New York Times

EL James’ 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

Randy House

By Malcolm Knox

When a new book series emerges from the swill of online fan fiction to sell 250,000 copies, dominate the New York Times e-book bestseller list, and earn lucrative ratification from a mainstream publisher, the humble reviewer’s task is inverted. Instead of asking whether the series has qualities that could make it successful, the question is why it has already succeeded, and what this might

Choosing the Right Path for Adolescent Mental Health

Minds at Risk

By Lisa Pryor

This included $419.7 million over five years for the expansion of two services for young people championed by Melbourne psychiatrist Professor Patrick McGorry. The number of Headspace centres is set to triple to 90. These centres focus on young people aged 12 to 25 with a range of mild to moderate mental health concerns. The rest of the money will go towards a service – pioneered by McGorry

Child Beauty Pageants in Australia

Sparkle and Shine

By Julia Baird

“I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns.” –Elizabeth Cady Stanton, c.1870 There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the adjectives used to describe the winners of child beauty pageants: pretty, beautiful, lovely. They can’t just be cute, though, these girls; they have to sparkle, shine, glow and glitter as they smile determinedly on stage, parents wringing hands in the wings. With all the tortu

Hans Keilson’s 'The Death of the Adversary' and 'Comedy in a Minor Key'

Case Histories

By Inga Clendinnen

Hans Keilson, a retired psychiatrist of German birth who lives in Amsterdam, was four months away from his one-hundred-and-first birthday when, in August 2010, the New York Times critic Francine Prose pointed her magic pen and declared his two long-ago novels, Comedy in a Minor Key (1947) and The Death of the Adversary (1959), to be “masterpieces” and Ke

Sex and the AFL

Out of Bounds

By Anna Krien

Proclaiming to be speaking on behalf of all women mistreated by footballers, she had in January attended St Kilda’s first training session and thrown flimsy placards on the ground reading “St Scandal”, “HU$H”, “AFL (All Fuck

'Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry' by Leanne Shapton

By Michelle de Kretser

In Thomas Hardy’s elegiac poem ‘During Wind and Rain’ there are “Clocks and carpets and chairs / On the lawn all day”. As any trawler of flea markets can attest, a terrible vulnerability attaches to private belongings exposed to public view. The path

Fashion's Coming of Age

This Year's Model

By Clare Press

Those with an appreciation of the firm and youthful female form may be interested to ogle Terry Richardson’s photographs of the latest crop of young ‘supermodels’ in this year’s ‘Pirelli calendar’.Richardson is best known for creating raunchy ads for the lik

The Rudd Essay & the Global Financial Crisis

By Charles R Morris

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's recent essay. I find myself in virtually complete agreement with his analysis of the origins of the current economic crisis, its historic importance and the nature of the response that gove

Saving Yourself

By Benjamin Law

In the library of Inglewood State School - a three-hour, sleep-inducing drive west from Brisbane - Jim Lyons discusses Scarlett Johansson with students from years seven and eight. He shows them a laminated newspaper article featuring Johansson's photograph. The headline

Annie Proulx’s ‘Fine Just the Way It Is’

Unhappy Endings

By Amanda Lohrey

The celebrated American writer Annie Proulx is now in her seventies, and it's possible to look back on her impressive list of publications and identify two distinct genres at work. The first of these is the comic novel of baroque folksiness that documents the

What he must do to win

Obama!

By Noel Pearson

According to Steele, white guilt became a potent force in American culture and politics because, following the civil-rights victories of the '60s, whites were forced to confront their long association with racism. White America suffered a crisis of moral autho

The future of journalism as a public trust

War of Words

By Eric Beecher

"I don't want Rupert Murdoch to decide what belongs in the Wall Street Journal news pages. The essence of a great newspaper is independence, even from its proprietors and shareholders, and Murdoch, in the final analysis, hasn't come down on that side."- Peter Osnos, the

Fred Hilmer’s 'The Fairfax Experience'

Read All About It

By Gideon Haigh

Donald Bradman & Boris Karloff

By Shane Maloney

In the northern summer of 1932, Donald and Jessie Bradman spent their honeymoon crossing North America on a cricket tour sponsored by the Australian Dried Fruit Board. The Don's fame preceded him, the New York Times lauding the batsman as "the ring-tailed wallaby of the cricket crease".It was a long and leisurely trip, and by the time the team reached California the Australians had seen the sights