The ABR Podcast
The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review, is a weekly literary podcast released every Thursday. It features a range of literary highlights including reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. The podcast is available on various platforms like iTunes, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
Episodes
‘Sphinx and her double: A Woolfian celebration of the moment’ by Anthony Macris
This week on The ABR Podcast, Anthony Macris reviews Rachel Cusk’s fictional autobiography, Life of M, finding it ‘particularly strange and compelling’. Interrogating the uncomfortable relationship between selfhood and celebrity, Cusk’s novel questions how human identity ‘warps and buckles under pressure’. Life of M is a novel that makes an ‘enigma’
‘To kill the pig: Politics that misses the moment’ by Emma Dawson
This week on The ABR Podcast, Emma Dawson surveys Bernard Keane’s Seize the Moment, in which Keane grapples with the 2025 Australian federal election result. Australia handed the Albanese government a huge majority in that election and, Dawson writes, ‘disproved the assumptions that have underpinned Keane’s political analysis for years’. Keane presents merely a &l
‘Fierce ground: Laying down songline’ by Cheryl Leavy
This week on The ABR Podcast, Cheryl Leavy reviews Julie Janson’s ‘unsettling and powerful’ poetry collection, My Kaathi Sister, calling it a brand of truth-telling that is ‘embodied, tactile, and troubling’, but ‘never performative’. Janson’s work positions the reader as ‘outcry witness’, Leavy writes, pushing them ‘to the edge of
‘“He lives eternally who lives in the present”: On lost sonnets and wandering through paradise with Gwen Harwood’ by Peter Goldsworthy
This week on The ABR Podcast, Peter Goldsworthy shares a poignant account of writing sonnets by a Brisbane poolside in 1987 with the late poet Gwen Harwood and author Vikram Seth. One of Australia’s greatest poets, Harwood was to her friend and fellow poet Goldsworthy an ‘impish, irreverent devil’ whose correspondence over many years, including in her final months, he recently di
The Nature Conservancy’s Nature Writing Prize
Today’s episode marks a collaboration between ABR and The Nature Conservancy’s Nature Writing Prize as ABR becomes Media Partner of the prize. In the episode, we consider the notion that the way we write about nature shapes the way we see it, value it, and act on its behalf. The eighth biennial Nature Writing Prize is now open, and the winning essay, which attracts prize money of $8,00
‘Peach’ by Ursula Brunetti
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature the third-place winner of the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, ‘Peach’ by Ursula Brunetti. In Brunetti’s riveting coming-of-age story, an exchange student’s stay in the French countryside becomes increasingly tense when she discovers her host’s sister has a life-threatening eating disorder. This year’s judges
‘“What I wanted to signal”: Women navigating the media’ by Virginia Haussegger
This week on The ABR Podcast, Virginia Haussegger reviews Women Who Win by Antoinette Lattouf, a book that is not about ‘the anatomy of winning’, but rather about ‘the impact of fighting’. Using her well-known legal case against the ABC as a narrative framework, Lattouf unfolds the stories of over forty ‘unyielding, unbowed’ women who dared to take on ‘pow
‘Backflip’ by Sam Keenan
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature ‘Backflip’ by New Zealand author Sam Keenan, which placed second in the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Set in a small New Zealand town in the 1980s, ‘Backflip’ tells the story of a young girl’s disappearance and the community’s attempt to smooth over this tragedy. This year’s judges called ‘Backf
‘Literary critic as democratic role model’ by Varun Ghosh
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature WA Senator Varun Ghosh’s essay, ‘Literary critic as democratic role model’, which discusses the relationship between literary criticism and politics. Ghosh argues that literary critique is crucial to the health of democracy. ‘A strong critical culture is protective of democracy’, he asserts. While there are limits to the compa
‘C.Q.D.’ by Laura Elvery
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature the winner of the 2026 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, ‘C.Q.D.’ by Laura Elvery. The young narrator of ‘C.Q.D.’ is on board the Carpathia in the year 1912. The ship is racing towards the Titanic after hearing its distress signal. Will it reach the Titanic in time? This year’s Jolley judges
‘The architecture of erasure’ by Elise Westin
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature Elise Westin’s essay, titled ‘The architecture of erasure’. The third-place winner of the 2026 Calibre Essay Prize, ‘The architecture of erasure’ merges personal intimacy with an examination of the systematic Soviet erasure of Ukrainians. Westin recounts her inability to find records of her great-grandparents’ names at th
‘The lie and the law: The biography of a rogue’ by Lucy Sussex
This week on The ABR Podcast, Lucy Sussex reviews The Stained Man by Patrick Mullins, a biography of the first Labor Lord Mayor of Sydney, Richard Meagher. Mullins’s book is a ‘genuinely riveting and fascinating’ account of Meagher’s ‘mania for restitution’ following his scandalous errors of judgement as a prominent lawyer. Disbarred after his unethical def
‘And yet: Towards disabled literary utopia’ by Jessica White
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Jessica White reviews Crip Stories: An anthology of disabled writers that attempts to ‘represent as wide a variety of multiply marginalised disabled experiences as possible’. The writing collected in this book is multivalent, taking a ‘welcome intersectional approach to anthologising’. Yet, despite growing interest in disabled people’s w
‘“Depths that we today are barely able to imagine”: The quality of disinterestedness on the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’ by Clinton Fernandes | The ABR Podcast #282
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature Clinton Fernandes’s commentary titled ‘“Depths that we today are barely able to imagine”: The quality of disinterestedness on the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’. Noting that the Trump Cabinet is ‘the wealthiest in modern history, with thirteen billionaires and a combined net worth of US$60 billion&rsqu
‘A deeper kind of itch: Poetry of the mirrored plate’ by Lisa Gorton
This week on The ABR Podcast, Lisa Gorton reviews Tomorrow by Peter Goldsworthy. A poetic companion to Goldsworthy’s ‘expansive, thoughtful’ memoir The Cancer Finishing School, Tomorrow braids the everyday experience with the ironic, the meaningful, the terrifying: the poetry ‘charges familiar things with terror’, Gorton writes. But the strength of Goldsworthy’s
‘Vulnerable to place: Navigating deep blue history’ by Killian Quigley
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Killian Quigley’s review of Plotting the Oceans: Stories of powerful maps and their makers by Sarah Hamylton. Hamylton’s sharp insights emerge from her deeply embodied knowledge of her environment, Quigley asserts. In an era where ‘drones, algorithms, and artificial intelligence are transforming how maps are made’, such ‘situa
‘Tumbleweed: How the West was lost’ by Maria Takolander
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature the runner-up in the 2026 Calibre Essay Prize, titled ‘Tumbleweed: How the West was Lost’, by Maria Takolander. Wide-ranging and delightfully digressive, Takolander’s encyclopaedic essay uses the modest tumbleweed as a lens through which to examine Western mythology, colonial violence, environmental crises, and Tsarist Russia, among much e
‘“One of our rarest gifts”: David Malouf in the pages of Australian Book Review’ by Carissa Chye
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature Carissa Chye’s essay on David Malouf, titled ‘One of our rarest gifts’. A retrospective piece on ABR’s rich, generative relationship with Malouf, Chye’s essay recalls how Malouf’s ‘work and presence animated the literary life of the journal’. Taking us through the ABR archive, Chye observes that ‘the end
‘When people ask me about the “situation” in Iran: Locating ourselves and each other through the voices of the vatan’ by Marjon Mossammaparast
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature Marjon Mossammaparast’s essay, titled ‘When people ask me about the “situation” in Iran’. She traces the complicated relationship of diasporic Iranians to their vatan, ‘primarily the site of belonging and memory, akin to Country’. Listening to the scattered voices of her vatan
‘One bad day: Meditations on commodified flesh’ by Katherine Wilson
This week on The ABR Podcast, Katherine Wilson reviews ‘Fed Up: A chef’s adventures in food, farming and feminism’ by Lucy Ridge. Partially a memoir of Ridge’s disillusionment with a food industry that regards food as ‘little more than vehicles for profit’, the book also seeks to situate itself in conversation with feminist food scholarship. Its strengths, Wilso
‘Too human: Shame, horror, aversion’ by Kevin Hart
This week on The ABR Podcast, Kevin Hart reviews Turning Away: The poetics of an ancient gesture by Benjamin Saltzman. Saltzman examines our instinct to ‘turn away, whenever we are faced with death, grief, helplessness, loss, and pain’. He traces the representation of this elemental human gesture from literary classics and ancient artwork to modern films, plays, and narratives. Hart no
‘Between reality and dreams’ by Sahar Rabah
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Sahar Rabah’s winning essay from the 2026 Calibre Essay Prize, ‘Beyond reality and dreams’. The Calibre Essay Prize, now in its twentieth year, is one of the world’s leading prizes for an original essay in English. Rabah, who grew up in Gaza and left late last year, takes us behind the livestreamed mass destruction in Gaza to the &l
‘Again and again: More poem than memoir’ by Jane Gleeson-White
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Jane Gleeson-White reviews Erin Vincent’s memoir Fourteen Ways of Looking. Vincent’s parents were killed suddenly in an accident when she was fourteen, and the number would go on to shape and govern the narrative of her new memoir. Commenting on the strikingly poetic form of Fourteen Ways of
‘Rethinking “on”: Sitting and listening to Wright’ by Tony Hughes-d’Aeth
This week on The ABR Podcast, Tony Hughes-d’Aeth reviews On Alexis Wright by Geordie Williamson. Hughes-d’Aeth notes that Williamson mounts a spirited defence of Alexis Wright against what he terms ‘Australian philistinism’, in which the reader expects literature to ‘tell us stuff, neatly and efficiently’. Instead, Williamson suggests, Wright comp
‘Progressive legalism in Australia’s High Court: How migration, aliens, and punishment cases reveal a distinct trend’ by Florence Honybun
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature a commentary by Florence Honybun on a ‘distinct trend’ towards progressive legalism in the Australian High Court. While Australians often look to US legal institutions to gauge the health of democracy, Honybun identifies a quieter ‘changing of the guard’ at home, and with it, ‘
‘“May today sink peace into your soul”: New scams in the literary world’ by Dennis Altman
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special commentary by Dennis Altman on the new literary scams enabled by artificial intelligence. Altman recounts the multiple emails he has received from people ‘whose lives will not be complete if they are not given the opportunity to promote one of my books … to a global audience’. These emails are purportedly from au
‘Urgent compassion: Paying courageous attention’ by Felicity Plunkett
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Felicity Plunkett reviews Fear Less: Poetry in perilous times, by former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. In a cultural moment when language is often ‘weaponised to cultivate division and fear’, Smith proposes a more audacious alternative: to live otherwise, refusing to succumb to ‘hot takes and
‘“Suppose I am wrong?”: On writers’ festivals, reassurance, calibration, and risk’ by Simon Tedeschi
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special commentary by Simon Tedeschi on writers’ festivals. At the level below headlines, writers’ festivals have in recent years undergone a more subtle but pernicious shift, he argues. Whereas they were once sites of complex dialogue and genuine exchange, now ‘both political and literary language
‘Thinking in public: The vulpine poetry of Chris Wallace-Crabbe’ by Eleanor Spencer-Regan
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Eleanor Spencer-Regan reflects on Melbourne poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe’s poetic career. Wallace-Crabbe made the poem ‘a space for thinking in public’, she writes. In his work, poetry is treated ‘less as statement than as real-time event: a site in which ideas are tried out rather than asserted&r
'Roads to roads: Bathos of the ordinary' by Grace Roodenrys
This week on The ABR Podcast, Grace Roodenrys reviews they, a novel by Danish author Helle Helle. ‘The novel is a story of illness and loss but often reads as anything but,’ Roodenrys writes. There is no predominant meaning imposed on the narrative; much of its ontological poignancy stems from its small, quiet ironies. Roodenrys observes, ‘The mother is a woman who is rapidly dyi
'Lemmings over a cliff: On political and publishing expediency' by Joel Deane
This week on The ABR Podcast, Joel Deane reviews Niki Savva’s Earthquake, an account of the 2025 Australian federal election and the role of political expediency in shaping a country. ‘Like payday loans,’ Deane writes, ‘the costs of short-term political decisions accumulate and compound’, demanding repayment. Joel Deane is a spe
‘When universities mattered: Higher education in a country addicted to the plough’ by Stephen Garton
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature Stephen Garton’s commentary ‘When universities mattered: Higher education in a country addicted to the plough’. ‘There was a time when Australian universities mattered. Should they again?’ asks President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and former University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Stephen Garton in a feature asses
‘Thought’s tempo: Essays that imagine otherwise’ by Mindy Gill
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Mindy Gill reviews Dead and Alive, Zadie Smith’s latest essay collection. For Gill, Smith’s essays ‘have an uncanny habit of arriving precisely when the culture shifts’. Dead and Alive ranges across technology and digital surveillance, authorship and literature, and the erosion of public space, among other urgent concerns. Considered together,
‘A truly probabilistic universe: One hundred years of heated debate and mind-bending physics’ by Sara Webb
This week on The ABR Podcast, Sara Webb investigates the heated debates and mind bending science of quantum physics. As Webb writes, the ‘universe exists on an unimaginable scale’, its physics strange but wondrous. Sara Webb is the inaugural ABR Science Fellow and an astrophysicist at Swinburne University of Technology. She is the author of The Little Book of Cosmic Catastrophes (2024)
‘Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World’ by Stuart Kells
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by Stuart Kells, titled ‘Less an author than a milieu: Reading Shakespeare in the New World’. Kells discusses the thorny question of the authorship of the First Folio. While some devoted Shakespeareans insist that the First Folio was authored by Shakespeare, Kells points to compelling evidence that Shakespeare was instead a &lsq
Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2026 Shortlist
In this week’s ABR Podcast we feature the shortlist for the 2026 Peter Porter Poetry Prize. Now in its twenty-second year, the Porter Prize is one of the world’s leading competitions for a new poem in English. This year, our judges are Judith Bishop, ABR Poetry Editor Felicity Plunkett, and Anders Villani. The shortlisted poets are J Andros, Kirsten Krauth, Cheryl Leavy, Claire Potter,
'Carbon bomb: Business models based on climate catastrophe' by Stephen Long
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Stephen Long reviews Woodside vs the Planet: How a company captured a country by Marian Wilkinson and Extractive Capitalism: How commodities and cronyism drive the global economy by Laleh Khalili. Long describes the notion that Australia can maintain its current gas exports and save the planet as a delusion, one that is increasingly adopted by our political leaders.
‘Skewering AUKUS: A point-by-point account’ by James Curran
This week, on The ABR Podcast, James Curran reviews Turbulence: Australian foreign policy in the Trump era by Clinton Fernandes. Curran describes Turbulence as ‘an attempt to chart the coordinates of President Trump’s approach to the world’ and to explain how Australia, in ‘scrambling to remain relevant to Washington’, has become what Fernandes describes as a “U
‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmian Clift’ by Nadia Wheatley
This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by biographer Nadia Wheatley titled ‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmian Clift’. ‘What does a biographer do’, Wheatley asks, ‘when she discovers she has something wrong?’ In Wheatley’s case, it was not something that just she had wrong, but something that her subje
‘Understand me now: Poetry which cuts into the work’ by Grace Roodenrys
This week on the ABR Podcast, Grace Roodenrys reviews KONTRA by Eunice Andrada, observing that the collection draws on a poetics of cultural excavation. As Roodenrys explains, Andrada retrieves and rewrites the ways that women’s bodies have been framed, worshipped, and fetishised. She goes on to say that ‘KONTRA must work to resist a number of powerful aesthetic schemes – traditi
‘For shame: Social value of an emotion’ by Jessica Whyte
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Jessica Whyte reviews A Philosophy of Shame: A revolutionary emotion by Frédéric Gros. Whyte applauds the attempt to ‘revolutionise how we think about shame’ and to consider shame not simply as a retrograde emotion but ‘a resource for political struggle’. But in Gros’ book, writes Whyte, there is ‘abstract quality&rsq
‘Carte blanche from me’: Volume two in a PM biography by Patrick Mullins
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Patrick Mullins reviews Hawke PM: The making of a legend by David Day. Approaching Day’s second volume of the Hawke biography, Mullins asks: ‘how much more can there be to say?’ And, in the end, he concludes that ‘without a new perspective and questions that could throw new light on Hawke, the facts marshalled are generally too dulled by over-
‘On so many levels: A sharp yet melancholic account’ by Clare Corbould
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Clare Corbould reviews The Shortest History of the United States of America by Don Watson. Corbould praises Watson’s ‘sharp observations’ and his ‘wry and knowing analysis’ but notes a ‘melancholic tone’ as he explores the United States’ slide ‘into populism and authoritarianism’. Historian Clare Corbould is
‘Limerence’ by Rachael Wenona Guy
This week on The ABR Podcast we feature Rachael Wenona Guy’s short story ‘Limerence’, which placed third in the 2025 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. ‘Limerence’ deftly interweaves artifice and realism, narrative ellipses and unsettling meditation to create an uncanny confession. It stages a teenage girl’s obsession around the image of the dead young explorer
‘Questions for Mai: Joshua Reynolds’s portrait and the memory of Empire’ by Kate Fullagar
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Kate Fullagar’s essay ‘Questions for Mai: Joshua Reynolds’s portrait and the memory of Empire’. Fullagar delves into the history behind Joshua Reynold’s famous portrait of Mai, the first Pacific Islander to visit Britain. She considers what she calls a ‘complicated enmeshment of art, money, and national memory’ and
‘AI will kill us/save us: Hype and harm in the new economic order’ by Judith Bishop
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Judith Bishop reviews Empire of AI: Inside the reckless race for total domination by Karen Hao and The AI Con: How to fight Big Tech’s hype and create the future we want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. Bishop seeks to cut through what she sees as prevailing ‘AI doomer/boomer ideologies’, where artificial intelligence is something that will either
‘Sediment’ by Tracey Slaughter
This week on The ABR Podcast we feature Tracey Slaughter’s short story ‘Sediment’, which placed second in the 2025 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. ‘Sediment’ takes the form of twenty-seven brilliant points about living and loving in a female share house. It encompasses intense casual relationships and snarks at a landlord and his rotten portfolio. The story reflec
‘Albanese’s “Australian Way”: The rise of “progressive patriotism” and its complex past’ by Sean Scalmer
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Sean Scalmer’s commentary ‘Albanese’s “Australian Way”: The rise of “progressive patriotism” and its complex past’. Scalmer investigates Albanese’s definition of the ‘Australian Way’, which ‘served as a touchstone on the campaign trail’, and asks what this ethos represents for th
‘Deeper into darkness: Iran after the twelve-day war’ by Zoe Holman
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature ‘Deeper into darkness: Iran after the twelve-day war’. Australian journalist Zoe Holman writes on life in Iran after the recent twelve-day war, investigating whether conflict brought Iranians closer to democracy or further away from it. She speaks to Iranians in the diaspora, including a London-based academic from Tehran who withheld his name f
‘“Come nearer to Asia”: Australia’s place at Bandung, 1955’ by Nathan Hollier
This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Nathan Hollier’s commentary ‘“Come nearer to Asia”: Australia’s place at Bandung, 1955’. Seventy years after the 1955 Asian-African Conference, Hollier reflects on Australia’s official absence from this historic ‘postcolonial moment’, as well as its unofficial presence. Hollier recalls the invitation of
‘Shelling’ by Tara Sharman
This week on The ABR Podcast we feature Tara Sharman’s short story ‘Shelling’, which won the 2025 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. In ‘Shelling’, we meet a woman in flight, driving with the corpse of her dead father stowed in the boot of her car. Stunningly written, savagely honest, this is a story about grief – the grief of losing a father, the grief of losi
‘“Without undue suffering”: Japan’s August 1945 and the superweapon alibi’ by Clinton Fernandes
This week on the ABR Podcast, we feature Clinton Fernandes’ commentary ‘“Without undue suffering”: Japan’s August 1945 and the superweapon alibi’. On the eightieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, historian Clinton Fernandes delivers a gripping reassessment of the world’s only use of atomic bombs against civilians and exposes the &lsq
‘Other Orientalisms: Refusing to be spectacle’ by Lynda Ng
This week on the ABR Podcast, Lynda Ng reviews To Save and To Destroy: Writing as an Other by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Nguyen, who arrived in the United States from Vietnam as a child refugee in 1975, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer. To Save and To Destroy is a collection of pieces Nguyen delivered for the prestigious Norton Lectures. Ng considers Nguyen’s primary subject &
‘Dogged pursuit: Australia’s “America first” policy’ by Marilyn Lake
This week on the ABR Podcast, Marilyn Lake reviews After America: Australia and the new world order by Emma Shortis and Hard New World: Our post-American future (Quarterly Essay 98) by Hugh White. Lake observes that both ‘authors argue that it is time to imagine a post-American world’ and emphasise ‘the necessity of retrieving our relationship with China’. Lake applauds the
‘Some undefined peace: Moving beyond “migrant writer”’ by Felicity Plunkett
This week on the ABR Podcast, Felicity Plunkett reviews new collections of Antigone Kefala’s poetry and fiction, observing that the belated recognition of this major Australian figure suggests that Kefala has moved beyond the designation ‘migrant writer’. ABR was this week delighted to announce that Felicity Plunkett is ABR’s new Poetry Editor. Her latest work, A Kinder Sea
‘Balance sheet blues: The pros and cons of Pax Americana coming to an end’ by James Curran
This week on the ABR Podcast we feature James Curran’s commentary ‘Balance sheet blues: The pros and cons of Pax Americana coming to an end’. Curran’s focus is the evolving relationship between Australia and America during and beyond Trump’s second administration. James Curran is a Professor of Modern History at Sydney University and International Editor at The Austra
‘Consolation of Clouds’ by Robin Boord
This week on the ABR Podcast we feature Robin Boord’s essay ‘Consolation of Clouds’, which was placed third in the 2025 Calibre Essay Prize. The essay conveys the mystery surrounding the death of a woman’s father, a pilot in the Korean War, who died unexpectedly at home after a mechanical failure on a training flight. Boord writes in poetic prose that creates narrative
‘Mao’s mango: Cultural Revolution as history or farce’ by Shan Windscript
This week on the ABR podcast we feature Shan Windscript’s review of Bombard the Headquarters! by Linda Jaivin. Though Windscript applauds Jaivin for condensing the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of Communist China into a succinct and vivid account, Windscript argues this approach sacrifices historical nuance. Shan Windscript is a cultural historian of modern China and Lecturer in East
‘“Rejecting the system it created”: How Trump’s America is reshaping Australia’s regional relations’ by Rebecca Strating
This week on the ABR Podcast, we feature Rebecca Strating’s commentary ‘“Rejecting the system it created”: How Trump’s America is reshaping Australia’s regional relations’. While the second Trump administration presents a challenge for Australian policy makers, it also provides an opportunity for Australia, explains Strating, ‘to develop greater self
‘A worse world: History from the future’ by André Dao
This week on the ABR podcast we feature André Dao’s review of The Shortest History of AI by Toby Walsh. In his analysis, Dao notes an undercurrent of ‘pervasive technological solutionism’ in Walsh’s ‘core history… of technological innovations’. André Dao is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School and won the Prime Minister’s Litera
‘The Chirp/The Scream’ by Natasha Sholl, runner-up in the 2025 Calibre Essay Prize
This week on the ABR Podcast we feature Natasha Sholl’s essay ‘The Chirp/The Scream’, which was the runner-up in the 2025 Calibre Essay Prize. Natasha Sholl is a writer and lapsed lawyer based in Melbourne. Her work has appeared in many publications including Australian Book Review. Her first book, Found, Wanting, was published by Ultimo Press in 2022. Her essay, ‘Hold Your
‘Method and message: Rethinking Australian military history’ by Kate Fullagar
This week on the ABR Podcast, Kate Fullagar reviews Uprising: War in the colony of New South Wales, 1838-1844, by Stephen Gapps. Fullagar writes that Uprising is a ‘crucial contribution to our rethinking of Australian military history’. Kate Fullagar is Professor of History at Australian Catholic University, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and Vice President of the Au
'Diary' by Peter Rose
This week on the ABR Podcast we present Peter Rose’s final Diary as Editor of Australian Book Review. Peter began editing ABR in 2001 and retired just last month. The May issue was his final issue as Editor, and in his diary entry Rose recalls. Before coming to ABR, Rose was a publisher at Oxford University Press. He has published several books of poetry, an award-winning family memoir, 
'Eucharist' by 2025 Calibre Essay Prize winner Jeanette Mrozinski
This week on the ABR Podcast, we are delighted to present the winning essay in the 2025 Calibre Essay Prize: ‘Eucharist’ by Jeanette Mrozinski, who becomes the first American essayist to win the prestigious award. Jeanette Mrozinski has worked as a stripper and government bureaucrat, bakery girl and communications director, factory labourer, yoga instructor, and journalist. An MFA cand
'Little morality plays: Disingenuous angst over cancel culture' by Catriona Menzies-Pike
This week, on the ABR Podcast, Catriona Menzies-Pike reviews The Cancel Culture Panic by Adrian Daub. Menzies-Pike examines Daub’s claim that fear of cancel culture is a US export – as ubiquitous as McDonald’s and Kentucky bourbon. She writes: ‘Cancel culture is now everywhere … What Daub does in this book is trace the origins of the cancel culture panic, registering
'Barefoot in the snow: Of poetics and papacy' by Miles Pattenden
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Miles Pattenden reviews Hope: The autobiography by Pope Francis. It is not every day that a pope writes a tell-all. Pattenden explains: ‘Of Pope Francis’s predecessors, only that preening Renaissance man of letters Pius II Piccolomini contributed to the genre directly.’ Miles Pattenden specialises in the history of the Catholic Church and his books
‘“Congratulations Bob”: The Petrov Affair and the Australian public’ by Ebony Nilsson
This week on The ABR Podcast, Ebony Nilsson unearths the letters that Robert Menzies received from the Australian public during the 1950s Petrov Affair. Letters included everything from warnings to exhalations of relief to expressions of concern for the Petrovs’ dog. Ebony Nilsson is a historian of migration and security during the Cold War and the author of Displaced Comrades: Politics and
'Attention, Please!' A Peter Rose Poetry Special
This week on The ABR Podcast, we bring you a special poetry feature. With Editor Peter Rose’s imminent departure from Australian Book Review and the publication this month of his seventh poetry collection, Attention, Please! (Pitt Street Poetry), eighteen poets and critics read from Peter Rose’s extensive body of work, dating back to 1990. Readers include Sarah Holland-B
‘A Body of Water’, a short story by Else Fitzgerald
This week on The ABR Podcast we feature a short story from the ABR Archive. The story, ‘A Body of Water’ by Else Fitzgerald, was commended in the 2011 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story prize. It opens in the desolate, quiet space of a former steel town on the Franklin River. Fitzgerald writes: ‘The town hunkers on the southernmost tip of a cruel spit of land stretching down into t
“Subject to his birth”: The biography of a prince' by Christopher Allen
This week on The ABR Podcast, Christopher Allen reviews James Fairfax: Portrait of a collector in eleven objects by Alexander Edward Gilly. James Fairfax, who was born in 1933 and died in 2017, was born into the ‘greatest press dynasty Australia had yet seen’. Christopher Allen is the national art critic for The Australian. Listen to Christopher Allen’s ‘“Subject to h
‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’, a short story by S.J. Finn
This week on The ABR Podcast we feature a short story from the ABR archive. The story, ‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’ by S.J. Finn, was commended in the 2018 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story prize. (The 2025 Jolley Short Story Prize is now open!) S.J. Finn is an Australian writer based in Melbourne. Listen to ‘Joan Mercer’s Fertile Head’, first published in ABR in
‘Let That Sink In!: Fantasy without consequence at Twitter’ by Matthew Lamb
This week on The ABR Podcast, Matthew Lamb reviews Character Limit: How Elon Musk destroyed Twitter, as told by award-winning investigative journalists Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. Noting Musk’s tendency to favour ‘the virtual over the physical world’, the book gives a ‘blow-by-blow’ account of Musk’s shortcomings while leading X. Matthew Lamb is a writer and the a
‘Citational Justice: A revolution in research practice?’ by Mark Finnane
This week on The ABR Podcast, historian Mark Finnane asks: ‘who gets the right to speak on matters of research within a tradition of empirical scholarship?’ Mark Finnane is a Professor of History at Griffith University and has published widely on Australian and Irish history. Listen to Mark Finnane’s ‘Citational Justice: A revolution in research practice?’, published
‘“Shimmering multiple and multitude”: Keeping up with Judith Wright’ by Georgina Arnott
This week on The ABR Podcast, Georgina Arnott discusses the dilemmas of writing an entry on Judith Wright for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Georgina Arnott is the author of The Unknown Judith Wright, editor of Judith Wright: Selected Writings, and Assistant Editor at ABR. Listen to Georgina Arnott’s ‘“Shimmering multiple and multitude”: Keeping up with Judith
‘The gold standard: The centenary of Francis Webb’ by Toby Davidson
This week on The ABR Podcast, Toby Davidson marks the centenary of Francis Webb with an essay on the poet. Toby Davidson is the editor of Francis Webb’s Collected Poems and a senior lecturer at Macquarie University. Listen to Toby Davidson with ‘The gold standard: The centenary of Francis Webb’, published in the January-February issue of ABR.See omnystudio.com/listener for privac
‘”Futile rage at nothing”: Sally Rooney’s most ambitious work to date’ by James Ley
This week on The ABR Podcast James Ley reviews Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. For Ley, it is her most ambitious novel to date. James Ley is an essayist and literary critic. Listen to James Ley with ‘”Futile rage at nothing”: Sally Rooney’s most ambitious work to date’, published in the December issue of ABR.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
‘Silent witness: A ‘little life-hymn’ from Helen Garner’ by Jonathan Ricketson
This week on The ABR Podcast Jonathan Ricketson reviews The Season by Helen Garner. Ricketson explains that The Season is a memoir of Garner watching her grandson ‘Amby play for the Flemington Juniors in the Under-16s, from February to August 2023’. The experience involves an effacement of self, the grandmother on the sidelines rendered a ‘silent witness’. Jonathan Ricketso
‘Out of the loop: Relaying information across time’ by Robyn Arianrhod
On The ABR Podcast this week, Robyn Arianrhod reviews Nexus: A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari. Under the category ‘information networks’, Harari puts oral stories, clay tablets, chalkboards, newspapers, computers and more. Arianrhod writes: ‘Harari aims to illustrate these dilemmas so that we … are better prepared to handle the AI revolution’. R
‘Where is Nancy?’ Paradoxes in the pursuit of freedom by Marilyn Lake
This week on The ABR Podcast, Marilyn Lake reviews The Art of Power: My story as America’s first woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi. The Art of Power, explains Lake, tells how Pelosi, ‘a mother of five and a housewife from California’, became the first woman Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Marilyn Lake is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Listen t
'Feeding the beast: On corporate cancel culture' by Josh Bornstein
This week on The ABR Podcast, Josh Bornstein discusses corporate cancel culture. Bornstein argues that ‘Companies now routinely censor their employees far more repressively than any liberal democratic government does’. Josh Bornstein is an award-winning workplace lawyer and writer. His first book, Working for the Brand: How corporations are destroying free speech was recently published by Scribe.
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