Spectrum
Skip the boring bits, hit a chapter a week, get drunk: how to read Ulysses
My first nibble of Ulysses happened decades ago, and I spat it out, undigested, no doubt making a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp.
- by Keith Austin
Latest
Enough of this tin-hat weirdo, Australia needs a new cultural hero
Who made it compulsory to make Ned Kelly cameo in every single Australian novel, poem, or painting ever?
- by Eliza Reilly
Censored and criticised, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is perfect for our times
When I picked up the “other” Bronte’s novel, I did so with resignation and spiritual smugness. This will be hard, I thought, but it will be good for me.
- by Diana Reid
Will Lightyear make it to a future where kids want to watch it over and over again?
Twenty-seven years have passed between the respective releases of Toy Story and Lightyear. Movies have changed, and so have our ways of watching them.
- by David Free
Here to stay or will they go away? Either way, NFTs have transformed Australian art
In a world awash with acronyms, there’s one that has a particular power to make hackles rise, especially in the arts.
- by Gabriella Coslovich
The best movies, TV, music, podcasts and books of the year (so far)
As a sort of mid-year stocktake, our critics have picked their favourite pieces of pop culture from the first half of 2022.
- by Debi Enker, Garry Maddox, Melanie Kembrey, Barry Divola and Robert Moran
My grandson’s a poet and doesn’t even know it
My first word was thoroughly utilitarian. Not so the first words of my tiny grandson.
- by Richard Glover
There’s much we can still learn from these 12 life-changing experiments
The Matter of Everything looks at a series of breakthroughs to discover what else we can learn from the course of scientific progress.
- by Bianca Nogrady
My Gawd! This 100-year-old etiquette guide might still hold some useful lessons
In Emily Post’s Etiquette, the sharpest gibes are reserved for the language section.
- by David Astle
Mad Max meets Wake in Fright in bestselling author’s cracking new thriller
With its echoes of Wake in Fright and Mad Max, Adrian McKinty’s The Island is a gothic nightmare about one family’s breathless battle for survival.
- by Sue Turnbull
★★★
Review
The one thing an $87b divorce settlement can’t buy in Maya Rudolph’s Loot
Apple’s new comedy series has a lot to say about the inadequacy of ego-driven gifting by the uber-rich.
- by Karl Quinn