Voss Literary Prize 2025 The winner of the Voss Literary Prize is Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane. This is what the judges said about the book: ‘The Backpacker Murders have haunted Australians since 1992, when the first bodies were discovered in the Belanglo State Forest, just off the Hume Highway, south-west of Sydney. These were exceedingly
Reviewed by Ian Lipke It would be a rare tourist who, on visiting France, chooses to decide not to include a visit to the Palace of Versailles, the construction that is ‘the defining symbol of hedonistic opulence in 17th century France.’ The palace is widely held as symbolic of the divine right of kings, that
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Lexi Villiers was enjoying her medical residency in Hobart and hanging out with close friends when she was whisked away by private helicopter and flown back to England. Lexi was Princess Alexandrina, the spare to the British throne. She was filled with dread as, even as she “flew closer to London,
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve This collection of stories, some with the familiar theme of the wicked stepmother and others with a fresh idea of a spider that makes hot pepper soup and resorts to trickery, is quite different from the Grimm and Hans Anderson tales which were frequently cruel and harrowing. Many of these are
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Travel appeals to millions as tourism invades even far reaches of the planet. Backpackers follow the cheaper path to adventure; the older battalions tend to choose the organised tour or the more relaxed cruise. The thought of an enterprising couple hiring a car in Paris and regularly setting off to explore
Walkley Book Award 2025 The Walkley Book Award judges have named Rick Morton’s Mean Streak (Fourth Estate), an account of the robodebt scandal, as this year’s winner. Discussing Mean Streak, Morton said that robodebt was “not an aberration” but rather “the logical endpoint of big data surveillance and an ideological war on the poor”. For Morton, “The very
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Most people when setting out on a writing career are told to write about what they know and this is certainly true for Di Morrissey AM especially in her latest book, The Endless Sky. Having had her own morning TV show and appeared in several episodes of the CBS TV series
Reviewed by Ian Hamilton As a public figure Matthew McConaughey will be known to many readers. In this anthology the reader is taken into his interior world, apparently a long way from his persona as film star. The poems have a broad range of topic and structure, although several themes and modes recur. One area
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Should one feel jaded or disillusioned about the state of Australian politics, the writer – rather the collector – of Dirty Politics claims to have the answer. As with everything political, readers really should accompany the contents with a pinch of NaCl. While being assured by the Macquarie National Dictionary team
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I wonder how frequently a member of a young generation is so moved by their grandfather’s apparent abilities as to cast him into something extraordinary. At least it can be invigorating to find one example. The author, Masateru Konishi, is sufficiently experienced to pen a story that is believable, a story
Reviewed by Richard Tutin Sport is an integral part of Australian life. Everywhere you look some form of sport at whatever level you enjoy the most is being carried out on just about any day of the week. Sports require appropriate venues so that games can be conducted and both participants and audiences can be
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke For many older readers the name, Judy Nunn, will bring back memories of TV shows such as The Box, Sons and Daughters and Home and Away. Since those days Judy Nunn has become a prolific writer of historically based novels which foreground strong women. She was awarded the Order of Australia
Reviewed by Rod McLary How do you effectively write a history of your family when the written records of the time in which they lived [the nineteenth century] are so limited? The answer is a simple one – you take the official records [births, deaths and marriages and so on] and construct a narrative around
Reviewed by Ian Lipke ‘The Dingo’s Noctuary’ is an extended illustrated verse novel set in the remote Tanami Desert, addressing themes of cultural alienation, the post-colonial landscape, death and transcendence. While it is an account of personal relationships, its broader ontologies draw from a cultural horizon that predates her relationship with the aboriginal people. ‘The
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke It was just Lavender and her mum and often Lavender found herself sitting outside waiting for her mum, when she went in for a noggin of rum, with the promise of fetching something to fill their bellies. One day as she was waiting in the fine cold rain, she was rescued