![Ann Patchett's seventh work of fiction, <i>Commonwealth</i>, is being hailed as one of the finest novels of the year.](/web/20170114010817im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/8/q/l/y/image.related.wideLandscape.300x169.gsieq9.png/1484100189413.jpg)
Xmas books
If you didn't get these 2016 books for Christmas, pick up a copy for yourself.
If you didn't get these 2016 books for Christmas, pick up a copy for yourself.
Stephanie Owen Reeder explores the engaging escapades of a range of picture-book animals
Melbourne will get a taste of an Indian writers festival with a pop-up festival being held in February
She's already sold the film rights to her first novel, The Dry, but praise from the New York Times is more than welcome to Jane Harper.
Vin Diesel won't appreciate me saying this, but the Hollywood he-man is turning 50 this year. Not that he looks that old. Are you kidding me? My cousin Vinnie can bench-press 300 kilos. If your Whirlpool's broken, you could always scrub your laundry on that man's abs, but birthday candles don't lie.
The best pop songs start out like something you want and then build up to something so much more.
Literary news and events in Canberra.
Lauren Sams' novel is probably best read as a cautionary tale for new mothers.
Bringing back Harry Potter has returned J.K. Rowling to the top of the bestseller lists in a year when children's titles dominated sales in Australian bookshops.
The best of these highlights from The Conversation interrogate the reality behind news report beat-ups of academic findings.
Marcel Danesi maintains a healthy level of scepticism about the applications and future of the emoji.
Want to know about the making of George Lucas' films? This biography is the book for you.
The most memorable essays in Treasure Palaces capture how personal transformation can take place within the halls of these impersonal institutions.
We learn quickly that a small child has died. But the question is how and why?
Emma Flint is the latest in a string of writers to base a book, play or movie on the notorious case of Alice Crimmins and the murder of her two children.
Michael Wilding's hybrids of satire and crime fiction are too funny to be called bleak, but conceal a complex seriousness of purpose.
Margaret the First takes a real figure from 17th-century English history – a ''lady writer'' – and reimagines her life.
Karen Lamb is the author of the biography Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather (UQP), shortlisted for six national literary awards, and co-winner of the 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. She teaches literature and communication in Sydney.
T.C. Boyle's new novel explores the tensions which might arise among a colony of people on another planet.
Far from a fan of regimented leisure, William McInnes enjoys the party side of a dinner.
Arlie Russell Hochschild visits the geographic heart of the American right to discover what resonates with the people who opted for a Donald Trump presidency.
The final Cliff Hardy outing – and Peter Corris' farewell to writing – has echoes of Hardy's first appearance in a novel that had a big influence on Australian crime writing.
Veronica Roth will be distracted from her concern at the advent of President Donald Trump by the launch of Carve the Mark, the follow-up to her smash-hit Divergent trilogy.
The American novelist David Foster Wallace understood that the compensation of not being a great player was that he might be able to describe the four-dimensional world champions inhabit.
The group of friends formerly known as The Book Sluts are at it again, with another outback saga.
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