Culture
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Architecture June 25, 2022
The Brisbane development Fish Lane Town Square is a brilliant reclamation of disused urban space.
Visual Art June 25, 2022
Daniel Boyd’s first major retrospective in an Australian gallery, Treasure Island, opens up multiple lenses on our history.
The Influence June 25, 2022
The style, wit and intelligence of Elaine Stritch have been beacons for comedian Rhys Nicholson.
Visual Art June 25, 2022
The art of Chiharu Shiota – now on show in a major survey in Brisbane – tackles ineffable questions about absence.
Dance June 18, 2022
Bangarra’s vast hymn to Country shows the company has a bright future under incoming artistic director Frances Rings.
Books June 18, 2022
It is a truth universally acknowledged that journalists start their careers in unexpected places. For Sydney-born Geraldine Brooks it was compiling the horse-racing results for the then Fairfax press. Some decades, five novels and an unexpected lunchtime …
Books June 18, 2022
In Scott McCulloch’s debut novel Basin, an aimless nomad called Figure traverses an interminable landscape that feels similar to the impossible staircase in Escher’s lithograph Ascending and Descending. Figure roams the territories …
Books June 18, 2022
Dirt Town has a simple plot: a girl goes missing, two out-of-town detectives arrive and the father becomes a suspect. Hayley Scrivenor’s debut is billed as a crime novel but the multiple perspectives she employs to elevate a prosaic storyline …
Fiction June 18, 2022
When you were little, you dreamed of a man in uniform. A man who would woo you with his charm and sweep you off your feet. You read a lot of Jane Austen. Underage and overeager, you and your friends would frequent the bars nearest the barracks. Stories …
books
Books June 25, 2022
Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Talking About a Revolution
“Being buried alive by social media hatred will force you to either construct impenetrable walls around your soul or quit completely.” So says Yassmin Abdel-Magied in her book Talking About a Revolution, a collection of essays old and new …
Books June 25, 2022
Nathan Hobby
The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard
Katharine Susannah Prichard published her first short story in 1899 and her final novel in 1967. At last we have a definitive biography, a book tracing her life and the formation of the Australian literary culture she helped to create. Nathan Hobby reminds …
Books June 25, 2022
When he wanted to send a secret message, the ancient Greek tyrant Histiaeus shaved the head of a slave, tattooed the message on his scalp and, once the hair had grown back, sent him on his way. In this story, Ellis Gunn finds a key metaphor for how patriarchal …