Nicole Abadee
Nicole Abadee writes about books and other things for Good Weekend. She appears regularly at writers’ festivals as a facilitator, and has a books podcast, Books, Books, Books, where she speaks to Australian and international writers about their latest books. She is also a literary consultant, helping writers to polish their work before they submit it to publishers.
American novelist Barbara Kingsolver is renowned for her ability to infuse her fiction with her politics, in particular a passionate concern for nature and the environment. Prodigal Summer, published in 2000, is a celebration of the relationship between humans and nature; Flight Behaviour, published in 2012, is about climate change. No surprise then that her latest novel, Unsheltered, is set durin ... (read more)
Most writers seek to better their previous books, but in Markus Zusak’s case this goal was particularly difficult, given that his last book was The Book Thief. Published in 2005, it has sold sixteen million copies worldwide and spent ten years on the New York Times bestseller list. It is thus no surprise that Zusak has taken ten years to write Bridge of Clay, his sixth book.
... (read more)
‘No man who is his country’s enemy shall call himself my friend. Of this I am sure.’
Creon, Antigone
‘I did not think your edicts strong enough to overrule the unwritten unalterable laws of God and heaven, you being only a man.’
Antigone, Antigone
Sophocles might not have foreseen when he wrote his tragedy Antigone in 441 BCE that the issues he explored would remain topical in 2017. ... (read more)
In his most recent book, Woolloomooloo: A biography, author and playwright Louis Nowra sets out to discover why the word ‘Woolloomooloo’ is still ‘a shorthand for notoriety, social despair and criminality’. Eschewing conventional historical method, he undertakes his research from the ground up, walking the sixty-three streets of that much-maligned suburb just east of the Sydney CBD. With a ... (read more)