May 2010
ENVIRONMENT
Flavour of the Nation
Gay Bilson
For our last breakfast on a tiny island in the Alappuzha backwaters in South Kerala, we had asked for kanji, a gruel of rice or millet....
More ...
SOCIETY
Allen Ginsberg & Wandjuk Marika
Allen Ginsberg saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro...
More ...SOCIETY
'Trouble: Evolution of a Radical / Selected Writings 1970–2010' by Kate Jennings
Carmen Callil
“Don’t look back. You’ll turn into a pillar of shit,” is the opening quip, but this could never happen to Kate Jennings, who is in a sense...
More ...SOCIETY
'Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Fueds' by Lyndall Gordon
Michelle de Kretser
Central to Lyndall Gordon’s biography of Henry James is an extraordinary scene. As daylight fades over Venice, James drops a dead woman’s...
More ...SOCIETY
The Alchemist: Alfred Stieglitz’s Lake George Years
Peter Conrad
Alfred Stieglitz was the kind of man that Australia, more’s the pity, has never had. Here prophets come from the desert, as AD Hope once...
More ...SOCIETY
The Odd Couple: The White Stripes’ 'Under Great White Northern Lights'
Robert Forster
The last White Stripes’ album, Icky Thump, came out in 2007. For a group operating under the normal touring and recording schedule, the...
More ...SOCIETY
The Music of Time: Gillian Armstrong’s 'Love, Lust & Lies' and Radu Mihaileanu’s 'The Concert'
Luke Davies
In 1975 Gillian Armstrong made the short film Smokes and Lollies, which followed the lives of three 14-year-old girls Armstrong had found...
More ...SOCIETY
Faraway Tales: Elif Batuman’s 'The Possessed'
Robert Dessaix
I was a small child when I first read Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood. Or was it the sequel, The Magic Faraway Tree? It had a stylish Art...
More ...SOCIETY
Swinger: Christopher Hitchens’ 'Hitch-22'
Dennis Altman
At one point in Hitch-22: A Memoir (Atlantic Books, 352pp; $35.00) Christopher Hitchens writes: “As 1968 began to ebb into 1969 … people...
More ...SOCIETY
Clueless: Michael Lewis’ 'The Big Short'
Kate Jennings
The financial crisis marked its dismal second anniversary in March. In the US, 3 million households are expected to be served with...
More ...SOCIETY
Liquid Handcuffs: The Methadone Program at 40
Gail Bell
Two old hands who dose at the pharmacy where I work (a couple, Danny and Carla) have been using since they were 18. They are in their...
More ...ECONOMICS
Coe & Co.
Paul Barry
Coe’s best mate, Gordon Fell, is just as bright and another paragon of virtue. The former Rhodes scholar, who made his millions selling...
More ...POLITICS
Nuclear Dawn
Malcolm Knox
The one constant is the belief of nuclear proponents – as durable as a radioactive isotope – in their technology. Even though the political...
More ...SOCIETY
King Coal
Guy Pearse
Glenn’s castle is not his house, but the public garden and war memorial into which his parents poured so much time and effort. “Mum had...
More ...
SOCIETY
Tincture of Health
Mandy Sayer
An emaciated man is begging for help on the back verandah of the Nimbin Hemp Embassy, an organisation lobbying for cannabis law reform. His...
More ...
SOCIETY
Bush Love
Benjamin Law
In retrospect, we had been warned. Days before we arrived at Wooroolin’s Peanut Pullers and Backfatters Ball – an annual singles’ event in...
More ...
SOCIETY
Heaven, Hell and Limbo
Anna Funder
The first time I took my new baby out I put him in a sling and walked to the local shops, where I ran into a friend with two Papuan artists...
More ...
POLITICS
Comment: On Your Bike Tony Abbott
Robert Manne
It would be ridiculous to claim that Abbott has not qualified, or even abandoned, aspects of the apocalyptic and exhilarating Santamaria...
More ...
The Shortlist Daily
9 February 2012
Twitter
@THEMONTHLY @SLOWTV
