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Peter Rose
The ABR Podcast
Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.
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‘Where is Nancy?’ Paradoxes in the pursuit of freedom
by Marilyn Lake
This week on The ABR Podcast, Marilyn Lake reviews The Art of Power: My story as America’s first woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi. The Art of Power, explains Lake, tells how Pelosi, ‘a mother of five and a housewife from California’, became the first woman Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Marilyn Lake is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Listen to Marilyn Lake’s ‘Where is Nancy?’ Paradoxes in the pursuit of freedom’, published in the November issue of ABR.
Recent episodes:
This week we draw on ABR’s expanding digital archive and head back to December 2010, when ABR Editor Peter Rose wrote at length about E.M. Forster, author of novels such as Howards End and Room with a View. In this podcast, Rose discusses Wendy Moffat’s biography of Forster, before roaming more widely to revisit those influential novels and dipping into the immense Forster literature – and the even more gargantuan literature of Bloomsbury, of which Forster was a peripheral and somewhat wary member.
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To celebrate the year’s memorable plays, films, television, music, operas, dance, and exhibitions, we invited a number of arts professionals and critics to nominate their favourites.
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This week’s episode of the ABR podcast is devoted to the Books of the Year. With ABR Editor Peter Rose, critic and writer Beejay Silcox and historian Frank Bongiorno discuss the books that stirred them most in 2022. This follows a Books of the Year feature in the December issue of ABR, with contributions from thirty-six writers and critics. Listen to Peter Rose, Beejay Silcox and Frank Bongiorno discuss the best books of 2022.
... (read more)'Coronation Chicken', a new poem by Peter Rose.
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Fifteen years ago, the new Rudd government announced the creation of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (PMLAs), to be administered by the Minister for the Arts. There were two prizes at the outset – fiction and non-fiction – each worth $100,000 – tax free to boot. Given the precarious incomes of most Australian writers, the prizes could not have been more welcome. Later, after some lobbying, young adult and children’s fiction were added, followed by poetry and Australian history. Sensibly, like other literary prizes, the PMLA organisers decided in 2011 to reward all the shortlisted authors, not just the winner.
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When Alessandro Manzoni died on 22 May 1873, it was an event of major significance in Italy. The poet, novelist, and philosopher – an early proponent of Italian unification – was a hero of the Risorgimento. His novel I promessi sposi (1827), with its appeal to Italian patriotism, was (and remains) one of the most famous Italian novels.
... (read more)The ups and downs of biography
Hazel Rowley is the 2007 Australian Book Review/La Trobe University Annual Lecturer. That title is quite a mouthful (the acronym doesn’t bear thinking about), but one that Dr Rowley will handle in her stride, as those who recall her appearances on Australian literary stages will attest.
Dr Rowley – born in England and educated in Australia – taught for many years at Deakin University before moving to the United States. In 1993 she published Christina Stead: A Biography. In her review in The Independent, Doris Lessing said, ‘Christina Stead has long needed a good biographer, and here she is.’ Miegunyah has just issued a revised edition of the biography, in time for Dr Rowley’s Annual Lecture – and her appearance at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
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There are times when the act of editorialising seems reckless, if not otiose. Any such column, written on 20 September, runs the dual risk of belatedness – or prematurity. So appalling were the events of 11 September, and so ominous their ramifications, no one can be confident of the likely international developments in coming weeks, days, or even hours. All we can do at ABR is to sympathise with the families of those killed in New York, including a number of Australians, while also following events and covering the issues and inevitable publications in these pages.
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