A Huge Roundup of New Releases

And a choose your own giveaway adventure

Dear Readers,

I’m really happy to be back with a regular edition of News & Reviews. And I’m really really happy with how the plan for the new monthly special livestream-slash-book club is unfolding. Sam found a site called Speak Pipe which lets you easily record and send in a voice memo that we can play on the show! Try it here. Don’t forget, if you’ve got a question for Emily Maguire about Rapture, drop it here. And put Wednesday 30 October 6.30pm Sydney time in your diaries to join us on the livestream. Scroll to the bottom of today’s newsletter for more details about all that—I’m adding a Sally Rooney Intermezzo conversation... juicy juicy. :)

In other fun news, the Cool Story SYD Live Xmas Show tickets went on sale yesterday and this morning there were only 30 left. (The original plan was to share the link here first, dear subscribers, but when we ‘teased’ it on Monday real fans started googling and found the URL lolol sorry!) It’s on Tuesday 26 November and—this is important—none of it will be recorded. Phones off! Shenanigans guaranteed!

A friendly reminder that I’ve got some more events talking about The Work in the coming fortnight:

• On Sunday 20 October I’ll be in Tathra for the Headland Writers Festival. Tickets and information is here.

• On Saturday 26 October I’ll in Canberra for the Canberra Writers Festival. Tickets and information is here.

• On Sunday 27 October I’ll be in Berry for the Berry Writers Festival. Tickets and information is here.

And finally before we dig in, I need to do a sensitive call-out for sources. I’m writing a large piece for the ABC about teenagers making deepfakes of their peers and teachers, and I’m looking to speak to some people who have experienced this. There is some overlap here with the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (so-called ‘revenge porn’) but I’m specifically covering the tech-assisted creation of this imagery. If you’re a young person or an educator who has had it happen to you, or seen it happen at your school or workplace, please get in touch with me by replying to this email in your inbox or emailing me at bri.lee.writer[at]gmail.com. We can change your name and de-identify you if you want or need.

Best wishes and happy reading,

Bri

Good News

1. In a shocking turn of events, BigPharma appear in today’s good news segment. Gilead Sciences (you read that right) have announced that a cheap version of lenacapavir—a HIV prevention drug that requires only two shots a year—is going to be made available in 120 low- and middle-income countries. As the Guardian reports, they’re ‘prioritising registration in 18 countries with high HIV rates including Botswana, South Africa and Thailand.’ Critics are arguing that Latin America has been left behind and they’re right, but here at N&R we always mark the wins.

   

2. Although the facts of the case are horrific, I think it’s good news that a Sydney man is being charged with 32 counts of sexual intercourse without consent after (allegedly) giving bad cheques to 10 sex workers. Can you imagine how difficult it is for a sex worker to get the police to take them seriously? Can you imagine how many people don’t think this is ‘real’ rape? The SMH are reported in July that the accused’s ‘heavily pregnant wife watched from the public gallery’ (YUCK) and just this week that he was also being charged for sneaking onto a yacht and ‘stealing four boxes of crackers’ (LOLWUT). If this case does result in a conviction I’d like to write something in plain English about why non-payment of a sex worker is rightly considered rape; I suspect a lot of people don’t have full clarity on that.

3. As Queensland approach their next election, Premier Steven Miles has vowed that if Labor are re-elected, kids in sate primary schools will get free lunches. The ABC report that ‘the LNP has labelled the scheme “desperate”, claiming Labor “pinched a Greens’ policy”.’ Which they totally did, but like… so what? It’s a genius policy based on evidence about what children at state schools desperately need. Added bonus too that it helps families with cost-of-living. The Greens say if they get the balance of power they’ll push it to all students through to year 12. Even if Labor aren’t elected, this is basically how I imagine the Australian political system is supposed to work; Greens dragging Labor to the left and redefining the centre.

Bad News

1. Well, it’s been a year since October 7 2023, and Al Jazeera pulled the numbers together: ‘At least 16,756 children have been killed, the highest number of children recorded in a single year of conflict over the past two decades.’ Now Netanyahu is saying the IDF ‘will continue to strike Hezbollah without compassion in every part of Lebanon, including in Beirut’ which, in IDF worldview, means every civilian in Lebanon has been warned and deserves what they get hereafter. Apparently the USA is saying that ‘Israel must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to weapons funding’ but I don’t think anyone really believes that. The Committee to Protect Journalists report ‘128 journalists and media workers were confirmed killed: 123 Palestinian, two Israeli, and three Lebanese’ with many more injured and missing. There is no end in sight.

2. The police commissioner in the Northern Territory has confirmed spit hoods will again be used to restrain children. As Guardian Australia reports, ‘the chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, campaigned hard on law and order before being elected to the top job in August’ and has promised to lower the criminal age of responsibility. The United Nations committee against torture recommended that Australia end the use of spit hoods in all circumstances. I repeat: committee against torture.

3. Over in France, Dominique Pelicot has plead guilty and we are hearing from some of the 50 men who Pelicot invited over to rape his wife, Gisèle, while she was drugged. The things these men are saying fill me with rage. As the NYT reports, ‘Mr. Pelicot kept meticulous video evidence of most of the assaults, so the defendants cannot dispute the material facts.’ Their only defense is that they ‘did not know that what they were doing was rape because they did not know that they did not have the consent of Ms. Pelicot.’ One of the accused said ‘She’s his wife. He can do whatever he wants with her.’ One said ‘I don’t accept being called a rapist,’ explaining just how much he’s learned about consent since his arrest. Our bodies are not lessons for you.

Bad Reviews

Okay, I’m laying down three gauntlets here. I’m begging you to change my mind about one or any of these widely-beloved things which I’m currently not on board with. Please, get lively in the comments.

1. Mubi. What the fuck am I doing wrong here? Oh, I’m sorry, am I a plebian imbecile for wanting to search by genre? Does one need an encyclopedic knowledge of niche directors to be able to use this app? I unsubscribed to Netflix and Binge and three other services, and now my household sort of picks one at a time to do more deliberately. (See also: of this New York Times article by Willy Staley I shared last week.) I thought Mubi would take us in some new interesting directions, but so far it has only taken me to one German Marxist vampire ‘comedy’ full of people pretending to smoke and one joke per hour.

2. SXSW Sydney. I love innovation and creativity and live events, so why am I simultaneously confused and repelled by your website? Why are your tickets and passes so expensive when I’m seeing so many colossal corporate partners listed here? And is it true that you don’t actually pay your panellists? Say it isn’t true.

3. I got 98 pages in to Things Will Calm Down Soon by Zoë Foster Blake. That’s the end of Part I. Has anyone gotten any further? Does it pay off?

Good Reviews / New Releases Roundup

Last week on my Instagram stories I unpacked six books I’d received in the post while I was away. I decided to read the first 30-50 pages of these three of them and report back.

1. Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser isn’t out until 29 October but this is your green light to pre-order it or put your name down on your local library’s waiting list. The packaging is firm on it being ‘a novel’ but there’s something else going on here: we start with a random fictional place, then there’s a sort of pivot and breaking of the fourth wall, then we enter something that feels memoirish. Obviously a novel can be written in the ‘style’ of a memoir, whatever that means, but the sort of analysis going on in these pages feels essayistic. There’s a gem of a sentence every few pages so far, I’ve laughed twice, and it’s only a slip of a thing. I’ll definitely finish it. She’s playing with some big ideas.

2. To my knowledge this is the first offering from Piketty that isn’t a fucking doorstop. Every summer I say to myself: this is the summer you’re finally going to read Capital and Ideology… but it’s never that summer. So this little gift, Nature, Culture, and Inequality is sort of a first date with the famous French economist. He immediately explains why ‘Sweden’ isn’t the answer to everything. The graphs and tables are clear. The data on gender is suitably infuriating. And the discussion about the ‘emergence of a propertied middle class’ over the last century is fascinating. If the point of this book is for it to be an entree to the main course Piketty tomes, then I’d call it a success.

3. Long Yarn Short: We Are Still Here by Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts is part-memoir, part-expose, part treatise. Turnbull-Roberts was ten when she was taken away from her parents and is now a lawyer and advocate. I’m forty pages in and have already learned a lot about ‘family policing’ in the prison industrial complex and the foster/state care system in Australia; ‘crossover children’ is the term for the kids that get caught in that pipeline. And as Turnbull-Roberts writes, ‘The historical context of Indigenous child removal is deeply intertwined with the legacies of colonisation and enslavement. The deliberate policies and practices aimed at assimilation and cultural eradication have left lasting scars on our communities.’

Upcoming Livestream and Giveaways

The winner of last week’s giveaway, the colouring book of shopfronts from all around Sri Lanka by Safiya Sideek, is #6 out of 67. I’ve emailed you, Olivia Storrie!

This week’s giveaway is fun. I reckon these publishers will give me a copy of one of these (to give to you) if I ask… so! You decide! Which one most of you want, and then I’ll do a link for it next week. :)

For the livestream in two weeks, I’ve decided we’ll talk about both Rapture and Intermezzo. Why? Something I’ve been asking myself while reflecting on both these novels is: what do I actually want when I read fiction? A big part of what I’m after is immersion and transportation, which requires believability, which is a problem I’ve been having with the Rooney… I’ll explain it in full next week once I’ve finished.

So that’s a question I’d love to hear you speak to. Please record me a voice note! You’ve got 90 seconds and it’s easiest on your mobile phone here. Something about Rapture, something about Intermezzo, or something about what you want (what you really really want) in a novel?

If you’ve got a question for Emily Maguire about Rapture, drop it here. And put Wednesday 30 October 6.30pm Sydney time in your diaries to join us on the livestream. See you there.