Books
Elizabeth Harrower – the greatest Australian writer you’ve never heard of
The friend of Patrick White and Christina Stead abruptly withdrew her fifth novel in 1971 and gave up writing altogether – only now to be hailed as ‘one of the great novelists of Sydney’
The force of Typhoon Tyson, Sydney, 1954
After receiving a bouncer from Ray Lindwall that left him temporarily unconscious, England’s fast bowler Frank Tyson swore vengeance and annihilated the Australian team – to retain the Ashes
Maoist China in microcosm: Old Kiln, by Jia Pingwa, reviewed
Smouldering resentment flares to self-destructive violence in a remote village as the Cultural Revolution serves as a pretext for vengeance and exploitation
Hauntingly re-readable: Autocorrect, by Etgar Keret, reviewed
Whether sci-fi vignettes, thought experiments, parables or fables, these tales of parallel universes and artificial realities are suffused by a pervasive melancholy
The shocking state of perinatal care in Britain
Theo Clarke gathers heartbreaking instances of infant mortality, medical malpractice and severe post-partum trauma in the nation’s maternity wards
Eat your way round Paris
Moving anticlockwise through the coil of arrondissements, Chris Newens samples the range of cuisines on offer and examines their histories
Ambition and delusion: The Director, by Daniel Kehlmann, reviewed
Returning from Hollywood to Austria to care for his mother in 1939, the film director G.W. Pabst is seduced by ‘good scripts, high budgets and the best actors’ into working for Dr Goebbels
An unlikely alliance: Drayton and Mackenzie, by Alexander Starritt, reviewed
Two university contemporaries with next to nothing in common find themselves working together to disrupt electricity generation with a scheme to turn tidal power into light
The enigma of Tiger Woods
The Tiger Woods industry continues to flourish, but the man himself never now gives interviews, so any insights into his feelings are second-hand at best
The tragedy of a life not lived: Slanting Towards the Sea, by Lidija Hilje reviewed
The story of a doomed love affair in turn-of-the-millennium Croatia aches from the start. But more haunting still are the missed opportunities that result from it
Oh come all ye faithful
Catholics make up the largest Christian denomination in Australia. The Catholic Church runs thousands of schools, hospitals, aged care facilities…
A double loss: The Möbius Strip, by Catherine Lacey, reviewed
Lacey writes in the aftermath of two break-ups – one romantic, one religious – in a hybrid work that even she has difficulty defining
Have the Gallaghers suffered from ‘naked classism’?
Their biographer thinks so. But if 1980s Britain had been less class-ridden, the brilliant Noel might have been drawn to further education, got a ‘good’ job and been lost to music forever
The importance of bread as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance
Two authors writing in response to the war use baking as a prism through which to view the country’s heritage and its defiance of Putin
Collateral damage: Vulture, by Phoebe Green, reviewed
Sarah Byrne is covering her first war, reporting from Gaza. But her pursuit of a scoop triggers a series of events that may haunt her forever
Adrift in the world: My Sister and Other Lovers, by Esther Freud, reviewed
A sequel to Hideous Kinky sees the two sisters Lucy and Bea, still close to their bohemian mother, trying (and failing) to negotiate life on their own terms as adults
Whatever happened to Caroline Lane? A Margate mystery
How could a feisty middle-aged woman suddenly vanish from the seaside town without trace? David Whitehouse set out to discover
There was no escaping the Nazis – even in sleep
Soon after Hitler came to power, a Jewish journalist, deprived of regular employment, began secretly recording her nightmares – and, as the terror increased, those of her fellow citizens
A meeting of misfits: Seascraper, by Benjamin Wood, reviewed
An unlikely friendship develops between a taciturn local youth and a fast-talking American film-maker in a grim coastal town in postwar Britain
One of the boys: From Scenes Like These, by Gordon M. Williams, reviewed
An accident on the football pitch ends young Dunky Logan’s dreams of playing professionally – leaving him trapped with the lads in the ‘lair of their ordinary world’
From apprentice to master playwright: Shakespeare learns his craft
The Theatre itself, and the works staged at England’s first purpose-built playhouse in Shoreditch, all emerged from the guilds that formed the bedrock of the urban economy
Charles I at his absolutist worst
The months preceding the outbreak of civil war saw distrust of the King become widespread and a ‘new temper’ take hold
Who’s deceiving whom?: The Art of the Lie, by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, reviewed
A struggling widow hooks up with a serial confidence trickster in a novel as witty and ruthlessness as its Georgian setting
Masculinity in crisis – portrayed by Michael Douglas
As the Manhattan attorney in 1987’s Fatal Attraction, Douglas epitomises the alarm many men felt for women’s new-found openness about sexuality
Could the giant panda be real?
Even in the past century the animal was considered so exotic that many doubted its very existence
