Culture
Books
REVIEW
Literature
How eating brings comfort, joy and a serve of misjudgments
Sam van Zweden’s bite-sized essays dissect eating and the moral properties attached to what we choose to swallow.
- by Jessie Tu
Latest
REVIEW
Literature
No Patrick Melrose, but there’s still sex, drugs and serious money
Edward St Aubyn’s latest novel is set in familiar territory - the transatlantic anglophile social elite.
- by Simon Caterson
REVIEW
Literature
Fiction: Land of Big Numbers and three other titles
Te-Ping Chen’s collection of short stories marks a stunning debut.
- by Kerryn Goldsworthy
REVIEW
Literature
In this debut, protagonist and author share a different way of thinking
Madeleine Ryan’s first novel, A Room Called Earth, is dry, acerbic and droll in turns. As the title suggests, there’s an entire world within one woman’s room.
- by Thuy On
REVIEW
Literature
Non-fiction: How to Fake Being Tidy and two others
Fenella Souter’s reflections on the trials, tribulations and pleasures of the domestic arts are gently humorous.
- by Fiona Capp
TURNING PAGES
Literature
A word in your ear about dictionaries and their offspring
Dictionaries are not just for word enthusiasts. Last year they inspired two acclaimed novels.
- by Jane Sullivan
REVIEW
Literature
Short but very significant: George Saunders on great Russian stories
In his latest release, Booker Prize winner George Saunders presents seven short stories by great Russian writers, then analyses them in detail to explain why they work.
- by James Ley
She killed off Patrick in Offspring. Now Debra Oswald is at it again
The award-winning TV creator is dabbling with death in a new novel about female friendship and domestic violence.
- by Louise Rugendyke
Opinion
WordPlay
Aerocars, spacebuses and corpsicles: the sci-fi leaps we’re still waiting for
These are the space invaders of the galactic glossary: the futuristic advances we’ve been promised for decades, but remain little more than false hopes.
- by David Astle
No fluke: Rebecca Giggs has a whale of a time on the Stella shortlist
The WA writer’s book about whales has been shortlisted for the Stella Prize as the NSW Premier’s awards announce its shortlists and Australian writers dominate a British prize for historical fiction.
- by Jason Steger
Perth’s hipster heaven ups the ante with Indigenous-only bookshop
The amount of trade this shop has seen since opening its doors in January would suggest the people of Perth have been crying out for something just like it.
- by Emma Young