'The red thread: Xi Jinping's ideology of power' by Neil Thomas

This week on The ABR Podcast, Neil Thomas reviews On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is shaping China and the world by Kevin Rudd. Thomas explains that even China watchers find it hard to be clear on the thoughts and plans of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. They disagree, he tel…

‘Silent witness: A ‘little life-hymn’ from Helen Garner’ by Jonathan Ricketson

This week on The ABR Podcast Jonathan Ricketson reviews The Season by Helen Garner. Ricketson explains that The Season is a memoir of Garner watching her grandson ‘Amby play for the Flemington Juniors in the Under-16s, from February to August 2023’. The experience involves an effacement of self, th…

‘Out of the loop: Relaying information across time’ by Robyn Arianrhod

OnThe ABR Podcast this week, Robyn Arianrhod reviews Nexus: A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari. Under the category ‘information networks’, Harari puts oral stories, clay tablets, chalkboards, newspapers, computers and more. Arianrhod writes: ‘Harar…

‘Where is Nancy?’ Paradoxes in the pursuit of freedom by Marilyn Lake

This week on The ABR Podcast, Marilyn Lake reviews The Art of Power: My story as America’s first woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi. The Art of Power, explains Lake, tells how Pelosi, ‘a mother of five and a housewife from California’, became the first woman Speaker of the United States Hou…

'Feeding the beast: On corporate cancel culture' by Josh Bornstein

This week on The ABR Podcast, Josh Bornstein discusses corporate cancel culture. Bornstein argues that ‘Companies now routinely censor their employees far more repressively than any liberal democratic government does’. Josh Bornstein is an award-winning workplace lawyer and writer. His first book, …

‘Schooled in doubleness’: Paul Giles reviews Tim Winton’s enthralling new novel

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Paul Giles reviews Juice by Tim Winton. Juice represents a creative sidestep for the four-time Miles Franklin Award recipient, being both his longest novel and his first venture into speculative fiction. Paul Giles is Professor of English at the Australian Catholic Un…

‘We right to go?’ Heeding the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic by Johanna Leggatt

This week on The ABR Podcast, Johanna Leggatt reviews Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race by Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden. Leggatt quotes from the book: ‘There will be another pandemic. It might not happen for another century, or it might happen ver…

‘Giving up mirrors: Brian Castro’s soaring stridulation’ by Michael Winkler

This week on The ABR Podcast, Michael Winkler reviews Chinese Postman by Brian Castro. ‘Reading Castro for plot is like listening to Bob Dylan for melody,’ says Winkler of the prize-winning author of eleven novels. Michael Winkler was the winner of the 2016 Calibre Essay Prize and is the author of …

Bridget Griffen-Foley reviews ‘The Men Who Killed the News’ by Eric Beecher

This week on The ABR Podcast, Bridget Griffen-Foley reviews The Men Who Killed the News: The inside story of how media moguls abused their power, manipulated the truth and distorted democracy by Eric Beecher. Bridget Griffen-Foley is the founder of the Centre for Media History at Macquarie Universi…

'Drinking from coconuts: When Australians weren’t scared of Papua New Guinea' by Seumas Spark

This week on The ABR Podcast, Seumas Spark takes us to Papua New Guinea, the country of his childhood. Spark describes returning to an independent PNG as an historian and tour guide, and the noticeable cooling of Australian attitudes to the place and its ‘intoxicating possibilities’. Listen to Seum…