Australian Book Review

On this week’s ABR Podcast historian Zora Simic reviews Graeme Turner’s new book, The Shrinking Nation: How we got here and what can be done about it. Simic argues that state-of-the-nation books ‘can capture the Zeitgeist, but always run the risk of being outrun by history itself’. Zora Simic is a Senior Lecturer in History and Gender Studies at the University of New South Wales and a regular reviewer for ABR. Listen to Simic’s ‘Capturing the mood: A new addition to a tricky genre’, published in the October issue of ABR.

 On this week’s ABR Podcast, Julian V. McCarthy reviews Powering Up: Unleashing the clean energy supply chain by Alan Finkel. McCarthy endorses Finkel’s claim that conceptually and technically the solution is simple – ‘electrify everything’ – as well as his judgement that this transformation will require considerable social, economic, and political shifts. Julian V. Mcarthy is a senior adviser on clean energy transition. Listen to ‘Shipping sunshine: Accelerating clean energy transformation’, published in the September issue of ABR.

This week, on the ABR podcast, we feature a special conversation between author and journalist David Marr, historian Mark McKenna and ABR’s Georgina Arnott, recorded in the middle of September 2023, one month out from the Voice referendum. The subject was David Marr’s new book, Killing for Country: A family story, which takes the reader to early nineteenth-century New South Wales and follows the bloodshed of invasion as it tracks north. Mark McKenna’s review of Killing for Country is published in the October issue of ABR.  

In this week’s ABR Podcast, we hear from Melissa Castan and Lynette Russell on the history and mechanics behind the Voice to parliament, the subject of next week’s referendum. Melissa Castan is a Professor of Law at Monash University and the Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. Lynette Russell is Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor and ARC Laureate at the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre. Listen to Lynette Russell with their co-authored article, ‘Ancient sovereignty shining through: A Voice to parliament, not a Voice in parliament’, published in the October Indigenous issue of ABR.

This week on the ABR Podcast historian Penny Russell reviews Kate Grenville’s new book, a fictional account of her maternal grandmother. In Restless Dolly Maunder, Grenville reckons with the life of a woman who left no written records but whose memory she carries from her childhood. Penny Russell is Professor Emerita at The University of Sydney and an historian of families, intimacy, and social encounters. Listen to Penny Russell’s ‘Mirrors on misery: A brilliant portrait of an unhappy marriage’, published in the September issue of ABR.

In this week’s ABR Podcast, Desmond Manderson takes us back sixty years to the 1963 Yirrkala Bark Petition drafted by Yolngu leader Yunupingu. The Yirrkala petition called for constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights and can be seen as an antecedent to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Desmond Manderson is Director of the Centre for Law, Arts and Humanities at the Australian National University. Here he is with ‘Yunupingu’s song: Constitutions as acts of vision, not of division’, published in the September issue of ABR.

In this week’s ABR Podcast, Sarah Ogilvie explores the mystery behind the Oxford English Dictionary’s (1928) Australian lexicon. Ogilvie, a former Director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre, tells us about the Melbourne Dictionary People, a group of nineteenth and early-twentieth century Melburnians who contributed Australianisms for the OED project. Listen to Sarah Ogilvie’s ‘The Melbourne Dictionary People: Active service to the mother tongue’, published in the September issue of ABR.

This week on the ABR Podcast, we have Joel Deane with The Great Australian Intemperance, his essay on rising economic and political insecurity as reflected in the My Place movement, conspiracy theories, neo-Nazis, and ‘sovereign citizen’ groups. Joel Deane is a poet, novelist, journalist, and speechwriter. Listen to Deane’s The Great Australian Intemperance, published in the September issue of ABR.  

This week on the ABR Podcast we celebrate twenty years of the Peter Porter Poetry Prize with readings from six winners. We invited these poets to reflect on the prize and their winning poems. Hear fresh readings from Judith Beveridge, A. Frances Johnson, Damen O’Brien, Sara M. Saleh, Alex Skovron and Judith Bishop. The 2024 Porter Prize, worth a total of $10,000, closes on October 9.

In this week’s ABR Podcast, writer and broadcaster Jonathan Green reviews Walter Marsh’s illuminating biography of the young Rupert Murdoch. Green explains that there is every reason ‘to get to the bottom of Rupert Murdoch’ given the media mogul’s far-reaching influence. Listen to Jonathan Green with ‘ONE MAN CONTROL: An enthralling study of the young Rupert Murdoch’, published in the August issue of ABR.