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Keywords: Reading

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The past is prologue: Lewis Lapham’s enduring editorial vision

    • Warwick McFadyen
    • 30 July 2024

    Lewis Lapham's work was a rigorous autopsy of American culture, exposing the chasm between our pretensions and our realities. With a historian’s depth and a satirist’s wit, he illuminated the follies that sustain our collective delusions. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Productivity Commission's magical thinking

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 25 July 2024

    While proposing broader access to tax deductibility for some charities, the Productivity Commission's new report on charitable giving suggests removing benefits for religious entities. This raises serious questions about the role of religion in fostering charitable giving and the potential consequences of these reforms for Australia's charitable landscape.

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  • MEDIA

    Where the media vultures gather

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 July 2024

    Recent media pressure led to two high profile resignations. Joe Biden, after resisting pressure to do so, has abandoned his re-election bid and English professional football manager Gareth Southgate resigned. The part played by the media merits reflection on the human vulnerability of persons in public life and of those involved in reporting on it. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Finding memory and magic in the ‘lost’ novel of Gabriel García Márquez

    • Michael McGirr
    • 19 July 2024

    Published ten years after his death, Gabriel García Márquez's final novella Until August emerges as a testament to the enduring power of an author's voice. This unexpected gift from the master of magical realism raises provocative questions about authenticity, how we view dementia, and what exactly defines an act of creation.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Spiralling into understanding

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 19 July 2024

    The spiral metaphor ties together 800+ pages of lyrical meditations, environmental rage, and historical reflections from Australia’s most celebrated and prolific poets. With powerful social critiques that blur poetry's lines, Kinsella's work rewards close reading with its deep exploration of our connection to a changing world.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    On reading electoral entrails

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 18 July 2024

    In the wake of recent elections in Britain and France, global democracies are seeing voters reject established parties amidst a deepening cycle of disillusionment. But can a return to honesty and integrity in politics break this downward spiral? 

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Burning truths

    • Julie Perrin
    • 12 July 2024

    In her new Quarterly Essay Highway to Hell, Australian climate scientist Joëlle Gergis pleads in language beyond the careful neutrality of traditional science-speak: ‘We need you to stare into the abyss with us and not turn away.’

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  • AUSTRALIA

    All the deadly women

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 12 July 2024

    Are women truly the villains that modern crime dramas portray them to be? Despite the sensationalised 'evil woman' trope, real-life statistics tell a different story. It’s a cruel irony that the way to really victimise a woman is to tell her that she is the perp when she really is overwhelmingly more likely to be the victim of violent crime.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When a friend writes a controversial post, how should you respond?

    • Barry Gittins
    • 10 July 2024

    How do you respond, when members of your own tribe share their distaste towards those who rub them up the wrong way? Do you ‘unfollow’? Do you engage? And if you vent against those who who offend with their own dearth of tolerance, are you guilty of doing the same?  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    John Grisham and the Camino literary caper

    • Peter Craven
    • 05 July 2024

    For a long time now, John Grisham has been part of the air we breathe. He's one of those writers who’s all things to all people. His latest Camino books are books about books;  a form of meta crime writing and you have to admire the move on the chessboard they represent. Can John Grisham be self-reflexive?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    My father's poetry: The unpublished poems of Bruce Dawe

    • Jamie Dawe, Bruce Dawe
    • 28 June 2024

    These unpublished treasures of my father’s are sure to strike a chord amongst those readers whose hearts wander among the more hidden byways, as I have discovered within myself.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Can your favourite authors lose their allure?

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 24 June 2024

    I’m not sure if it’s age, personal experience or the way the world has changed but some favourite authors no longer have the same attraction they did 30 years ago. To the extent where I find that some of my favourite books now belong to a past self.

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