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biography
Books & Arts
Clipping his own ticket
Michael Gill
8 December 2020
Books
| How Lionel Barber rescued one of the world’s great newspapers
Essays & Reportage
Poet, writer, daughter
Cathy Perkins
7 December 2020
A daughter puts her mother’s reputation in the hands of her biographer
Essays & Reportage
The telegram
Anne-Marie Condé
11 November 2020
A flimsy piece of paper carried grave news for a family in wartime Balmain
Books & Arts
The man who would be president
Peter Browne
3 November 2020
Books
| Journalist Evan Osnos profiles a politician with a half century’s momentum
Essays & Reportage
Oriel Gray makes her mark
Michelle Arrow
28 October 2020
The playwright and screenwriter’s widely praised memoir returns to print
Books & Arts
Carrying on till she’s carried out
Graeme Dobell
27 October 2020
Books
| Silence may be golden, says Madeleine Albright, but it won’t win many arguments
Books & Arts
English vices
Sara Dowse
21 October 2020
Books
| A pioneering publisher traces her own family’s trajectory
Essays & Reportage
That woman in trousers
Sylvia Martin
5 October 2020
Remembered in Australia mainly for her relationship with Vida Goldstein, Cecilia John’s story took a different course after the first world war
Essays & Reportage
Remembering Susan Ryan
Sara Dowse
2 October 2020
A former colleague recalls working with the reformist Labor minister
Books & Arts
A story of the twentieth century
Frank Bongiorno
30 September 2020
Books
| The second volume of
Dunera Lives
profiles eighteen of the “Dunera boys,” each remarkable in his own way
Books & Arts
The sun also rises
Andrew Ford
9 September 2020
Music
| Zelig-like, sitarist Ravi Shankar became a global celebrity
Books & Arts
Zeitgeist’s man
Edward Aspinall
31 August 2020
Books
| Is there a pattern to the presidency of Indonesia’s Joko Widodo?
Essays & Reportage
With royalty at Riven Rock
Desley Deacon
18 August 2020
Harry and Meghan’s new home comes with a history of American aristocrats, primate research and the quest for the contraceptive pill
Books & Arts
Imperial lives
Nicholas Thomas
6 August 2020
Books
| Three intersecting figures illuminate an age that is still with us
Essays & Reportage
Island stories
Frank Bongiorno
29 July 2020
How one family negotiated identities between different Italies
Books & Arts
What more can we expect?
Susan Lever
21 July 2020
The fiction of Elizabeth Harrower, who died earlier this month
Books & Arts
The thoroughly modern politician
Frank Bongiorno
20 July 2020
Books
| Christopher Pyne’s memoir reveals more than he might have intended about the state of Australian politics
Books & Arts
“Spend all your time at your resort”
Brett Evans
16 July 2020
Books
| The Roman emperors had everything — except the loyalty that would protect them from an untimely demise
Books & Arts
Strangers in a strange land
Sara Dowse
9 July 2020
Books
| Migration is never an easy experience, even if there are laughs along the way
Books & Arts
Twin passions
Judith Brett
8 July 2020
Books
| Internationally renowned Australian archaeologist V. Gordon Childe was also deeply involved in labour politics
Essays & Reportage
Nine lives
Brenda Niall
23 June 2020
For one of Australia’s foremost biographers, the impulse to tell life stories has never gone away
Books & Arts
Letting go
Yves Rees
10 June 2020
Books
| A riotous reimagining of the trans memoir
Books & Arts
The long journey home
Emma Lee
5 June 2020
Books
| A new biography of Truganini provokes bittersweet reflections
Books & Arts
Before the triumphs and the tragedies
Norman Abjorensen
2 June 2020
Books
| A new book rescues two Labor prime ministers, James Scullin and John Curtin, from caricature
Books & Arts
Adventures in feminism
Zora Simic
20 May 2020
Books
| We know a lot about Germaine Greer, but not so much about another trailblazer, Merle Thornton
Essays & Reportage
“Don’t ever expect anything from me”
Mark Baker
27 April 2020
How Malcolm Turnbull turned himself into an international figure
Books & Arts
The Prince
Frank Bongiorno
26 April 2020
Books
| Energy, ambition, bravado and intellect — so what went wrong for Malcolm Turnbull?
Books & Arts
The conditions of art
Susan Lever
22 April 2020
Books
| Award-winning biographer Brenda Niall throws fresh light on four intriguing women writers
Books & Arts
Dickensian democrat
Norman Abjorensen
15 April 2020
Books
| London-born Graham Berry took on the forces of reaction in colonial Victoria
Essays & Reportage
The aunt I never knew
Sylvia Martin
13 April 2020
How a daughter’s death caused by Spanish flu sent a family halfway across the globe
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