Art & Literature

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times....

Social mobility is not a train you get to board after you've scraped together enough for the ticket. You have to build the whole bloody engine, with nothing but a spoon and hand-me-down psychological distress....

Retired wreckhead Catherine Gray, author of surprise best seller The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober, is now in her eighth sober year and has learnt a damn sight more....

A thrilling and provocative account of unfolding tensions between China and the West, filled with the people, stories and sticky situations from Bill Birtles's five years as an ABC correspondent....

On Writing is part biography, part a collection of tips for the aspiring writer....

A profound rumination on the concept of freedom from the best-selling author of The Perfect Storm....

What could be a more tempting Christmas gift than a compendium of David Sedaris' best stories, selected by the author himself? From a spectacular career spanning almost three decades, these stories have become modern classics and are now for the first time collected in one volume....

Murdoch is an innovator who has re-shaped a media industry across continents, from Australia to the UK to the US. He is a disruptor who has changed the nature of our politics with a steadfast focus on giving the people what he believes they want....

A funny, insightful memoir by much-loved documentary maker Louis Theroux, taking us on a weird and wonderful journey through two decades of groundbreaking television....

A flicker of light almost appears at the end of the tunnel for prisoner FF8282, as he is transferred to North Sea Camp near Boston...

Helen Garner visits the morgue, and goes cruising on a Russian ship. She sees women giving birth, and gets the sack for teaching her students about sex....

In 1982 Murakami began running to keep fit. Here he reflects on his running experiences....

From Oahu to Detroit, “Little Saigon” to Brooklyn, authors from all walks of life take us to the real worlds that inspired their works. Hosted by reporters Amy Standen and Michael Epstein....

On October 5, 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey that helped change the world. For months, they had been having confidential discussions with top actresses, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning of disturbing allegations....

In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known - and controversial - writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end, fits into none of them....

This is the second part of Roald Dahl's remarkable life story, following on from Boy.... 

First published in 1979, The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s....

In this brilliantly listenable autobiography - his book of books - one of India’s greatest writers shows us the roots of everything he has written.... 

A Secret Sisterhood uncovers the hidden literary friendships of the world’s most respected female authors. With a foreword from Margaret Atwood....

Bill Bryson's hilarious memoir of growing up in middle America in the Fifties, complete, unabridged and read by the author.

Capturing history was Jonathan Alpeyrie's job, but he never expected to become a news story himself. During his third assignment to Syria, Alpeyrie was betrayed by his fixer and handed over....

In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traces the footsteps of his life to date....

Witty, inspiring, and charismatic, Oscar Wilde is one of the Greats of English literature. Today, his plays and stories are beloved around the world. But it was not always so. His afterlife has given him the legitimacy that life denied him....

First published in 1986 and updated several times since, Don’t Panic is in an in-depth exploration of Douglas Adams’s cultural phenomenon The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy....

Unlike most artists, Van Gogh developed very slowly, beginning with work as an art dealer that exposed him to many great works. He undertook this work for several years, after which he spent time as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church....

Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio’s leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J....

Martha Gellhorn was a strong-willed, self-made, modern woman whose journalism, and life, were widely influential at the time and cleared a path for women who came after her....