Reviews
Atunymanama by NPY Women’s Council
Review by Jane Lloyd Atunymanama (AH-tuhn-mahn-ah-mah) the latest publication from NPY Women’s Council celebrates and encourages Anangu men – fathers and grandfathers as care-givers, teachers and leaders in a stunning book of family portraits and personal stories. The Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara men in this book are both young and elderly and since 2016 have…
Read MoreDeep Time Dreaming by Billy Griffiths
Jane Lloyd’s review of ‘Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia’ by Billy Griffiths A deservedly multi award winning book! Beautifully written narrative non-fiction. A book that seeks to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent and what it means to live in a place of such antiquity with complex relationships. To imagine standing…
Read MoreKillers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Review by Jane Lloyd. David Grann’s rich narrative non-fiction set in Oklahoma in the 1920s, Killers of the Flower Moon is a well-researched and riveting read. An epic story of unimaginable betrayals, of the sinister and systematic murder of Osage Indians and the birth of the FBI.  Grann’s narrative style brings to life the Osage women, men…
Read MoreEndenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
Review by Andrea Martin This is a powerful, absorbing tale set in what is now Brisbane in two time periods – the middle/end of the nineteenth century and 2024. Edenglassie (the first European name for the region now known as Brisbane) is being settled by a race of people perceived by the people who were…
Read MoreBiting the Clouds by Fiona Foley Book reviewed by Chips Mackinolty
Biting the Clouds by Fiona Foley. Book reviewed by Chips Mackinolty Biting the clouds by Fiona Foley There’s a certain symmetry to the life and work—artistic and now literary—of Badtjala woman Fiona Foley. The subtitle of her book—A Badtjala perspective on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897—tells of a piece…
Read MoreThe First Time I Thought I was Dying by Sarah Walker. Book reviewed by Sophie Staughton
The First Time I Thought I was Dying by Sarah Walker reviewed by Sophie Staughton The first pages of Sarah Walker’s book of essays gripped me with its foray into personal and social preoccupations with the body. There was some sad reassurance in the knowledge that one of the preoccupations I live with daily is…
Read MoreOne Hundred Days by Alice Pung book reviewed by Sophie Staughton
One Hundred Days by Alice Pung reviewed by Sophie Staughton It is hard to imagine that a book so deeply sad as One Hundred Days can turn and recast itself to a place of hope in the final pages. Yet Alice Pung achieves this in a graceful and subtle shift of observation on the acts…
Read MoreThree Women by Lisa Taddeo reviewed by Sophie Staughton
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo reviewed by Sophie Staughton Lisa Taddeo lays out the brutal truth of female desire in all its infinitely nuanced forms in Three Women. A compelling, non-fiction story about Maggie, Lina and Sloane. Three women telling their truths; naked, and exposed to the hard gaze. The gaze of other women is the hardest…
Read MoreDouble great news for first time Territory author, Karen Rogers
Main Abija, My Grandad by Karen Rogers Double great news for first time Territory author, Karen Rogers As any number of anthropologists and sociologists will tell us, the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is fundamentally important to families and … more generally … broader social relationships. So the release this week of Ngukurr artist Karen…
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