Literature is solace, and the festival line-up is out to prove it.

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.

Seven Types of Ambiguity has an outstanding cast, superb performances, and a gripping plot make this six-part Australian series must-see television.

J.D. Vance's memoir, Hillybilly Elegy, was a timely book and a surprise bestseller, recounting the plight of impoverished and alienated white working-class Americans.

If you are compiling clues for a living, they have to be absolutely leak proof. Sometimes, however, things go slightly awry.

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

TOP 10: Japan is top of the pops on the travel books bestsellers chart

Roxane Gay's stories are not for the fainthearted. The sex is frank, unromantic and sometimes sad; the violence is brutal.

Mischling is the story of identical twins, Pearl and Stasha, who end up in the hands of Josef Mengele after they, their mother and grandfather are transported to Auschwitz

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?

Having been an Olympic contender himself, Matthew Syed writes with an insider's knowledge of how it takes a village, so to speak, to create a sports person.

An academic study of women writers and public life from Austen to the present.

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 younger readers, combines a magical narrative with the darkest days of war

The year is 1956 and Iris Turner moves to France, where she finds herself in a house full of intrigue and secrets.

An unusually difficult coming-of-age novel

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