This week, on The ABR Podcast, Patrick Mullins reviews Hawke PM: The making of a legend by David Day. Approaching Day’s second volume of the Hawke biography, Mullins asks: ‘how much more can there be to say?’ And, in the end, he concludes that ‘without a new perspective and questions that could throw new light on Hawke, the facts marshalled are generally too dulled by over-familiarity to gleam’. Patrick Mullins is a winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the National Biography Award. Here is Patrick Mullins with ‘“Carte blanche from me”: Volume two in a PM biography’, published in the November issue of ABR. 

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Patrick Mullins reviews Hawke PM: The making of a legend by David Day. Approaching Day&rsquo;s second volume of the Hawke biography, Mullins asks: &lsquo;how much more can there be to say?&rsquo; And, in the end, he concludes that &lsquo;without a new perspective and questions that could throw new light on Hawke, the facts marshalled are generally too dulled by over-familiarity to gleam&rsquo;. Patrick Mullins is a winner of the NSW Premier&rsquo;s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the National Biography Award. Here is Patrick Mullins with &lsquo;&ldquo;Carte blanche from me&rdquo;: Volume two in a PM biography&rsquo;, <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/1025-november-2025-no-481/14640-patrick-mullins-reviews-hawke-pm-the-making-of-a-legend-by-david-day">published in the November issue of ABR. </a>

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

For more information about ABR, visit our website, www.australianbookreview.com.au

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.
For more information about&nbsp;ABR, visit our website, <a href="http://www.australianbookreview.com.au">www.australianbookreview.com.au</a>

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

The ABR Podcast

ABR is delighted to introduce its brand-new podcast, The ABR Podcast.

Released fortnightly every Wednesday, The ABR Podcast will feature a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on the iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

ABR&nbsp;is delighted to introduce its brand-new podcast,&nbsp;The ABR Podcast.
Released fortnightly every Wednesday,&nbsp;The ABR Podcast&nbsp;will feature a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on the iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts.

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Patrick Mullins reviews Hawke PM: The making of a legend by David Day. Approaching Day’s second volume of the Hawke biography, Mullins asks: ‘how much more can there be to say?’ And, in the end, he concludes that ‘without a new perspective and questions that could throw new light on Hawke, the facts marshalled are generally too dulled by over-familiarity to gleam’. Patrick Mullins is a winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the National Biography Award. Here is Patrick Mullins with ‘“Carte blanche from me”: Volume two in a PM biography’, published in the November issue of ABR.

‘Carte blanche from me’: Volume two in a PM biography by Patrick Mullins

This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by biographer Nadia Wheatley titled ‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmian Clift’. ‘What does a biographer do’, Wheatley asks, ‘when she discovers she has something wrong?’ In Wheatley’s case, it was not something that just she had wrong, but something that her subject, Charmian Clift, also had very wrong about her mother, Amy Lila Currie. It was, in fact, a great big secret, the knowledge of which recasts the life of both Amy and Charmian, as Wheately explains.

Nadia Wheatley is the author of The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift, which won The Age Non-fiction Book of the Year in 2001 and the Australian History Prize at the New South Wales Premier’s History Awards in 2002. She is also the editor of Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected essays of Charmian Clift (2022) and Clift’s previously unpublished autobiographical novel, The End of the Morning (2024). Here is Nadia Wheatley with ‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmain Clift’, published in the December issue of ABR. 

This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by biographer Nadia Wheatley titled &lsquo;Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmian Clift&rsquo;. &lsquo;What does a biographer do&rsquo;, Wheatley asks, &lsquo;when she discovers she has something wrong?&rsquo; In Wheatley&rsquo;s case, it was not something that just she had wrong, but something that her subject, Charmian Clift, also had very wrong about her mother, Amy Lila Currie. It was, in fact, a great big secret, the knowledge of which recasts the life of both Amy and Charmian, as Wheately explains.
Nadia Wheatley is the author of The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift, which won The Age Non-fiction Book of the Year in 2001 and the Australian History Prize at the New South Wales Premier&rsquo;s History Awards in 2002. She is also the editor of Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected essays of Charmian Clift (2022) and Clift&rsquo;s previously unpublished autobiographical novel, The End of the Morning (2024). Here is Nadia Wheatley with &lsquo;Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmain Clift&rsquo;, <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/1026-december-2025-no-482/14714-liars-inventors-embroiderers-rewriting-the-life-and-myth-of-charmian-clift-by-nadia-wheatley">published in the December issue of ABR. </a>

This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature a special essay by biographer Nadia Wheatley titled ‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmian Clift’. ‘What does a biographer do’, Wheatley asks, ‘when she discovers she has something wrong?’ In Wheatley’s case, it was not something that just she had wrong, but something that her subject, Charmian Clift, also had very wrong about her mother, Amy Lila Currie. It was, in fact, a great big secret, the knowledge of which recasts the life of both Amy and Charmian, as Wheately explains.  Nadia Wheatley is the author of The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift, which won The Age Non-fiction Book of the Year in 2001 and the Australian History Prize at the New South Wales Premier’s History Awards in 2002. She is also the editor of Sneaky Little Revolutions: Selected essays of Charmian Clift (2022) and Clift’s previously unpublished autobiographical novel, The End of the Morning (2024). Here is Nadia Wheatley with ‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmain Clift’, published in the December issue of ABR.

‘Liars, inventors, embroiderers: Rewriting the life and myth of Charmian Clift’ by Nadia Wheatley

This week on the ABR Podcast, Grace Roodenrys reviews KONTRA by Eunice Andrada, observing that the collectiondraws on a poetics of cultural excavation. As Roodenrys explains, Andrada retrieves and rewrites the ways that women’s bodies have been framed, worshipped, and fetishised. She goes on to say that ‘KONTRA must work to resist a number of powerful aesthetic schemes – traditions of writing and imagining women in which they wind up silent, grateful, holy, or dead.’

Grace Roodenrys is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Cordite, Rabbit, The Saturday Paper, and elsewhere. Here is Grace Roodenrys with ‘Understand me now: Poetry which cuts into the work’, published in the November issue of ABR.

This week on the ABR Podcast, Grace Roodenrys reviews KONTRA by Eunice Andrada, observing that the collection draws on a poetics of cultural excavation. As Roodenrys explains, Andrada retrieves and rewrites the ways that women&rsquo;s bodies have been framed, worshipped, and fetishised. She goes on to say that &lsquo;KONTRA must work to resist a number of powerful aesthetic schemes &ndash; traditions of writing and imagining women in which they wind up silent, grateful, holy, or dead.&rsquo;
Grace Roodenrys is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Cordite, Rabbit, The Saturday Paper, and elsewhere. Here is Grace Roodenrys with &lsquo;Understand me now: Poetry which cuts into the work&rsquo;, <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/1025-november-2025-no-481/14662-grace-roodenrys-reviews-kontra-by-eunice-andrada">published in the November issue of ABR.</a>

This week on the ABR Podcast, Grace Roodenrys reviews KONTRA by Eunice Andrada, observing that the collection draws on a poetics of cultural excavation. As Roodenrys explains, Andrada retrieves and rewrites the ways that women’s bodies have been framed, worshipped, and fetishised. She goes on to say that ‘KONTRA must work to resist a number of powerful aesthetic schemes – traditions of writing and imagining women in which they wind up silent, grateful, holy, or dead.’  Grace Roodenrys is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her work has appeared in Meanjin, Cordite, Rabbit, The Saturday Paper, and elsewhere. Here is Grace Roodenrys with ‘Understand me now: Poetry which cuts into the work’, published in the November issue of ABR.

‘Understand me now: Poetry which cuts into the work’ by Grace Roodenrys

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Jessica Whyte reviews A Philosophy of Shame: A revolutionary emotion by Frédéric Gros. Whyte applauds the attempt to ‘revolutionise how we think about shame’ and to consider shame not simply as a retrograde emotion but ‘a resource for political struggle’. But in Gros’ book, writes Whyte, there is ‘abstract quality’ to this discussion and, she says, the pressing question that is not answered by the book is ‘how shame could generate a response to today’s shameless violence’. Jessica Whyte is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of New South Wales and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Her third book, Shameless Inhumanity, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Here is Jessica Whyte with ‘For shame: Social value of an emotion’, published in the November issue of ABR. 

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Jessica Whyte reviews A Philosophy of Shame: A revolutionary emotion by Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Gros. Whyte applauds the attempt to &lsquo;revolutionise how we think about shame&rsquo; and to consider shame not simply as a retrograde emotion but &lsquo;a resource for political struggle&rsquo;. But in Gros&rsquo; book, writes Whyte, there is &lsquo;abstract quality&rsquo; to this discussion and, she says, the pressing question that is not answered by the book is &lsquo;how shame could generate a response to today&rsquo;s shameless violence&rsquo;. Jessica Whyte is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of New South Wales and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Her third book, Shameless Inhumanity, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Here is Jessica Whyte with &lsquo;For shame: Social value of an emotion&rsquo;, <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/1025-november-2025-no-481/14642-jessica-whyte-reviews-a-philosophy-of-shame-a-revolutionary-emotion-by-frederic-gros-translated-from-french-by-andy-bliss">published in the November issue of ABR. </a>

This week, on The ABR Podcast, Jessica Whyte reviews A Philosophy of Shame: A revolutionary emotion by Frédéric Gros. Whyte applauds the attempt to ‘revolutionise how we think about shame’ and to consider shame not simply as a retrograde emotion but ‘a resource for political struggle’. But in Gros’ book, writes Whyte, there is ‘abstract quality’ to this discussion and, she says, the pressing question that is not answered by the book is ‘how shame could generate a response to today’s shameless violence’. Jessica Whyte is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of New South Wales and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Her third book, Shameless Inhumanity, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Here is Jessica Whyte with ‘For shame: Social value of an emotion’, published in the November issue of ABR.

‘Carte blanche from me’: Volume two in a PM biography by Patrick Mullins

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