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December 2016, no. 387

December 2016, no. 387

Welcome to our much-anticipated December issue!

• Books of the Year - More than forty senior critics, writers, broadcasters, and booksellers have nominated their favourite books of the year
• Publisher’s Picks - a dozen major publishers/editors nominate 2016 books from other publishing houses
• Paul Genoni on George Johnston and Charmian Clift’s time on Hydra
• Peter Craven on Tim Winton’s ‘rich and brilliant’ essay collection The Boy Behind the Curtain
• Fiona Gruber on Scientology
• Philosopher Peter Singer is our Open Page guest

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Full Contents

Open Page

Open page with Peter Singer

Children's Fiction

Margaret Robson Kett reviews 'The Bone Sparrow' by Zana Fraillon

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Sport

Bernard Whimpress reviews 'Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the shot that changed cricket' by Gideon Haigh

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Poetry

Robert Phiddian reviews 'An Essay on Man' by Alexander Pope, edited by Tom Jones

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Poetry

Nathanael Pree reviews 'Comfort Food' by Ellen van Neerven, 'Year of the Wasp' by Joel Deane, and 'Invisible Mending' by Mike Ladd

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Biography

Shannon Burns reviews 'The Life of D.H. Lawrence' by Andrew Harrison

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Television

Michael Shmith reviews 'The Day the Music Died: A life lived behind the lens' by Tony Garnett

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Philosophy

Tim Smartt reviews 'The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children' by Alison Gopnik

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Science and Technology

Ian Gibbins reviews 'The Best Australian Science Writing 2016' edited by Jo Chandler NewSouth

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Science and Technology

Nick Haslam reviews 'Ivan Pavlov: A Russian life in science' by Daniel P. Todes

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Language

Bruce Moore reviews 'The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary' by Peter Gilliver

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Religion

Fiona Gruber reivews 'Fair Game: The incredible untold story of Scientology in Australia' by Steve Cannane

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Music

David Larkin reviews 'Franz Liszt: Musician, celebrity, superstar' by Oliver Hilmes, translated by Stewart Spencer

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Film

Sarah McDonald reviews 'Latin American Cinema: A Comparative History' by Paul A. Schroeder Rodríguez

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Essay Collection

Andrew Fuhrmann reviews 'Quicksilver' by Nicolas Rothwell

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Fiction

Ann-Marie Priest reviews 'The Joyce Girl' by Annabel Abbs

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Fiction

Gabriel García Ochoa reviews 'The Winterlings' by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade and translated by Samuel Rutter

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Fiction

Agnes Nieuwenhuizen reviews 'Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil' by Melina Marchetta

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Fiction

Chris Flynn reviews 'Inexperience and other stories' by Anthony Macris

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Fiction

Kevin Rabalais reviews 'Moonglow' by Michael Chabon

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Fiction

Fiona Hile reviews 'Letter to Pessoa & Other Short Fictions' by Michelle Cahill

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Poem

'The Sizzler at the York Agricultural Show, 2016' by John Kinsella

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Poem

'Deep Knowledge' by Caitlin Maling

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History

Rachel Robertson reviews 'A Tear in the Soul' by Amanda Webster

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History

Danielle Clode reviews 'Crusoe’s Island: A rich and curious history of pirates, castaways and madness' by Andrew Lambert

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History

Christopher Allen reviews 'The Holy Roman Empire: A thousand years of Europe’s history' by Peter H. Wilson

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Memoir

Dilan Gunawardana reviews 'Songs of a War Boy' by Deng Thiak Adut and Ben McKelvey

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Biography

Kerryn Goldsworthy reviews 'The Fiction of Thea Astley' by Susan Sheridan

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Books of the Year

2016 Publisher Picks

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Commentary

Hydra as intimate theatre by Paul Genoni

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Fiction

Jane Sullivan reviews 'The Dark Flood Rises' by Margaret Drabble

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Fiction

James McNamara reviews 'The Sellout' by Paul Beatty

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Books of the Year

Books of the Year 2016

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History

Colin Wight reviews 'ISIS: A history' by Fawaz A. Gerges

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Memoir

Michael McGirr reviews 'Press Escape' by Shaun Carney

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Essay Collection

Peter Craven reviews 'The Boy Behind the Curtain' by Tim Winton

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Australian History

Brian Matthews reviews 'The Story of Australia’s People: The rise and rise of a New Australia' by Geoffrey Blainey

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Letters

Letters to the Editor - December 2016

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Advances

News from the Editor's Desk - December 2016

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