Summer Picks

Indigo Bailey – ‘Not Showing, Not Telling’

I just read Clarice Lispector’s last novel, Hour of the Star. I found it so absorbing and strangely comforting—so full of life and attuned to the tiniest desires of the protagonist, Macabéa, which are delivered to us by this hilariously cruel narrator. I love Lispector’s prose, which feels both silken and barbed, evasive and straightforward.

I also recently loved the movie Strike!, a cult-worthy 90s comedy about the students of a strict girl’s school revolting against a merger with the nearby private boys’ school, with amazing performances and one-liners from Kirsten Dunst and Gaby Hoffmann.

Lauren Collee – ‘The Last of Us and the Radical Possibilities of Eco-Horror’

After re-reading Wolf Hall earlier this year, I’ve recently picked up Hilary Mantel’s posthumously published A Memoir of My Former Self, a collection of her various writings encompassing film reviews, personal essays and history lectures. My favourites are the obsessive portraits of anachronistic and often regal figures—Marie Antoinette, Princess Diana—which feel like little sketches for other historical trilogies that never were and, given her recent passing, will never be. Mantel has explained Englishness to me better than any other writer, which feels important given that Englishness has insinuated itself into practically every corner of the globe. RIP Hilary, I would have loved to read an essay by you about Jacob Elordi.

Megan Cheong – ‘Embodied Motherhood in Little Plum’

One of my greatest pleasures this summer has been reading all of Claire Keegan’s books in quick succession. I love the clarity of Keegan’s landscapes—both the internal and the material—and how important every moment of every story feels (just as life can feel when given enough attention).

I also enjoyed Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories, which shares with Keegan’s works a depth of place impossible to glean from the kind of brief visit you might make to Rome or the Irish countryside over the summer holidays.

Nina Culley – ‘Weird is In’

Over the summer I read a lot, but the highlights were Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Pink Mountain on Locust Island by Jamie Marina Lau. Both novels are entirely grotesque, they’ll stick to you like a damp, sweaty shirt—you’ll never get the stains out, you’ll never be the same.

Tylissa Elisara – ‘Reclaiming Indigeneity in the Modern Colony’

As a working (and studying) mum of three, including two little ones under the age of four, my reading has been split between journal articles (mainly on the subject of ‘Indigenous Survivance’ for my summer research scholarship) and children’s stories (The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was a highlight). I also watched a lot of Christmas movies and listened to the soundtrack of Disney’s Encanto more times than I’m proud of.

I did manage to pick up a copy of Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi when I was at the airport recently. Considering my busy life, I enjoyed the simplicity of a story that’s centred around an appreciation for coffee and never really leaves the cafe. I also enjoyed that it was written by a non-Western author.

Other than that, I enjoyed listening to Brisbane’s rain over the holidays and if I’m not already overstimulated, I listen to lo-fi music. I find it quietens my thoughts and is one of the few ways I can trick myself into relaxing.

Sam Elkin – ‘Trans Histories and the Legacy of Jack Jorgensen’

This summer, I’ve enjoyed reading Transland, an immersive, soulful trip into the Canadian queer BDSM scene by Naarm-based Mx. Sly. I also loved The Call-Out, a novel in rhyme by small press publishing stalwart Cat Fitzpatrick, a laugh-out-loud tragicomedy about warring radical trans women in Brooklyn.

I’ve also been on an all-consuming Hilary Mantel audiobook binge to be fully primed for her posthumous collection, A Memoir of My Former Self.

Sulari Gentill – ‘Show Your Working’/The Mystery Writer

This summer the biting wit of Naked Ambition by Robert Gott (the tale of a politician who poses nude for an Archibald portrait) had me laughing and wincing as I read. The novel perfectly captures the style and joy of drawing-room comedy in a uniquely Australian story.

I also watched What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, to which I came thirty years late. A heartbreaking poignant story, beautifully acted. It’s made me wonder what other gems I missed in the 90s.

Em Meller – ‘The Humiliation of Writing Fiction’

Roumina Parsa – ‘Say Goodbye to the Sad Girl’

Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse is a book made for the summer. It’s best read at dusk on one of those days when the heat is as inescapable as what the protagonist fights against: growing up. I also read Woman, Life, Freedom by Malu Halasa: necessary and moving, it is a collection of the voices at the heart of the Iranian movement for liberation. And I recommend the Madame Psychosis Substack: penned by an anonymous author, it is my go-to for surefooted reflective prose. Equal parts ‘of the times’ and emotionally universal.

My favourite podcast of late is Celebrity Memoir Book Club. It offers a combination of my three favourite things—pop culture, literary analysis and quick wit. For knowers of the Caroline Calloway lore, the episodes on her (and featuring her!) are irreplicable works of unserious art.

This summer, I’ve also been watching everything I can on Palestine: South Africa’s ICJ case livestreamed on YouTube, updates from on-the-ground journalists such as Bisan Owda and Motaz Azaiza, Tiktoks by Palestinians in diaspora. Treating media solely as entertainment is a privilege, as recent events have highlighted.

Katelyn Phillips – ‘Getting Cosy at the End of the World’

Seth Robinson – ‘Succession and the Disenchantment of the American Dream’

This summer, I’ve been catching up on my Australian fiction. It’s a long list, but some of my favourites have been Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko, Limberlost by Robbie Arnott, Why We Are Here by Briohny Doyle and Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton. Each of these stories allows my imagination to explore, from the salty river mouths of the NSW North Coast to the Huon pines of Tasmania, to the golf courses and scrap yards of our cities. What’s more, each of their authors has sprinkled a healthy dose of magic in with their realism.

In terms of TV, I’ve binged two book adaptations. Slow Horses is based on the spy thriller by Mick Herron. Lessons in Chemistry, the novel by Bonnie Garmus. They feature nuanced, well-rounded protagonists, and I’m now eager to go back and read the books.

Robert Skinner – ‘Shelf Reflection’/I’d Rather Not