Natasha Sholl

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**The ABR Podcast**

Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.

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The red thread: Xi Jinping’s ideology of power

by Neil Thomas

This week on The ABR Podcast, Neil Thomas reviews On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is shaping China and the world by Kevin Rudd. Thomas explains that even China watchers find it hard to be clear on the thoughts and plans of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. They disagree, he tells us, on basic, critical questions, such as for how long Xi will rule. ‘Enter Kevin Rudd’, Thomas writes. ‘In his latest book, former prime minister Kevin Rudd adds a worthy new chapter to his life of public service, digesting thousands of pages of “Xi Jinping Thought” so that you do not have to’. Neil Thomas is a Fellow on Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in Washington DC. Here is Neil Thomas with 'The red thread: Xi Jinping's ideology of power' by Neil Thomas, published in the December issue of ABR.

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Hold your nerve

by Australian Book Review •

The ABR Podcast

Last month ABR announced the winner, runner-up and third-place recipient of the 2024 Calibre Essay Prize. In this week’s podcast we are delighted to present the 2024 Calibre runner-up, ‘Hold Your Nerve’, by Melbourne writer Natasha Sholl. Natasha Sholl is a writer and lapsed lawyer. Her work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Age, Good Weekend and Mamamia. Her debut book, Found, Wanting, was published by Ultimo Press in 2022. Listen to Natasha Sholl with ‘Hold Your Nerve’, published in the June issue of ABR.

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Hold your nerve

by Natasha Sholl •

June 2024, no. 465

I have not told anyone that there is a small child growing in my bedside table drawer. The Ziplock bag containing E’s hair, a mass of tangled brown. A handful of baby teeth.

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Found, Wanting: A memoir by Natasha Sholl

by Andrew Broertjes •

April 2022, no. 441

Andrew Broertjes reviews 'Found, Wanting: A memoir' by Natasha Sholl

We all seem to be thinking about grief lately. As Covid keeps many of us away from loved ones and people who are dying or have just expired, how we process death has received a renewed focus. The number of memoirs and guides and stories about grief and loss that have been published in the past two years – over two hundred – is staggering. It is a challenge to write about grief. Every society on earth has its own forms and rituals around grieving, its own texts on what grieving is like. Trying to find something new or original to say is daunting. What we are left with are our own words, our own terrible experiences to put down upon the page.

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