Australian Book Review

Australian Book Review (ABR) stands out as one of the top arts and literary reviews in Australia. Established in 1961, ABR operates as an independent non-profit organization. It features a variety of content, including articles, reviews, essays, and fresh writing. The magazine's mission is to uphold high standards of criticism, offer a platform for exceptional new writing, and help maintain literary values while promoting a deep appreciation for Australia's rich literary tradition.

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The Count of Monte Cristo

2 weeks ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Philippa Hawker

Umberto Eco said of Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) that ‘it is one of the most exciting novels ever written and on the other hand, it is one of the most badly written novels of all time and in any literature’. It was the unnecessary length and the repetitions that appalled him most. Yet when he tried to produce a more elegant, distilled translation, he gave up: he began to wonder if the repetitions and redundancies were a necessary part of its structure.
Paul Kane reviews ‘At the Louvre: Poems by 100 contemporary world poets’ edited by Antoine Caro, Edwin Frank, and Donatien Grau

1 month ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Paul Kane |Arts Highlights

At the Louvre: Poems by 100 contemporary world poets New York Review Books, US$22 pb, 214 pp Poetry Contemporary poets head to the Louvre ‘Poetry is a speaking picture,’ said Simonides of Keos, and ‘painting a silent poetry’. From ancient Greece until now, these ‘sister arts’ have been frequently conjoined, though it is most often poetry that speaks to or for painting rather than the reverse. We have come to call this interaction ekphrasis (literally, a ‘speaking out’), usually defined as ‘a...
A tenor’s journey’ by Thomas Edmonds

1 month ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Graham Strahle |Arts Highlights

One of Australia’s most successful tenors and in his ninetieth year, Thomas Edmonds has put pen to paper in what might be his swansong. Ev’ry Valley: A tenor’s journey is a prodigiously detailed account of his life, and quite a marvel for what it contains. All his memories and ruminations are contained in its 313 pages, and the book is arranged in a most unusual way: by abode. A singer’s life is on the road, one might say, and this has surely been the case with Edmond.
Best Australian nature writing’ edited by Dave Witty

1 month ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Nicole Hasham |Arts Highlights

For a creature born to life as a small songbird, days and nights can be treacherous. At any moment, a goshawk, a cat, or a goanna may be lurking, waiting to turn the songbird into supper. So these pretty little prey objects – scrubwrens and lorikeets and honeyeaters and the like – have developed an astute group behaviour. One bird spots the predator and issues an alarm call.
Norman Holmes Pearson at the nexus of poetry, espionage, and American power’ by Greg Barnhisel

1 month ago | australianbookreview.com.au | John Hawke |Arts Highlights

In his brief Foreword to H.D.’s posthumous collection, Hermetic Definition (1974), Yale Professor Norman Holmes Pearson (1909-75) provides an authoritatively crystalline summary of the poet’s life’s work.
'Truth: A theatrical documentary about Julian Assange' by Andrew Fuhrmann

2 months ago | australianbookreview.com.au | Andrew Fuhrmann |Arts Highlights

Silence is the central theme of Patricia Cornelius’s latest play, a theatrical documentary about the life and times of Julian Assange, focusing especially on his persecution following the publication of classified US military and diplomatic documents in 2010. This theme is announced in huge white letters on a bank of video screens above the stage in the play’s opening moments, where it lingers against the dark background like an accusation.
The Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2025 Shortlist

Jan 15, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Arts Highlights

This week on The ABR Podcast we feature the 2025 Peter Porter Prize shortlisted poems, as read by the five poets. Now in its twenty-first year, the Porter Prize is one of Australia’s most lucrative and respected poetry awards. It honours the life and work of the great Australian poet Peter Porter, a contributor to ABR for many years. All poets writing in English are eligible to enter. This year ABR received 1,171 entries from twenty-nine countries.
Joshua Black reviews ‘The Voice Inside’ by John Farnham with Poppy Stockell

Dec 30, 2024 | australianbookreview.com.au | Joshua Black

It is dreadful to lose one’s voice. Most of us can mime our way through an episode of laryngitis or the anaesthetised numbness that follows dental surgery, confident that normalcy will return. But imagine knowing that normalcy was gone for good. As Flora Willson recently put it, there is an ‘intimate connection between voice and identity’. We are the sounds we make. Continue reading for only $10 per month.
Simon Copland reviews 'Clown World: Four years inside Andrew Tate’s Manosphere' by Jamie Tahsin and Matt Shea

Dec 30, 2024 | australianbookreview.com.au | Simon Copland

With the recent rise of the alt-right and the Manosphere – a collection of anti-feminist and misogynist online communities – many people rightly want to understand what is going on. Reporting on this community can be fraught, with journalistic fascination often resulting in uncritically giving leaders big platforms to promote hateful ideas.
Faith of a nation’ by Peter Ackroyd

Dec 17, 2024 | australianbookreview.com.au | Stephen Regan |Arts Highlights

The English Soul: Faith of a nation Reaktion Books, $39.99 hb, 384 pp United Kingdom A history of English Christianity The English Soul is a history of Christianity in England from the Venerable Bede to the present, a period of roughly 1,400 years. Its enthralling journey leads us from the medieval mystics, including Julian of Norwich, through the torments of the English Reformation and the exhilarating spread of revivalist and evangelical movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,...