Books & arts
The biggest stage
Brett Evans
12 November 2015
Books | Brett Evans follows Peter Garrett from West Pymble to Canberra, via French’s in Oxford Street
Books & arts
The stylish portraits of May and Mina Moore
Anne Maxwell
12 October 2015
Two NZ-born photographers created a remarkable body of work in Australia during the first half of the twentieth century
From the archive
Communist, scientist, lover, spy
Klaus Neumann
3 October 2015
The personal and the political are bound up in the life of anthropologist, Stasi informer and one-time Canberra resident Fred Rose
Books & arts
Crusader or conspirator?
Bruce Duncan
24 September 2015
Books | Bruce Duncan reviews Gerard Henderson’s biography of B.A. Santamaria
Books & arts
The congenial candidate
Norman Abjorensen
21 September 2015
Books | Can Bill Shorten sell an unexciting message? Norman Abjorensen reviews David Marr’s new Quarterly Essay
Essays & reportage
The story behind the story
Tom Griffiths
24 July 2015
Tom Griffiths welcomes a profound exploration of intergenerational memory
Books & arts
The rise and rise of Narendra Modi
Robin Jeffrey
10 June 2015
Books | What happens when a party of true believers led by a ferociously motivated politician takes on a dying government? Robin Jeffrey charts an enigmatic…
Essays & reportage
Manning Clark and the Man in Black
Alan Fewster
25 May 2015
ASIO’s ambivalence about Manning Clark might not have incited a diplomatic training incident, but Clark’s response was uncompromising
From the archive
What Julia Gillard couldn’t give us
Stephen Mills
20 May 2015
Michael Cooney’s account of his years as prime ministerial speechwriter helps explain what went wrong
Books & arts
Achieving luminosity
Eleanor Hogan
19 May 2015
Books | Martin Edmond’s dual biography of Rex Battarbee and Albert Namatjira illuminates a remarkable friendship, writes Eleanor Hogan
Books & arts
The life of the author
Susan Lever
15 May 2015
Books | A new biography captures Thea Astley’s idiosyncrasies and contradictions, and the qualities of her fiction, writes Susan Lever
Essays & reportage
An un-Australian childhood
Amirah Inglis
5 May 2015
This extract from her award-winning memoir opens as Amirah Inglis and her mother arrive in Melbourne from Europe in 1929
Essays & reportage
Our story
Sara Dowse
4 May 2015
Sara Dowse remembers the writer Amirah Inglis, who died on Saturday
Books & arts
The middle man
Brett Evans
23 April 2015
Books | Tony Windsor made an indelible mark on federal politics, writes Brett Evans. And he might be considering a comeback
Books & arts
Anna Bligh, the story so far
Sara Dowse
20 April 2015
Books | Sara Dowse reviews the autobiography of the former Queensland premier
Books & arts
The voice of a generation
Brian McFarlane
1 April 2015
Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, now in its second screen version, recounts a remarkable life amid the upheavals of a century ago, writes Brian McFarlane
Essays & reportage
Learning to think at Oxford
Margaret Simons
23 March 2015
“There was nothing before Oxford, really,” says Malcolm Fraser in this extract from his political memoirs, written with Margaret Simons
Books & arts
Revolutionary Sydney
Andrew Dodd
3 February 2015
Books | Three men and a city in turmoil. Andrew Dodd reviews two new books about Sydney’s formative years
Books & arts
Lives in motion
Sylvia Lawson
28 January 2015
Cinema | Sylvia Lawson reviews Wild, Birdman and The Imitation Game
Books & arts
Strategic omissions
Rodney Tiffen
8 January 2015
Books | John Howard’s view of the Menzies years is partial in important respects, but he offers a valuable perspective on an important period
Books & arts
How Hamer made it happen
Judith Brett
27 October 2014
Dick Hamer’s election as Victorian Liberal leader was a seachange in the state’s politics and culture, writes Judith Brett
Books & arts
Girl, twenty-eight
Sophie Black
22 October 2014
Girls creator Lena Dunham has the knack of bottling the essence of the thing, writes Sophie Black
Books & arts
The real Julia
Sara Dowse
15 October 2014
Books | What happened to the woman who beguiled on election night 2007?
Essays & reportage
Caught out: Edna and Jack Ryan and the 1951 referendum
Lyndall Ryan
13 October 2014
Expelled from the Communist Party for not toeing the line, Lyndall Ryan's parents were faced with a dilemma when Robert Menzies’s government tried to ban the party
Books & arts
The making of a great biography
Brian McFarlane
23 September 2014
Jonathan Croall’s new book reveals a talented researcher and writer at work, says Brian McFarlane
Books & arts
Imperial intimacies
Frank Bongiorno
19 September 2014
Historian John Rickard recalls an Australia in which private lives occasionally teetered on the edge of scandal
Books & arts
Money and morality
Stuart Macintyre
19 September 2014
Stuart Macintyre reviews a new biography of the titan of Australian newspaper proprietors, David Syme
Books & arts
What makes them run?
Brett Evans
5 September 2014
Three new political biographies reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the genre
Books & arts
The surgeon as bad-tempered hero
Frank Bowden
20 June 2014
A physician decodes an unsettling memoir of life in and beyond the operating theatre
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