Books & arts
21 February 2014
Politics is hard and democracy is messy. Brett Evans reviews two new books that help explain why it doesn’t all end in disaster
Books & arts
11 February 2014
A new collection of letters traces the life of the “outrageously gifted” composer of West Side Story, writes Andrew Ford
Books & arts
14 January 2014
Melancholy and occasionally joyous, the story of two “squinty daughters” doesn’t quite justify the pictures, writes Darren Tofts
Books & arts
21 June 2013
On the anniversary of its publication, Bridget Griffen-Foley reviews John Douglas Pringle’s self-deprecating account of a much-admired career
Books & arts
9 May 2013
Richard Johnstone reviews Michael Jenkins’s A House in Flanders
Books & arts
26 February 2013
Books | Three players, three hard slogs. Jock Given on the golden age of Australian tennis
Books & arts
12 February 2013
Chris Lydgate reviews a new biography of Stamford Raffles, the contradictory colonialist who founded Singapore, and an account of a trip through the modern-day city state…
Books & arts
25 October 2012
Three books recover forgotten lives in very different ways
17 October 2012
The latest biography of Liang Qichao reveals a man of his times with a new significance for present-day China, writes Antonia Finnane in Beijing
Books & arts
10 October 2012
Glenn Nicholls reviews an intimate account of the life of Werner Pelz
Books & arts
8 October 2012
A sympathetic biography of Gough Whitlam also recognises its subject’s shortcomings
Books & arts
2 October 2012
Books | The political and the personal illuminate each other in James Button’s fine account of a year in Canberra
Books & arts
9 August 2012
Brian McFarlane reviews a hard-to-classify account of the influence of Graham Greene
Books & arts
20 July 2012
Jill Kitson reviews a new account of Barack Obama’s formative years
Books & arts
25 June 2012
Lyndon Johnson took on the frustrating role of vice-president to shake off the taint of Southern racism and conservatism. And the rest is history
Books & arts
20 April 2012
Almost nothing remains of the once imposing myth of Putin the energetic moderniser, writes Robert Horvath
Essays & reportage
13 April 2012
Although she undoubtedly drew on her own life, Virginia Woolf’s modernist novels are not essays about herself
Books & arts
10 April 2012
Are we so impressed by the power of collaboration that we’ve come to overvalue working in groups, asks Jock Given
Books & arts
22 March 2012
Norman Abjorensen reviews a new biography of the enigmatic Rick Farley
Books & arts
15 February 2012
Brian McFarlane on the life and work of the formidable American critic, Pauline Kael
From the archive
8 February 2012
Tormented by self-doubt, regretting missed opportunities, George Kennan helped shape the postwar world
Books & arts
18 January 2012
Brian McFarlane reviews a huge collection of the correspondence of the very prolific P.G. Wodehouse
Books & arts
16 December 2011
Tim Thwaites reviews an oblique introduction to one of the great figures of the twentieth century
Books & arts
8 December 2011
If it reminded us of nothing else, the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s birth underlined his extraordinary energy
Books & arts
24 October 2011
Geoffrey Barker reviews Philip Flood’s memoir of a career in the diplomatic service and as an agency head
Books & arts
13 September 2011
Judith Brett reviews Heather Henderson’s collection of letters from her father, Robert Menzies
Books & arts
23 April 2011
Jill Kitson reviews a new account of the wartime leadership of the diminutive Australian prime minister
From the archive
17 February 2011
Jules Feiffer, the cartoonist who made anxiety funny
Books & arts
27 January 2011
IN BRIEF | Jill Kitson reviews The Prizefighter and the Playwright
Essays & reportage
20 January 2011
Robert Milliken recounts the fraught relationship between two Australian women who made enormous contributions to the international literature of the counterculture