Biography and memoir
Baby Lost by Hannah Robert
During her second night in the ICU, after an accident that ended the life of her unborn baby, law lecturer Hannah Robert writes in her journal: ‘I dreamt that the sun was rising as the pieces of a shipwreck floated…
Thirty Days by Mark Raphael Baker
Older readers (like me) might remember Mark Raphael Baker’s critically acclaimed, deeply moving family memoir, The Fiftieth Gate, about the experiences of his Holocaust survivor parents. His second book, Thirty Days, is similarly infused with Jewish history and…
A Führer for a Father by Jim Davidson
The life of Jim Davidson – prize-winning historian, academic and former editor of Meanjin – warrants a biography of its own. However, Davidson is clear from the first pages that this book is not an autobiography, but rather an exploration…
Hunger by Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay is the smart, funny, outspoken author of the bestselling essay collection Bad Feminist and several acclaimed works of fiction. Her new book, Hunger, is a deeply personal memoir that examines how trauma can shape a person’s life…
The Mighty Franks by Michael Frank
I gobbled up this deliciously dark, profoundly poignant memoir in two half-days. The Mighty Franks is Hollywood gothic, complete with distorted families, claustrophobic passions, silver-screen glamour (sometimes borrowed, sometimes earned), submerged hurt erupting from poison tongues, and confected narratives. At…
No Way! Okay, Fine. by Brodie Lancaster
Brodie Lancaster’s first book is a memoir that fuses Lancaster’s love of pop culture and feminism to explore her quest for authentic identity and self-acceptance – even if the taboo of being an ‘adult One Direction-fan’ hasn’t exactly been broken…
The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs
‘I’m hoping that writing my way through this new suspicious country will help me figure it all out,’ says Nina Riggs, after she finds out that her breast cancer has spread throughout her body.
In this book, she shares how…
Understory by Inga Simpson
‘I see the world through trees. Every window and doorway frames trunks, limbs and leaves.’ Inga Simpson’s memoir Understory, in the tradition of the best nature writing, leads us into an internal landscape made external, and an external landscape…
Adult Fantasy by Briohny Doyle
Briohny Doyle is a thirty-something millennial. The only daughter of a pair of middle-class, educated baby boomers, Doyle has a PhD but works as a greengrocer; she has a long-term partner, but they live in separate sharehouses. The questions about…
Woman of Substances by Jenny Valentish
Jenny Valentish presents a raw, but relatable, account of her encounter with addiction. Woman of Substances is eminently readable, honest and revealing, not just about Valentish’s personal life and traumatic events in it, but also about the politics of addiction…
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