomb
The haitch vs aitch debate is far from settled.
- by David Astle
Get 25% off the new Explainer anthology*
Subscribers can pre-order a copy of ‘Why Do People Queue for Brunch?’, the new Explainer anthology, containing a collection of our favourite explainers.