In 2000, Helen Garner was working on the story of Joe Cinque, a young civil engineer who was murdered by his girlfriend. She felt stuck—she had compiled long interviews with Cinque’s parents but had been refused any access to the two women charged with his murder. ‘I had no idea how to write the book,’…
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Australian writer Josephine Rowe’s debut novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal paints the portrait of the Burroughs family living in Melbourne during the 1990s. Written from multiple perspectives and presented in fragmented, often brutally descriptive prose, this book was applauded by writers Chris Womersley and Wayne Macauley respectively as ‘a novel of startling imagery and power’, and…
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The irony of the West’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia would be laughable, if it weren’t so troubling. When King Abdullah, of the ruling al-Saud family, died in January 2015, tributes gushed forth from world leaders. Prince Charles, David Cameron and Barack Obama, among others, flew to Riyadh to pay their respects to a man…
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In a recent article for Eureka Street, Ellena Savage wrote that perhaps one of the purposes of reading is to help ‘connect with feelings that don’t have words, that only have images like swirling sandstone’. Jennifer Down’s debut novel, Our Magic Hour, is concerned with these feelings that don’t have words—the inexpressible emotions and sensations…
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As a lifelong book nerd, I like to think I consume a balanced diet of fiction novels. I grew up reading books by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. I went through periods of reading books set in India (Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy), America as seen by immigrants (Amy Lee) and the American south (Harper Lee,…
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Amy Stewart’s novel Girl Waits With Gun, based on the forgotten true story of one of the first American female deputy sheriffs, is every feminist’s dream read. Brimming with humour, sass, mystery, and delivered to the reader by a narrator so completely resistant to stereotype, Stewart’s novel is worthy of its acclaim from beginning to…
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I called myself a feminist out loud for the first time only last year. Mostly I felt proud, but lurking underneath this pride was an undeniable layer of guilt. I Call Myself a Feminist—an anthology compiled by Victoria Pepe, Rachel Holmes, Amy Annette, Alice Stride and Martha Mosse—helped me answer two questions at the heart…
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If you’re looking for BOLD in a bookstore, you’ll definitely know when you’ve found it. Its striking cover is mostly red, splashed with the title across the lower half. On the back, it has some impressive cover quotes from Benjamin Law and former Greens leader Bob Brown. Flipping through the pages, you see the many photos collected by the…
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Since its first incarnation at Melbourne’s Trades Hall in 2010, Women of Letters has toured the world to sold-out audiences. Curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, its original purpose was to encourage women to read aloud letters set to a specific theme, directed at a live audience. It has evolved to include a Men of Letters variant and has several accompanying book anthologies, but the underlying principle remains the same: allowing a gathering of people to speak intimately without reservation. In From the Heart, the latest Women of Letters,…
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Sometimes, as a reader you’re lucky enough to chance upon a book that draws you in until you are so fully immersed in its world that it haunts you for days. Anna North’s The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is one such book. Indeed, the word ‘haunt’ is apt, as Sophie herself haunts the…
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Putting together a Best Of list isn’t easy, which is especially true when it comes to books. The Lip Crew is a literary bunch, so we’ve put together a list of our best reads of 2015. Did any of your favourites make the cut? * “My attitude toward children is more of an appreciation than…
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There are two types of people in the world, according to Nicole Trilivas’s protagonist Kika Shores: those who travel, and those who don’t. Kika belongs to the former category: she enjoys the thrill of walking through a city whose name she can’t pronounce, and finding herself an alien culture with nothing but a well-worn backpack….
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Ask Me Anything is acclaimed writer Rebecca Sparrow’s endeavour to answer a tangled and awkward mess of questions posed to her by teenagers. On the surface Ask Me Anything sounds like the kind of book that worried parents might buy their teenage daughter for Christmas, a remedy for unwanted pregnancies and a clever way to avoid…
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Sophie Hardcastle’s memoir Running Like China is not just about shattering the stigmas of mental illness or about providing a safe place for those who may be going through similar issues. Running Like China is also about an artist who finds her true self through the good and the bad times, and who emerges victorious…
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