The Sydney author's elegantly written stories put a darkly macabre spin on fairytales.

Australian comedians are taking the marriage equality fight directly into people's headphones.

"He only whispers I love you as he slips his hands down the waistband of your pants," Rupi Kaur writes.

It's not difficult to see echoes of our own world in the dark vision of Sally Abbott's prize-winning dystopian novel, Closing Down.

Simon Wroe's coming of age story resists over-earnestness thanks to plenty of oddball comedy.

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Laurent Binet's elaborate, amusing and parodic conspiracy thriller about the death of Roland Barthes.

Paula Hawkins tops the Australian fiction bestsellers chart.

The author has stepped up a notch here, writing with more clarity, complexity and emotional breadth.

This year's Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelists show a concern for the role of home in their characters' lives.

A justifiably angry book about the struggle for artists to receive royalties for their work in the internet age.

A long overdue reassessment of our historical imbalances.

This entertaining study charts the history of the career of air hostessing for women

A lively study of our history with rabbits and their place in our folklore.

Overseas crime thrillers have dominated an annual list of Australia's most borrowed library books.

To mark 25 years of the classic Australian coming-of-age novel, the Sydney Writers' Festival will bring author Melina Marchetta together with the stars of Looking for Alibrandi.

Chris Kraus' first novel hit a niche audience when it was first published, but it has exploded in recent years, culminating in the release of a new Amazon miniseries.

They're loud, they're fierce, and they don't care what you think. Meet the new-wave feminists.

Testing may damage children's love of reading, authors Lauren Child and Kate DiCamillo say.

Literary news and events.

After a successful inaugural year, the Canberra Writers Festival has attracted some big names.

Octopuses like connecting with humans and will keep objects they're given, a leading expert says.

• Review

Pankaj Mishra anchors contemporary discontent in the history of European modernity, but are his arguments flawed?

Helen Fielding's latest Bridget Jones book has won Britain's Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. The prize includes champagne and a pig.

Should we boycott comedians' books for children? Are they just lazy scribblers exploiting their fame and maybe stealing other people's ideas?

To read Down the Hume, Peter Polites' fierce first novel, is to step into the literary wilds.