Paul Beatty has taken home the 2016 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout – becoming the first American to win the award. The Sellout is a searing and, incredibly topical, satire of race relations in contemporary America. The novel is narrated by African-American Bonbon, a resident of a run-down town in Los Angeles, which…
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It’s been announced today that Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016 – marking the first time the prize has gone to a recipient who is primarily a musician. The Swedish Academy in awarding the prized cited that Dylan had “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”….
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Ahead of the release of his new children’s book Mulga’s Magical Musical Creatures we sat down with Sydney-based street artist, illustrator and poet Mulga (Joel Moore) to find out a little bit more about the new book, how he created those illustrations, and just what makes the perfect children’s book. What was the initial inspiration behind…
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The 2016 Shortlist for the Man Booker Prize has been unveiled, and once again it makes for some interesting reading. Past winners, and literary heavyweights have found themselves dispensed with as the judges have agonisingly whittled down the long list to a mere six titles. The six authors and books that made the shortlist then…
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The short story, is perhaps one of the most underappreciated of the literary forms. Certainly it’s a format with its readers and, naturally, writers, but it’s never quite had the audience or the celebrity it’s longer form cousins – the novel – have. But all that could be able to change, with the launch of…
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Earlier this week, the shortlist for this year’s Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction was announced. The Readings Prize, created by the award winning independent book retailer, unsurprisingly (given it’s title) celebrates new works for Australian authors, with the judges considering the first or second books by an author, and shining a light on those…
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is on track to be the fastest selling book this decade, with the script book shifting approximately 170,000 copies in Australia alone since it’s release on Sunday. Though official figures will not be released until next week, that is a staggering figure, but will come as no surprise to those…
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The longlist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize was announced overnight in the UK. The thirteen books on the list were whittled down from over 150 submissions by a panel of five judges. Those five judges now have until 13th September to decide on a six book shortlist, before the eventual winner is announced on the…
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April 23rd marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. To commemorate the occasion the State Library of NSW is staging a major Shakespeare celebration; headlined by acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly. The celebration will see Kelly launch his new Shakespeare inspired album, Seven Sonnets & A Song, in the atmospheric Mitchell Reading…
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Ubisoft® and Scholastic have announced a collaboration on a new young adult book series, Last Descendants, based on the hit video game franchise Assassin’s Creed®. Written for readers ages 12 and up by award-winning author Matthew J. Kirby, the first book in the “Last Descendants” series will launch simultaneously in September 2016 in the United…
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Carriageworks and Sydney Writers’ Festival are partnering to present a Sydney Writers’ Festival Carriageworks Edition with two talks by internationally renowned authors: Simon Winchester, for his only Sydney appearance to discuss his new biography Pacific Ocean, and Andrew O’Hagan author of The Illuminations, which was long-listed for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. The public will have a chance to join bestselling author Simon…
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A whole host of local and international authors, writers and public thinkers will be decamping to Adelaide at the end of February for the 31st instalment of the Adelaide Writers’ Week; a week long celebration as part of the Adelaide Festival. The event will feature over 90 writers in conversation, across six days from the…
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A Rock & Roll Writers Festival is a curated, weekend long literary festival devoted to exploring and celebrating the creative spark between writing and music. The festival is to be held on the 2nd and 3rd of April at The Brightside, 27 Warner Street, Fortitude Valley. The fearless program is designed for fans and lovers of music…
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There are few who seem to understand the concept of the coffee table book as well as photographer Simon Griffiths, who today releases Boat – a “celebration of the humble vessel that symbolises escape, trade and travel” – as the press release aptly puts it. The beautifully designed book is one you can judge by…
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Friday on my Mind is a murder mystery set in contemporary London, penned by Nicci French. The story begins as a man is pulled from the Thames, his throat cut. He is wearing a hospital wristband marked F. Klein, which seems to make identification simple. Only Freida Klein is still very much alive and is…
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For anybody struggling — whether it’s with sickness, relationships, or finishing that last task for your boss — phrases like “but it’s not that bad” and “you’ll be fiiiiiiine” are sometimes more harmful than helpful. Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman seeks to challenge these frustrating fragments of advice with what he calls “the negative path to…
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Romer’s debut novel is a murder mystery spanning four generations, set against the unique landscape of the Australian outback. It’s an ambitious project, and while it’s not without it’s weaknesses, the end result is an engaging story that would appeal to fans of suspense and stories about family secrets.
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Peter Goldsworthy may be one of Australia’s most accomplished writers, but you wouldn’t know it from the title he’s chosen. Or perhaps you would: this self-deprecating mood colours his memoir — from the bizarre range of childhood obsessions to the first fumblings of adolescence — with sunny, occasionally glaring insight that can only be attained…
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Sexually repressed, separated Greek girl on a rampage. There’s no love here, just fucks. But is she fucking him or fucking herself? Koraly Dimitriadis’ work was first published as a zine in 2011. It quickly sold out of stores. Now reissued as a book with extra poems, her first erotic verse novel strips itself down,…
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Writer Paul Ham gives the history of the Sandakan Death March, a war march that lead to only six survivors. Nothing is spared in this book, which gives details of the gruesome punishments the prisoners went through, how they died and how the very small few survived. Cannibalism, bayonetted, shot, starved, given no illness, medical…
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Welcome to the world of Lola Bensky, born in Germany to parents who survived the Auschwitz death camp. Lola grows up with her parents dodging questions about their past, a dysfunctional family due to the war with a language barrier with unhappy yet loved times. After leaving school Lola found herself travelling to America and…
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I’ll See You Again is a book that will resonate with any person, male or female, with or without kids. A family is pulled into darkness at the awful and sudden loss of their three daughters in a car accident and the parents Jackie and Warren have to come to terms with a house filled…
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In 2008, it hit Mary Beth Ditto that she was now a celebrity (she was 27 years young); it took her raunchy photo gracing the cover of the NME magazine to realise this. Yet it was only after people told her she is a celebrity that she finally believed it. After walks up the red…
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