I Miss You When I Blink is basically a couple of dozen hilarious and insightful anecdotes about ‘relatively ordinary life’ all strung together in roughly chronological order. Mary Laura Philpott is your typical high-achieving Type A personality who grew up in the U.S. expecting that if she followed all the rules she would win at […]
memoir
5 intriguing memoirs by Australian women writers
There have been some really fabulous memoirs written by Australian women published in the past few years. They lay bare the experience of being a woman in all its many forms. From feminism to racism, battling with body image and cultural identity, the stories I’ve read have been rich with insight and humour. The following […]
Review: Stranger Country, by Monica Tan
Stranger Country is Monica Tan’s story of quitting her job and driving 30,000 kilometres – alone – through the Outback in a quest to learn more about Australia’s ancient heritage. I found this book absolutely fascinating, honest and confronting. Tan is a curious person and natural storyteller, which together made this book a real joy […]
Review: Apple Island Wife – Slow Living In Tasmania, by Fiona Stocker
Apple Island Wife is Fiona Stocker’s simply delightful memoir of trading city life in Brisbane for rural life in north-western Tasmania. Her descriptions of the cooler climate, slower lifestyle and simple living with young children made me want to pack up my own city life immediately. It all sounded so wonderful. Well, except for the […]
Review: The Revolution of Man, by Phil Barker
One woman is killed every week in Australia by her current or former partner. Every day in Australia six men are killed, by themselves. The number of men who die by suicide each year is double the national road toll. I say this not to try to convince you that male suicide is a more […]
Review: Unfettered and Alive, A Memoir by Anne Summers
Unfettered and Alive follows Anne Summers’ professional career, starting in 1975 when she’d just published Damned Whores and God’s Police. The book would become a seminal feminist text but at the time it was a liability for Summers, who was trying to convince newspaper editors that she wasn’t really an academic and she really wanted to be […]
