The ABR Podcast

The ABR Podcast

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts. For more information about ABR, visit our website, www.australianbookreview.com.au

  1. 5 DAYS AGO

    ‘Carte blanche from me’: Volume two in a PM biography by Patrick Mullins

    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?’ And, in the end, he concludes that ‘without a new perspective and questions that could throw new light on Hawke, the facts marshalled are generally too dulled by over-familiarity to gleam’. Patrick Mullins is a winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the National Biography Award. Here is Patrick Mullins with ‘“Carte blanche from me”: Volume two in a PM biography’, published in the November issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    9 min

  2. 7 NOV

    ‘On so many levels: A sharp yet melancholic account’ by Clare Corbould

    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’. Historian Clare Corbould is Associate Head of School (Research) in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. Here is Clare Corbould with ‘On so many levels: A sharp yet melancholic account’, published in the November issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    9 min

  3. 30 OCT

    ‘Limerence’ by Rachael Wenona Guy

    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. It stages a teenage girl’s obsession around the image of the dead young explorer and sailor John Torrington and life in a conservative town in an island state. The staging is paced, powerful, and evocative. That this death obsession makes life almost bearable for the girl marks the trysts and autopsies of social alienation and colonial legacies. Rachael Wenona Guy creates writing, visual art, and performance. Her writing has appeared in numerous Australian and international journals and anthologies including Overland, Sleepers Almanac, Australian Poetry Journal, Australian Poetry Anthology, and most recently Raging Grace, an anthology of collaborative writing on disability. Walleah Press published her début poetry collection, The Hungry Air, in 2020. She is currently working on a new collection of experimental poetic memoir to be published in 2026. Here is ‘Limerence’, by Rachael Wenona Guy, published in the August issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    34 min

  4. 22 OCT

    ‘Questions for Mai: Joshua Reynolds’s portrait and the memory of Empire’ by Kate Fullagar

    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. She considers what she calls a ‘complicated enmeshment of art, money, and national memory’ and investigates the portrait’s place in the British Empire. Kate Fullagar is Professor of History at Australian Catholic University, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and Vice President of the Australian Historical Association. Here is Kate Fullagar with ‘Questions for Mai: Joshua Reynolds’s portrait and the memory of Empire’, published in the October issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    28 min

  5. 17 OCT

    ‘AI will kill us/save us: Hype and harm in the new economic order’ by Judith Bishop

    This week, on The ABR Podcast, Judith Bishop reviews Empire of AI: Inside the reckless race for total domination by Karen Hao and The AI Con: How to fight Big Tech’s hype and create the future we want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. Bishop seeks to cut through what she sees as prevailing ‘AI doomer/boomer ideologies’, where artificial intelligence is something that will either save us, or kill us. Judith Bishop is the 2024-2026 Tracey Banivanua Mar Fellow at La Trobe University and is writing a book about AI and human data. Here is Judith Bishop with ‘AI will kill us/save us: Hype and harm in the new economic order’, published in the October issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    22 min

  6. 9 OCT

    ‘Sediment’ by Tracey Slaughter

    This week on The ABR Podcast we feature Tracey Slaughter’s short story ‘Sediment’, which placed second in the 2025 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. ‘Sediment’ takes the form of twenty-seven brilliant points about living and loving in a female share house. It encompasses intense casual relationships and snarks at a landlord and his rotten portfolio. The story reflects on being young, poor, and wild, and is frenetically evocative of contemporary urban lives and their characteristic insecurity. The language is fresh while confronting and dismantling of conventions, offering an affront to widely accepted middle-class mores. Tracey Slaughter is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist from Aotearoa New Zealand. She was a previous runner up in the 2018 Peter Porter Poetry Prize and won the 2024 Calibre Essay Prize. With this short story, Slaughter becomes the first person to have placed in all three ABR prizes. Here is ‘Sediment’ by Tracey Slaughter, published in the August issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    38 min

  7. 3 OCT

    ‘Albanese’s “Australian Way”: The rise of “progressive patriotism” and its complex past’ by Sean Scalmer

    This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature Sean Scalmer’s commentary ‘Albanese’s “Australian Way”: The rise of “progressive patriotism” and its complex past’. Scalmer investigates Albanese’s definition of the ‘Australian Way’, which ‘served as a touchstone on the campaign trail’, and asks what this ethos represents for the Labor government, particularly in the context of Australia’s complex history of labour reform. Sean Scalmer is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne and his latest book is A Fair Day’s Work: The quest to win back time. Here is Sean Scalmer with ‘Albanese’s “Australian Way”: The rise of “progressive patriotism” and its complex past’, published in the October issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    15 min

  8. 25 SEPT

    ‘Deeper into darkness: Iran after the twelve-day war’ by Zoe Holman

    This week, on The ABR Podcast, we feature ‘Deeper into darkness: Iran after the twelve-day war’. Australian journalist Zoe Holman writes on life in Iran after the recent twelve-day war, investigating whether conflict brought Iranians closer to democracy or further away from it. She speaks to Iranians in the diaspora, including a London-based academic from Tehran who withheld his name for security reasons, about his concerns around regime change through conflict. Many Iranians think ‘any regime is better than this one’, he reflects, ‘but we can always go deeper into darkness. I don’t want to replace a theocratic regime with a secular but proto-fascist one.’ Zoe Holman is a journalist, writer, and poet whose work has appeared in outlets including The Economist, the Guardian, London Review of Books, and Jacobin. She is the author of Where the Water Ends: Seeking refuge in Fortress Europe. Here is Zoe Holman with ‘Deeper into darkness: Iran after the twelve-day war’, published in the September issue of ABR. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    10 min
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4.7
out of 5
31 Ratings

About

Welcome to The ABR Podcast, produced by Australian Book Review. Released every Thursday, The ABR Podcast features a range of literary highlights, such as reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary. Subscribe on iTunes, Google, or Spotify Podcasts, or whichever app you use to listen to your favourite podcasts. For more information about ABR, visit our website, www.australianbookreview.com.au

Information

  • Creator
    The ABR Podcast
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    101
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Australian Book Review
  • Show Website
    The ABR Podcast

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