Culture
Books
‘Amplifying the anarchic’: Andy Griffiths on the joy of writing, and his books in film
What do Nick Cave, Enid Blyton and The Young Ones have in common? Ask this bestseller.
- by Kerrie O'Brien
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Lessons of the pandemic: What we learned and what we didn’t
Two books cast back to the dark days of COVID 19.
- by Kurt Johnson
The most annoying words online: ‘We’d like to hear from you. How did we go?’
The internet’s insatiable lust for ratings and reviews gets zero stars.
- by David Free
Everything you could ever want to know about Bob Dylan
This massive book, assembled from the archives of the Bob Dylan Centre, offers everything a fan could ask for – and a whole lot more.
- by Bernard Zuel
War of the words: the ‘schism’ rocking the Scrabble world
Debates over slurs and plurals are causing tension among the game’s professionals.
- by David Astle
Twelve titles to delight the littlest readers this Christmas
Frances Atkinson picks 12 books for the youngest readers.
- by Frances Atkinson
Whodunnit: Why were novels by a famous Australian author forgotten by history?
Derham Groves was curating an exhibition about Australian crime literature when he stumbled across five books featuring an eccentric amateur sleuth.
- by Jewel Topsfield
Farewell to a master of the loose and baggy novel
The late A.S. Byatt’s Booker prize-winning novel Possession may have been big, ambitious and intellectual, but it was also moving, thrilling and funny.
- by Jane Sullivan
Melissa Broder’s mystical desert song to the power of love
In the American writer’s third novel, a woman finds a way inside a giant cactus as a bizarre part of her search to revive her love for her husband.
- by Jessie Tu
Cringeworthy? Maybe. But cozzie livs to fight another day
The Macquarie’s choice for Word of the Year triggered a flood of emails.
- by David Astle
Best reads of the year: The books that writers loved in 2023
We asked writers from Australia and overseas to tell us which books had knocked their socks off in the past year.
- by Various