AustLit

'Phoebe Cotton, the main character in Imbi Neeme’s second novel, Kind of Sort of Maybe … but probably not, suffers from misophonia, as does the author. Essentially, it’s a strong dislike of certain sounds.'  (Introduction) 

'Some films are so good they overpower any adjective put before them. Is Poor Things, directed by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Australian playwright and screenwriter Tony McNamara, extraordinary, outstanding, profound, hilarious, Oscar-worthy and so on? It is but it’s more than that. It’s mind-blowing, mind-expanding, mind-bending. You will be talking about it for days afterwards.' (Introduction)

'Who could be grateful for the bombing of Hiroshima at 8.15am on August 6, 1945: an unprecedented, world-changing act of warfare that saw, as Richard Flanagan puts it, “60,000 Japanese souls ascending to heaven”? Flanagan might be.' (Introduction)   

'As we mark the 50th anniversary of Patrick White’s historic win, the big question is whether Australia can nail another Nobel Prize in Literature, writes STEPHEN ROMEI' 

'Trent Dalton takes a risk with Lola in the Mirror, a novel in which you can see, hear and feel the characters as they battle through life, writes Stephen Romei' 

'Stephen Romei reviews a new biography of Frank Moorhouse, which examines the ways he poured himself into his sublime literary creation, Edith Campbell Berry' 

'Outback noir is a star of Australian literature. New novels from Jane Harper and Chris Hammer – to name just two – are seen as publishing events. Harper’s 2016 debut, The Dry, and its 2017 sequel, Force of Nature, have been made into films. Hammer’s 2018 debut, Scrublands, is in production as a television series.' (Introduction)   

'Remember the Shakespeare you had to read in high school? Did you love it or hate it, or sit somewhere in between? Personally speaking, I’m Macbeth and a heart emoji. I suspect when the teenage Chris Womersley read Romeo and Juliet, he underscored Mercutio’s exasperated cry, “A plague o’ both your houses!”' (Introduction)   

'What is love? It’s a question we’ve struggled with since Eve, Adam, the asp and the apple. It has inspired a billion songs. The one that comes to mind as I think of J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole and Other Stories is the 1939 jazz standard “Comes Love (Nothing Can Be Done)”: “Don’t try hiding cause there isn’t any use / You’ll start sliding when your heart turns on the juice”.' (Introduction)