September 2018, issue no. 404

Calibre Essay Prize now open

We welcome essays of all kinds.

Atticus: Harper Lee's classic character

In our Review of the Month: Clare Corbould reviews Joseph Crespino's 'biography' of Atticus Finch.

Peter Porter Poetry Prize now open

Deadline for our $8,500 prize is 3 December, 2018.

Leader of the Pack

Gideon Haigh reviews 'Reporter: A Memoir' by journalist Seymour Hersh.

An Open Letter on the ABC

ABR shares many Australians’ concerns about the health and viability of the ABC. The threats are myriad and sustained.

'Man Out of Time'

Johanna Leggatt reviews Stephanie Bishop's new novel 'Man Out of Time'

Welcome to the September issue of ABR! Highlights include:

• Review of the Month: Clare Corbould reviews Joseph Crespino's 'biography' of Atticus Finch, Harper Lee's great creation
• Brenda Niall on the correspondence of Vance and Nettie Palmer
• Gideon Haigh on Seymour Hersh's memoir
• Stephen Mills on Bob Carr's new memoir
• Beejay Silcox on Michael Ondaatje’s new novel Warlight
• Michael Shmith on journalist Les Hinton’s memoir
• Johanna Leggatt on Stephanie Bishop's Man Out of Time

Highlights from the current issue

Vivien Gaston reviews 'An introduction to Pontormo' by Jonah Jones

Vivien Gaston

Having crossed the bustling Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the visitor soon encounters a small piazza with a shaded entrance to the church of Santa Felicita and gladly enters the cool grey sto More

Anthony Lynch reviews 'The True Colour of the Sea' by Robert Drewe

Anthony Lynch

Robert Drewe’s first short story collection, the widely acclaimed The Bodysurfers (1983), opens with a story of the Lang family – children Annie, David, and Max, taken by their recently widowed father for More

David McInnis reviews 'Antipodal Shakespeare: Remembering and Forgetting in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, 1916 - 2016' by Gordon McMullan and Philip Mead et al.

David McInnis

In 1916, the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death coincided with the first anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, thus providing the impetus for this absorbing study of memory and fo More

Suzanne Falkiner reviews 'The Biographer’s Lover' by Ruby J. Murray

Suzanne Falkiner

A short way into this intriguing novel, author Ruby J. Murray cites Virginia Woolf on the subject of biography. According to Murray’s protagonist, Woolf called it ‘a plodding art’: More