Culture
Books
From angst to zwodder, there’s a word for that special feeling
Whether you’re forswunk or suffering acatalepsy, someone somewhere has coined a term to capture the mood.
- by David Astle
Latest
A profound conversation that whizzes across time
Kate Mildenhall’s third novel displays a fearlessness in writing historical fiction of recent times that dissects class.
- by Helen Elliott
Europe’s year of revolutions and what they all meant
Australian historian Christopher Clark’s history of the 1848 revolutions that erupted in Europe is a titanic piece of work.
- by Pat Sheil
Everything about food has improved - especially the books
While progress in many fields over the past 50 years may be debatable, our cuisine has only got better.
- by David Free
‘Goblin mode’ and ‘Barbiecore’: Macquarie Dictionary grapples with a chaotic world
From a bachelor’s handbag to the spicy cough, Macquarie Dictionary’s newest edition captures the current thoughts, feelings and preoccupations of Australians.
- by Nell Geraets
Donald Horne’s bumpy intellectual journey from right to left
Ryan Cropp’s biography suggests Australia won’t see a public intellectual like Donald Horne again.
- by Phillip Deery
Death and danger in the Tasmanian wilderness
Lenny Bartulin and James Dunbar makes the most of the Tasmanian landscape in their new crime novels.
- by Sue Turnbull
Eight books to read: Kate Grenville’s new novel and a memoir about a ‘double life’
Our reviewers cast their eyes over recent fiction and non-fiction.
- by Lucy Sussex and Steven Carroll
I’m 72 - I’m nothing but regrets: being Fran Lebowitz
The New York satirist and writer lives without a computer or a mobile phone, yet is one of our sharpest and funniest social commentators.
- by Kerrie O'Brien
Twelve books for the leap into spring
Publishers and bookshops are gearing up for their busiest time of the year, with masses of books being published and bought.
- by Jason Steger
The word nerds who lived and died for the Oxford English Dictionary
Sarah Ogilvie’s book tells the stories of the people who contributed word definitions during the creation of the world’s first etymological dictionary.
- by Ken Haley