Portia Simpson knew early on that she didn't want a conventional life. Her memoir tells of her life as the first female gamekeeper.

Michaela McGuire's appearance at the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2014 didn't go quite to plan.

As far as scapegoats go, "diversity" is a convenient one.

Hisham Matar's carefully-spoken, gentle life and writing has long been haunted by the unexplained absence of his father.

It was a detective novel by Agatha Christie that taught John Heffernan about the importance of a ''good yarn''.

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?

Former Olympic contender Matthew Syed examines the science and psychology of sport.

A re-evaluation of the past two centuries of women’s writing.

An unflinching investigation of dark family history

A history of the TV series that shocked Australia

Revealing first-hand accounts from the frontline of Australia's mandatory detention

How the changing times have made meant political coups are increasingly common in Australian politics

A dual narrative provides an intriguing premise in this work of speculative fiction.

The Blue Cat, for younge readers, combines a magical narrative with the darkest days of war

A subtle take on the figure of the English innocent abroad

An unusually difficult coming-of-age novel

Authors talk frankly about their approach to the craft in a new anthology.

Three new books examine Russian history in the year of the centenary of the Russian Revolution.

Forget thanks: Couple donating $3 million to State Library redevelopment just want to sing the library's praises.

Author Pamela Hart focuses on how being caught up in a world-changing event affects an individual.

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.

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.

Literary news and events in Canberra.

• david astle

The casualties of the Coalition purge of 18C. Way back, it stood for 18 Celsius, or 18 carat. Or 18 cents.