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Riding shotgun with Bruce Springsteen in his new memoir Born To Run is long, ecstatic, exhausting, filled with peaks and ...

Springsteen's new memoir is part seance and part keg party

Bruce Springsteen's song lyrics have injected more drama and mystery into the myths of the American road than any figure since Jack Kerouac. He knows this, of course. So it's one of the running jokes in his big, loose, rangy and intensely satisfying new memoir, Born to Run (what else was he going to call it?), that he didn't begin to drive until he was well into his 20s.

Turning Pages

Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver takes mischievous pleasure in attacking arguments she considers politically correct. And that's where trouble starts.

Top 10 Bestsellers

Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton's book is still the No.1 bestseller in Australia.

Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton keep their spot on top of the Australian bestseller charts.

Love and (exclusively straight) marriage

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during the reading of the bill for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage.

As far as symbolic issues inexplicably beloved by the conservative end of politics go, there have been few as passionately fought as their resolute objection to same-sex marriage.

Undercover: We need to talk about Lionel

Lionel Shriver.

Lionel Shriver warned that inviting "a renowned iconoclast" to speak about community and belonging was "like expecting a great white shark to balance a beach ball on its nose".

Boy on a bike who became a Beatle

The Beatles, (from left) Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, play at Shea Stadium, New York.

This densely detailed book doesn't reveal much that is new but it does emphatically correct the misguided notion that Paul McCartney was the lesser talent of the Beatles' song-writing team.

Top 10 independents

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Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton continue to delight readers at independent bookshops.

A tender gay love story

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For the couple in Matthew Griffin's poignant, beautifully written debut, the closet remains the world.

A stark tale of domestic violence

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Paul Mitchell is a terse and observant writer, as alive to the particulars of Aussie idiom and experience as Tim Winton, but less showy.