Experience ANU

Ian Rankin was in conversation with Chris Hammer on Midnight and Blue, the latest instalment of the Inspector Rebus series, and reflections on Ian’s bestselling career in crime writing. Midnight and Blue is Ian Rankin at his tense and thrilling best. Detective Inspector John Rebus spent his life putting Edinburgh's most deadly criminals behind bars. Now, he's joined them. As new allies and old ene...

Geoff Raby was in conversation with Allan Behm on the updated edition of his book China’s Grand Strategy and Australia’s Future in the New Global Order and his recent publication, Great Game On. The contest for Central Asia and Global Supremacy.

Award-winning biographer Judith Brett was in conversation with Virginia Haussegger on her new book Fearless Beatrice Faust: Sex, Feminism and Body Politics.

Steve Vizard was in conversation with Frank Bongiorno on Nation, Memory, Myth. Gallipoli and the Australian Imaginary, a book in which Steve Vizard brings an original perspective to the foundational myth of Gallipoli as a sacred bearer of Australian national values and identity.

Best-selling author Dervla McTiernan was in conversation with Chris Hammer with her much-anticipated new novel in the Cormac Reilly series, The Unquiet Grave.

Kate Grenville was in conversation with Ann McGrath on her new book Unsettled: A Journey Through Time and Place. What does it mean to be on land taken from others? ‘What does it mean to be on land that was taken from other people? Now that we know how the taking was done, what do we do with that knowledge?’

Journalist and proud Gamilaroi woman Brooke Boney was in conversation with Virginia Haussegger on her new book All of It. Notes on public life, private joy and everything in between. A collection of witty and heartfelt essays about love, loss and ambition.

Joan Beaumont was in conversation with Christina Twomey on her new book Gull Force Australian POWs on Ambon and Hainan, 1941–45. The members of the Australian battalion of Gull Force endured some of the harshest prisoner-of-war conditions of any Australian during the Second World War.

Jess Hill was in conversation with Hayley Boxall on Jess's new Quarterly Essay Losing It Can We Stop Violence Against Women and Children?

Vincent Fantauzzo was in conversation with Helen Musa on his memoir Unveiled, the incredible true story of how a street-fighting petty criminal, who was kicked out of school at fourteen, became one of Australia’s most celebrated and successful portrait artists.

Best-selling author and TV historian Bettany Hughes was in conversation with Caillan Davenport on her book The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a revelatory new history of the ancient world told through its seven greatest monuments.

Robert Dessaix was in conversation with Andrew Leigh on his new book Chameleon: A memoir of art, travel, ideas and love. Robert Dessaix’s Chameleon is about everything that matters, a book of memories that flow so freely they seem to happen as we read. Cartwheeling from story to story, Dessaix describes an identity in flux: his beginnings as an adopted child named Thomas Robert Jones, his youthful...

Stan Grant was in conversation with Mark Kenny on his book Murriyang. Song of Time. Stan Grant is talking to his country in a new way. In his most poetic and inspiring work yet, he offers a means of moving beyond the binaries and embracing a path to peace and forgiveness, rooted in the Wiradjuri spiritual practice of Yindyamarra – deep silence and respect.

Geraldine Brooks was in conversation with Alex Sloan on her new book Memorial Days, a heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toward peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse.

Misha Ketchell was moderating a discussion with Frank Bongiorno, Michelle Grattan and Mark Kenny, contributors to the new collection of essays, How Australian Democracy Works. And why we need it more than ever, edited by Amanda Dunn, a book in which The Conversation‘s best authors reveal the real story of how power works in Australia.

Juno Gemes was in a conversation with Linda Burney, moderated by Ann McGrath, on her new book Until Justice Comes: Fifty Years of The Movement for Indigenous Rights.

George Megalogenis was in conversation with Niki Savva on his new quarterly essay Minority Report The New Shape of Australian Politics Australian politics is shifting. The two-party system was broken at the last federal election, and another minority government is a real possibility in the future. Politics-as-usual is not enough for many voters.

Best-selling author, Peter FitzSimons was in conversation with Mathew Trinca on his new book The Legend of Albert Jacka: From the brutal shores of Gallipoli to the battlefields of France, the epic story of the first Australian soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross in WW1.

David Marr, one of Australia's foremost writers and thinkers, was in conversation with Andrew Leigh on the updated edition of his book, My Country: Stories, Essays and Speeches David Marr is the rarest of breeds: one of Australia’s most unflinching, forensic reporters of political controversy, and one of its most subtle and eloquent biographers. In Marr’s hands, reportage and commentary are elevat...

John Safran was in conversation with Kim Rubenstein on his new book Squat, in which he recounts his time squatting in a Hollywood celebrity’s abandoned mansion..With the celebrity’s promotion of Hitler as a kick-off point, Safran explores threads of Jewishness, identity and belonging – topics that couldn’t hit closer to home.

Best-selling Italian author Paolo Giordano was in conversation with Marco Lazzarino on his semi-autobiographical novel Tasmania, which captures the fear, anxiety, wonder, and beauty of this time of uncertainty and upheaval, exploring how we can create and maintain relationships with other people when it feels increasingly difficult to connect.

Shaun Micallef was in conversation with Andrew Leigh on his new book Slivers, Shards and Skerricks. “A one-man anthology by one of Australia's most intelligent and more handsome Renaissance men.”

Benjamin Stevenson was in conversation with Jack Heath on his new novel Everyone this Christmas has a Secret, a Christmas addition to his bestselling Ernest Cunningham mysteries. Unwrap all the Christmas staples: presents, family, an impossible murder or two, and a deadly advent calendar of clues. If Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club kissed under the mistletoe...

Canberra Writers Festival, in partnership with ANU Meet the Author and Canberra Times, and Penguin Books Australia, were proud to welcome Tim Winton to Canberra to discuss his new novel, JUICE. An epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit. This is Tim Winton as you’ve never read him before.

Andrew Leigh was in conversation with Lin Hatfield Dodds on his new book Battlers and Billionaires: The Updated Story of Inequality in Australia. Is Australia fair enough? And why does inequality matter anyway? From egalitarian beginnings, Australian inequality rose through the nineteenth century. Then we became more equal again, with inequality falling markedly from the 1920s to the 1970s. Now, i...