Steve MinOn, First Name Second Name

- This wonderful and challenging novel is shortlisted for the 2026 Miles Franklin Award. The winner will be announced in August. I've read most of the nominees and can confidently predict this has a real chance of winning. (Along with Randa Abdel-Fattah's amazing Discipline. Both published by the deplorable UQP. And both written by immigrants!)

- Steve MinOn's surname, with the capital O in the middle, reflects the main character's surname in the book. It's two Chinese first names meshed together because this is Australia mate! In gold rush 1878 Pan Bo Lin married an Irish woman who named him Mr Pan Bolin. Thus the origin of the Bolin family over generations. 

- We're in rural Queensland. The Aussie males are blokey and racist, and fatherhood is challenging. And the women and wives are forced to obey. 

- The novel has a fantasy element called Jiangshi, a state in which a dead person is also mysteriously alive and walks around observing and commenting. The main character Stephen lives in today's world as he is Pan's great grandson. Now dead, experiencing his 'interminable trek', he reflects on the abject racism he suffered painfully throughout his life. He was also gay, something foreign to his family, and was forced to keep it secret, particularly from his conservative father, Willie, who liked the newly elected Pauline Hanson, even agreeing with her that ‘we are in danger of being swamped by Asians’! 

- Throughout the book as we learn of the lives of the Bolin family and their partners and kids, we are immersed in Queensland towns like Innisfail and Proserpine, and details of the politics of the times - Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Wayne Goss for example. The generational relationships are complex as there are so many brothers and sisters with children and grandchildren. (Thank god there is a dramatis personae at the beginning of the book which clarifies who's who). Despite the Bolin's Chinese heritage they all married white people. As Stephen's nephew asks at one point: 'Every marriage in a hundred years has been to someone of European or Anglo descent. Caucasian. Can you not see it? Nobody married anyone Chinese. Not even Asian, or First Nations of Pasifika or African, or...how can that be a coincidence?'  

- As the decades pass families and relationships change. Steven goes to London where he finds it hard to get work and hard to adjust. Edinburgh, however, his mother’s former home, is far more comfortable. He also gets captured by the gay scene and spends most nights partying, drinking and indulging in casual sex. While there his father is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He's reluctant to come home and attend the funeral. 

-Steve MinonOn has written an intriguing novel that explores so many dimensions of the complex Australian character. The prose is lucid and readable, and his observations deep and real. A novel that will stay with you for a long time.   

Haruo Yuki, The Ark.

 

- Haruo Yuki is a celebrated Japanese mystery writer. On publication in Japan in 2022 this novel became an instant bestseller. It sold over half a million copies in its first year. It's now been translated into English. 

- It's no surprise that it's a bestseller. It's an intriguing and very engaging story about a series of murders that take place in an abandoned three story building in a cave high in the mountains of Japan. Seven former university students and a small family discover it by accident when hiking. It has many bedrooms, and other rooms full of electrical and building equipment. For some strange reason, however, a huge rock lies close to the exit door on the upper floor. The lower floor is also full of water. 

- Unfortunately a major earthquake takes place and causes the rock to roll towards the upper floor's door, completely blocking the only exit. The middle floor is also starting to be flooded by the rise in water from the lower floor. The only way the students and family can escape is by winching the rock so it crashes down to the middle floor. However that would mean one of the students or parents would have to volunteer to do that from the middle floor and therefore be trapped and drown. Who would volunteer to do that? According to their estimates they have a week at the most to evacuate. 

- But the story is just beginning. One of the male students is found murdered by hanging. Then a popular female one and the father were brutally murdered. 

- So we have a classic who-dunnit. The story develops as one student in particular has a detective-like talent for examining all the elements in detail. Mobile phones become key to the resolution. Who is the murderer, and how will they escape? And why are they committing these horrific murders?

- The resolution is surprising in the extreme, right up to the final page. Is it satisfying? Or does the murderer win?

- A thrilling read. 

Steve Toltz, A Rising of the Lights

- Steve Toltz's first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and his second novel, Quicksand, won the 2017 Russell Prize for humour. 

- His new novel, A Rising of the Lights, will blow all judging committees absolutely away if there's any justice in the world! It's brilliant on all levels. In prose that's bursting with life he's gone deep into the rather miserable life of Russell who's a total loser. 

- His marriage to Alison doesn't last, his affair with a friend and teacher colleague, Edwina, is on and off then on again perhaps, and he's been fired from the two jobs he's ever had. His sister, Bonnie, is a completely unlikable, friendless nutcase and scammer, so obviously they don't get on. His parents split when Russell and Bonnie were young kids. On the roll of dice his mother took him and his father took Bonnie. Both dumped them a few years later. 

- This is madness on steroids - shocking, crazy and comical. But at the same time a deep and thoughtful dive into what actually being human, sensitive and intelligent means. Toltz explores interiority and immerses the reader into all its dimensions. 

- AI is also under the spotlight. Consciousness still dominates. 

- The ending is surprising on many levels but very satisfying. 

- Here are a couple of paragraphs that will give you a taste of the book's brilliance. Russell is a career counsellor at Edwina's private school and he's addressing the parents:

'Let me offer you a deeper insight into your children and the lives they’re hiding even from themselves. When I first arrived, I saw your kids as emotionally dysregulated, insecure shit-talkers, chronically stressed, disconnected perfectionists, spoiled, coddled, overpraised budding pansexuals curating their litany of psychosomatic mental illness self-diagnoses, the girls floaty bundles of mimetic desire and mysterious endocrine dysfunction, and the boys neurodivergent maladaptive daydreamers setting the mould for at least three decades of chronic loneliness and Peter Panning it.

But after spending time with your children, I can now confidently say that your parenting has fostered remarkable resilience. These kids aren’t haunted by the spectres of unlived experiences or alternative selves. They’re not burdened by subconscious guilt. Instead, they’re navigating unseen pressures with impressive grace. Now, do they sometimes grapple with feelings of inferiority and experience some pretty hilarious cognitive dissonance? Of course. That’s part of growing up online. What’s striking is how they’re tackling these challenges, demonstrating the strong psychological foundation you’ve given them. In my professional opinion, the strength and adaptability I’m seeing in your children is a testament to your parenting. So while it’s natural to worry, I want to assure you, anxiety is the life force manifested. Genius reveals itself in the foetal position. And as for their futures, we can only admire their shadows as they fly overhead'.

Anna Goldsworthy, The God We Made: The Threat and Promise of Artificial Intelligence

 

- I've read quite a few books and articles on AI over the last few years but this recent Quarterly Essay from Australian author, musician and academic Anna Goldsworthy is by far the best. It's, quite simply, superb.

- What makes it special is its personal voice. Anna talks about her two teenage sons, O who is thirteen, and R who is seventeen, and how they see AI, use it, and experience it at school and in their daily lives. They are extremely bright and highly literate kids. Their conversations around the dinner table are simply invigorating. 

- But the essay is also full of detail and data about AI, not so much on how it works and how trillions of dollars have been and will continue to be spent building data centres. It focuses mainly on human beings and their real personal and social needs, and how AI will affect them and satisfy them. So it's not a technical analysis. It's about communities and the likely positive and negative impacts on the quality of life. 

- Another very pleasing feature of the essay is Anna's reflections on her life and career as an academic. She is highly literate and her frequent references to noted authors, philosophers, historians and artists really enrich her thoughts and arguments. She is also a wonderfully talented writer. The prose is delightful. 

- She also quotes many senior staff who have recently resigned from their AI jobs. Their opinions as to how the current trajectory of AI is worrisome in the extreme are enlightening. Some of them are forming new companies with a more careful and social focus. Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic, notes that in an AI world 'studying the humanities is going to be more important than ever' for 'understanding ourselves, understanding history, understanding what makes us tick'. 

- So the essay is well worth reading. I read it twice. It's so damn good!

Wayne Marshall, Henry Goes Bush

- Wayne Marshall's first novel is a fascinating story about famous Australian poet and writer Henry Lawson. It's historical - set in the 1890's - but also an indulgence in fantasy, often whacky and insane. Nevertheless it's delightful and full of meaning.   

- Lawson is sent to Bourke in the North-West of NSW by The Bulletin’s editor, J.F.Archibald, to write some articles about the bush. He’s also a drunk. ‘He’d gladly sell his soul for a beer’. He's pretty negative about all the romantic bullshit about the bush. His famous poem is 'The Drover's Wife'.

- His upper class mate is famous poet Banjo Paterson, ‘a city wanker’ according to Henry. He's a celebrator of the character of the bush and its people, and he created 'Waltzing Matilda'. He's also sent to Bourke. Archibald wants a 'poetic dual’. 

- Henry discovers a tunnel located in a backyard. It's washed in brilliant colour. He falls down and around and ends in a new room. Banjo and his female friend also fall into the tunnel where it’s dark for days. 

- The novel is written in a rhythmic prose which echoes the poetic style made popular by Lawson and Paterson. Each line is balanced by two clauses - 'There was movement at the station for the word had got around'. It's lyrical and engaging. 

- Marshall adds details of the life and death of Lawson and how the rivaIry with Banjo and their friendship developed. I would urge you to read a selection of their famous works. 

Moreno Giovannoni, The Immigrants

- This new novel from Moreno Giovannoni was announced a few weeks ago as Winner of The Age Book of the Year 2026. On all sorts of levels it's brilliant. 

- The author calls it a work of fiction but the historical truth of it underlies it and gives it richness and credibility. It's the story of Giovannoni's family, mainly his father Ugo and his mother Morena who decide to migrate to Australia in the late 1950's. Australia, an English colony, is considered an attractive destination for hard working men and their families. Life in an impoverished Italy after World War II is harsh and offers minimal prospects.   

- What I really loved about the story was its absorbing nitty gritty detail about the predicament of being an Italian immigrant to Australia. There is life, there is work, but  there is also death. In fact deaths, including murder and suicide, frequently happen. Being an immigrant is hard on all sorts of levels. Tensions run deep. Marriages fracture. It's not really a Fabula Mirabilis, or a Wonderful Story. It's a deep challenge. The colony is biased against foreigners. The book, later a film, They're a Weird Mob, is typical.

- Ugo and his friends worked in the tobacco industry. It was dirty, hard and unforgiving. But it paid a reasonable wage. And allowed them to return regularly to Italy to see their families who they missed so much. 

- Here are a few passages:

'He is a foreign boy, learning how to live among the Australians as he goes along. There is no pub drinking culture in his family, no oval football game culture, no interest in the Melbourne Cup or Anzac Day or public drunkenness or vomiting'. 

'Ambitious farmers like Ugo grow twenty tons of tobacco in a season. Of the 1200 growers 800 are Italians. It cannot be said often enough. It is an Italian operation'. 

'They're really just pagans who have laid a thin veneer of Christianity over ancient beliefs in the gods of vineyards and olive groves....Father Lacey and the Catholic nuns fight a losing battle trying to get the Italians to follow Irish Catholic protocols'. 

'His mother and father don't like it here and are getting their little family ready to go. The colony isn't a place you take seriously as somewhere to spend the rest of your life. It is too far away, from mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends. It is too far from the world. At best all you have here is are small islands of repair in an ocean of desperation'.

        

          

 

 

Antoinette Lattouf, Women Who Win

- Loved this book. Lattouf tells the stories of lots of women pioneers and protestors throughout Australia’s history. 

- Her writing is often cheeky and colloquial but she digs deep into the predicament of so many women who were sacrificing so much to overcome the constant barriers facing them. Since Australia's founding men were in charge, not just domestically but politically, morally, legally and socially. Across every spectrum of society women’s ambitions were constantly denied and their opinions and protests ignored. They couldn't stand for parliament, they couldn't study and get employment as lawyers, abortion was illegal, and so many women were denied access to so many domains dominated by men. 

- Running throughout these stories is her own - her sacking from the ABC for sending as a private person on Instagram the Human Rights Watch condemnation of Israel’s starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza. A WhatsApp group called 'Lawyers for Israel' wanted her sacked and rendered 'unemployable'. Millions of people across the world, including thousands in Australia, had read the HRW statement, but how dare an ABC employee of a Lebanese, Arab, or Middle Eastern 'race' innocently repost it.  

- David Anderson, the ABC’s Managing Director, and Ita Buttrose, the Chair, were harassed by the Israeli lobby and, as is so typical of ignorant and cowardly management, they caved. 

- Lattouf describes the effect this had on her emotional wellbeing. And on her family, her husband and two young daughters. It was devastating. 

- After the ABC refused to settle on reasonable grounds, the case went to court in early 2025, and after a long and stressful time the Judge handed down his verdict. She won. 

- ABC management 'should have stamped out the sparks of external pressure, but instead they tried to extinguish me. In doing so, they doused themselves in accelerant and struck the match...' They also had to pay $220,000 to Latouf, and had spent more than $2.6 million fighting her plus internal legal staffing fees. 

(Recently the publisher UQP cancelled publication of the children’s book Bila, a River Cycle by Wiradjuri writer Jazz Money and Indigenous illustrator Matt Chun because of Chun's political views on the Bondi attack and Israel's slaughter of Indigenous Palestinians. Here are Chun's contentious views which were not included in the book in any way, shape or form. Once again senior managers indulged in disgraceful and cowardly behaviour. And remember MUP's appalling cancellation of the respected journal Meanjin? How on earth are our cultural and academic leaders so easily coerced by the Zionist lobby?)