Welcome to a brand new year of monthly reviews for General Non-Fiction.

We’re starting off 2019 with 18 non-fiction reviews, for 11 different books from 14 individual reviewers. A great start!

During the week, The Stella Prize announced their 2019 longlist, with five of the twelve titles slotting into the non-fiction category. The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper (non-fiction), The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie (memoir), Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee (memoir), Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin (essays) and The World was Whole by Fiona Wright (essays) were all nominated. All have been read and reviewed by our members. The above links will take you to ALL of our member reviews for each book.

The other books reviewed were a mix of new releases and older titles. Emma @Book Around the Corner gave us a thoughtful and respectful review of Anita Heiss’ Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, while Brona’s Books took us to small town rural NSW with Gabrielle Chan’s Rusted Off: Why Country Australia is Fed Up.

Cass Moriarty took us back to WWI with her review of Kyoomba Sanatorium Vols 1 and 2 by Deborah Wheeler. However, if armchair travel is more your thing, then don’t miss Ashley’s exciting review of Yak on Track by Heather McNeice about her recent trek through Bhutan.

On the strength of Chloe Hooper’s The Arsonist, N@ncy also read her earlier book The Tall Man. It’s always interesting to see how our overseas reviewers perceive Australian history and culture. Janine @The Resident Judge of Port Philip took us on a more personal journey with her discussion on a 1998 title, A Good Day to Die by Lisa Birnie.

Leigh Sales’ book, Any Ordinary Day and Rachael Brown’s Trace: Who Killed Maria James? also garnered more reviews for you to check out at your leisure.

Finally to some exciting overseas news for Sarah Krasnostein, the author of The Trauma Cleaner, as her book was longlisted for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize. The shortlist will be announced next month.


About Bronwyn: I have been a book blogger at Brona’s Books since 2009 and a bookseller (specialising in children’s literature) in Sydney since 2008. Prior to this I was as an Early Childhood teacher for 18 years in country NSW.

I joined the AWW team in 2015 as the History, Memoir, Biography editor. In 2017 I moved to the General Non-fiction page and in 2018 I picked up the role of editor of Poetry. You can also find me at The Classics Club as one of the new Gen 2 moderators.

dragonflyI taught myself to read when I was four by memorising my Dr Seuss books. I haven’t stopped reading since.

You can find me on Twitter @bronasbooks and Litsy @Brona.