Culture
Books
These are the ten events not to miss at Sydney Writers’ Festival
This year’s literary feast offers a tantalising menu for lovers of all sorts of writing.
- by Jason Steger
Latest
Determined, tone-deaf and glib: Rebel Wilson tells her own story
Wilson is a talented actor, but she can’t replicate that talent in her memoir.
- by Stephen Brook
Opinion
WordPlay
Australia leads the world in the use of this oxymoronic term
During this year’s budget there was one recurrent word association that appeared more than others.
- by David Astle
Colm Toibin didn’t think he’d write a Brooklyn sequel. So why has he?
The Irish writer’s latest novel returns to the world of Eilis Lacey.
- by Jason Steger
Eleven years ago, she won NSW’s most prestigious book prize. She just did it again
Ali Cobby Eckermann always wanted to be a writer. Now she’s received the highest accolade in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards for the second time.
- by Kerrie O'Brien
Three writers named 2024 Best Young Australian Novelists
Now in its 28th year, the prize is given to an Australian writer of fiction aged 35 or under.
- by Melanie Kembrey
A frantic call from a sinking ship: this novel opens with a coroner’s report
Miles Franklin winner Shankari Chandran has an agenda in her new book Safe Haven, as our desire not to see has only been strengthened.
- by Helen Elliott
He’s written 38 novels - but there’s one big reason you hardly even see his name on a movie script
The former LA Times crime writer turned bestselling author has written 38 novels, some of which are now movies and TV series. He’s in Australia this month.
- by Helen Pitt
Who stole Picasso’s Weeping Woman? This novel could have the answer
Our reviewers cast their eyes over recent fiction and non-fiction releases, including historical fiction, a ripping yarn about the Labor Party and MasterChef inaugural winner Julie Goodwin’s memoir.
- by Cameron Woodhead and Steven Carroll
Salman Rushdie’s memoir is the work of a supreme storyteller
The novelist’s account of the brutal attack on him and how he survived is moving, ghastly and full of self-scrutiny.
- by Peter Craven
Alice Munro, Nobel winner, revered short story master dies, 92
Often ranked with Anton Chekhov, John Cheever and a handful of others, Munro achieved stature rare for an art form traditionally placed beneath the novel.
- by Hillel Italie