August 1, 2020
‘A Room Made of Leaves’ by Kate Grenville
Culture
The author of ‘The Secret River’ returns with a canny twist to fictionalise the life of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of the Australian pioneering settler
Helen Elliott
By this author
June 1, 2020
‘The End of October’ by Lawrence Wright
Culture
A ‘New Yorker’ journalist’s eerily prescient novel about public-health officials fighting a runaway pandemic
July 1, 2020
‘The Rain Heron’ by Robbie Arnott
Culture
An unsettling near-future tale of soldiers hunting a mythic bird by ‘the Tasmanian Wordsworth’
May 1, 2020
‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982’ by Cho Nam-Joo (trans. Jamie Chang)
Culture
The coldly brilliant, bestselling South Korean novel describing the ambient harassment and discrimination experienced by women globally
April 1, 2020
‘Actress’ by Anne Enright
Culture
In a theatre setting, the masterly Irish writer considers the melting, capricious line between the truth and the fake
March 1, 2020
‘The Bass Rock’ by Evie Wyld
Culture
The Miles Franklin–winning author’s latest novel expands on her interest in the submission and consequential fury of women amid the impersonal natural world
November 1, 2019
‘The Testaments’ by Margaret Atwood
article
The Booker Prize–winning sequel to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is an exhilarating thriller from the “wiliest writer alive”
September 25, 2019
‘The Weekend’ by Charlotte Wood
Culture
The Stella Prize–winner returns with a stylish character study of women surprised by age
September 1, 2019
‘The Godmother’ by Hannelore Cayre
Culture
A sardonic French bestseller about a godmother, in the organised crime sense of the word
August 1, 2019
‘The White Girl’ by Tony Birch
Culture
An emotionally eloquent novel about the necessary inheritance of strength in Indigenous women
July 2, 2019
‘The Other Americans’ by Laila Lalami
Culture
An accidental death in a tale of immigrant generations highlights fractures in the promise of America
June 2, 2019
‘Animalia’ by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo
Culture
The French author delivers a pastoral that turns on human cruelty
May 1, 2019
‘Room for a Stranger’ by Melanie Cheng
Culture
The medico-writer delivers a novel driven less by storyline than accumulated observation