John Heffernan: Books that Changed Me
It was a detective novel by Agatha Christie that taught John Heffernan about the importance of a ''good yarn''.
Books
My dad wrote a porno. Now I'm reading it aloud on the Opera House stage.
Jamie Morton has turned his father's badly written and breathtakingly explicit erotica into a smash-hit podcast. So what does his dad think of his newfound fame?
Non-fiction review: A Crime in the Family
An unflinching investigation of dark family history
Non-fiction review: Number 96
A history of the TV series that shocked Australia
State Library devotees kick off public appeal with $3 million donation
Forget thanks: Couple donating $3 million to State Library redevelopment just want to sing the library's praises.
Australia's first war correspondent inspires A Letter from Italy
Author Pamela Hart focuses on how being caught up in a world-changing event affects an individual.
Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See tops Dymocks' best books list
It's taken three years and a Pulitzer Prize for fiction to find a place in Australian readers' hearts but finally Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See has been voted the best book of all time.
Surprise shortlist picks in children's book awards
Two self-published books - including a unique album of typographical art in which every image is made with letters that spell its very name - have cracked the shortlist for information books in the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards.
Litbits April 1 2017
Literary news and events in Canberra.
Wordplay: The political hydraulics of 18C
The casualties of the Coalition purge of 18C.
Top 10 sports books
AFL footballer Dane Swan tops the sport bestsellers chart
A flawed examination of the world's most infamous jihadist group
Graeme Wood tries to understand what Islamic State is and what it really wants.
Mates: The Friendship That Sustained Henry Lawson: a portrait of a sad life
A scholarly examination of the life of one of our most famous writers.
Frogkisser review: re-imagining fairytales
Garth Nix takes familiar fairytales and gives them the Terry Pratchett treatment.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice review: the origins of magical tales
Fairytale scholar Jack Zipes examines the literary history behind stories of people rebelling against their masters with magical powers.
A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism: exploring the last taboo
Bill Schutt's book reveals the evolutionary reasons we may end up eating each other.
Colette's France review: A superb guide to Colette's life
A sympathetic portrait of the French novelist.
The End of All Our Exploring review: love, death and landscapes
A personal account of a quest for meaning
Silence review: exploring the nature of faith
Shusaku Endo takes a violent phase of Japanese history and uses it to probe the nature of faith in a circumstance of intense moral quandary.
Something for Nothing review: a very Australian crime tale
Underbelly screenwriter Andy Muir's first Aussie crime novel features characterful storytelling.
The secret world of dictionaries
Ever wonder how a dictionary is made? Take an insider's tour of a word factory.
The Restorer: an insider's account of a broken marriage
Michael Sala's second book is a slow-burning work that moves with troubling intensity and sensitivity to give an insider's account of a violent marriage.
Turning pages: The case for books
The death of books has been greatly exaggerated...
Deaths of the Poets review: What is the price of poetry?
An examination of the image of the 'doomed poet'.
The Woolgrower's Companion: a sweeping pastoral romance
An accomplished debut pays tribute to the Australian landscape and people.
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