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Podcast

The ABR Podcast 

Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.

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Jan Feb Porter Shortlist

Porter Poetry Prize 2026

The shortlisted poets  

In this week’s ABR Podcast we feature the shortlist for the 2026 Peter Porter Poetry Prize. Now in its twenty-second year, the Porter Prize is one of the world’s leading competitions for a new poem in English. This year, our judges are Judith Bishop, ABR Poetry Editor Felicity Plunkett, and Anders Villani. The shortlisted poets are J Andros, Kirsten Krauth, Cheryl Leavy, Claire Potter, and Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet. The five shortlisted poems appear in the January/February 2026 issue of Australian Book Review, which is on sale now.

Recent episodes:


This week, on The ABR Podcast, Stephen Long reviews Woodside vs the Planet: How a company captured a country by Marian Wilkinson and Extractive Capitalism: How commodities and cronyism drive the global economy by Laleh Khalili. Long describes the notion that Australia can maintain its current gas exports and save the planet as a delusion, one that is increasingly adopted by our political leaders. In fact, Woodside and the LNG industry at large have a business model, Long explains, that is ‘based on climate catastrophe’. ... (read more)
This week, on The ABR Podcast, Stephen Long reviews Woodside vs the Planet: How a company captured a country by Marian Wilkinson and Extractive Capitalism: How commodities and cronyism drive the global economy by Laleh Khalili. Long describes the notion that Australia can maintain its current gas exports and save the planet as a delusion, one that is increasingly adopted by our political leaders. In fact, Woodside and the LNG industry at large have a business model, Long explains, that is ‘based on climate catastrophe’. ... (read more)

This week, on The ABR Podcast, James Curran reviews Turbulence: Australian foreign policy in the Trump era by Clinton Fernandes.

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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’.

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This week on the ABR Podcast, Grace Roodenrys reviews KONTRA by Eunice Andrada, observing that the collection draws on a poetics of cultural excavation.

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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’.

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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?’

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This week, on The ABR Podcast, Clare Corbould reviews The Shortest History of the United States of America by Don Watson. Corbould praises Watson’s ‘sharp observations’ and his ‘wry and knowing analysis’ but notes a ‘melancholic tone’ as he explores the United States’ slide ‘into populism and authoritarianism’

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This week on The ABR Podcast we feature Rachael Wenona Guy’s short story ‘Limerence’, which placed third in the 2025 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. ‘Limerence’ deftly interweaves artifice and realism, narrative ellipses and unsettling meditation to create an uncanny confession.

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This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Kate Fullagar’s essay ‘Questions for Mai: Joshua Reynolds’s portrait and the memory of Empire’. Fullagar delves into the history behind Joshua Reynold’s famous portrait of Mai, the first Pacific Islander to visit Britain.

... (read more)
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