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Issue Details: First known date: 2023... 2023 Critic Swallows Book : Ten Years of the Sydney Review of Books
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Contents

* Contents derived from the Penrith, Penrith area, Sydney Outer West, Sydney, New South Wales,:Giramondo Publishing , 2023 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Place of Terrorism in Australia, Ali Cobby Eckermann , single work
Flow Charts, Ross Gibson , single work review
Introduction, Catriona Menzies-Pike , single work essay
A Home in Ananda and the World, Suneeta Peres da Costa , single work essay
Vanishing Bolano, Yumna Kassab , single work review
Staring Back, Jeanine Leane , single work review
— Review of Dropbear Evelyn Araluen , 2021 selected work poetry essay ;

'Since the invasion of Australia in 1788, First Nations Peoples have been forced into the literary images of the colonisers. We have been described as noble savages, vermin, half-castes, temptresses, and problems, just to name a few. Our entrapment in the literary canon of the invading settlers is what constructed and maintained the colonial mythscape of the modern nation of Australia.' (Introduction)

The Time Police, Louis Klee , single work review
Untimely Modernism, Alys Moody , single work review
— Review of Dodge Rose Jack Cox , 2015 single work novel ;
The Provincial and the Princess, Ivor Indyk , single work review
— Review of The Voyage Murray Bail , 2012 single work novel ;
The Living and the Undead, Ben Etherington , single work essay

'The death of an author can be an awkward subject for critics. Death calls for empathy, goodwill (however retrospective), and mourning. The genres appropriate to it – elegy, eulogy, obituary – tend to be ones that burnish the subjective. Faults may be mentioned but only as part of a wholistic appraisal of a life whose worth is ultimately affirmed. This sits in tension with criticism’s objective register and the open-ended nature of interpretation and judgement. Affirmation can come across as sentimental, objective appraisal as heartless or ‘too soon’. Perhaps death is a moment when critics ought to keep their thoughts to themselves.' (Introduction)

Cryptic Cargo, Mridula Nath Chakraborty , single work review
Expert Textpert, James Ley , single work review
Speculative Philology, Tom Clark , single work review
Critic Swallows Book, Catriona Menzies-Pike , single work essay

'Picture Trent Dalton sitting on a Brisbane street corner. A typewriter on a folding table in front of him, a hand-made sign stuck to it, upon which is written the words, ‘sentimental writer seeks stories’. Here he is, the most bankable Australian writer of the decade: a storyteller on the street, a man on the tools, a displaced sentimental bloke trying to make sense of twenty-first century life. And this is how he wrote his latest book, a work of non-fiction called Love Stories, the title of which is self-explanatory. Dalton has kept the ecstasy and epiphany dials turned to eleven since the release of Boy Swallows Universe in 2018 – and Australian readers love him.' (Introduction)

Verisimilitude, Melinda Harvey , single work review
Between Night and Night, Bonny Cassidy , single work review
— Review of Enfolded in the Wings of a Great Darkness Peter Boyle , 2019 selected work poetry ;

'Death’s intrusion upon love is an old complaint. Philosophically, in Western Europe, it may have emerged as a problem in response to ideas of human limitation in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. This was early materialist thinking intended to prepare the late Roman mind for the finitude of life, belief, control and pleasure. The poetry of death-in-love is another matter. It is characterised by rage, disbelief and helplessness. It is ancient and myriad.' (Introduction)

Probably Not Tomorrow, Drusilla Modjeska , single work review
Fully Present, Utterly Connected, Tegan Bennett Daylight , single work review
— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel ;
A History of Shapes, Alix Beeston , single work review
Wayward Revolutions, Andrew Brooks , single work review
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