The Best Australian Essays

Setting the benchmark for the Australian essay the definitive, up-to-date collection. Each year, The Best Australian Essays brings together the most outstanding non-fiction from around the country. In 2011, to celebrate a rich decade of writing on all manner of topics, Black Inc.

‘When a group of essays get together in a room they start talking to each other, often in surprising ways ... The existence of these voices – stylish, vital frequently wise – is a source of hope.’ —Anna Goldsworthy The Best Australian Essays showcases the nation’s most eloquent, insightful and urgent non-fiction writing. In her debut as editor of the anthology, award-winning author Anna Goldsworthy chooses brilliant pieces that provoke, unveil, engage and enlighten. From the election of Donald Trump to digital disruption, from the passing of rock gods to the wonders of Australian slang, these essays get to the heart of what’s happening in Australia and the world. Contributors include Shannon Burns, Barry Humphries, Stan Grant, Keane Shum, Richard Cooke, Nick Feik, Michael Adams, Micheline Lee, Mandy Sayer, Tim Flannery, Sonya Hartnett, Harriet Riley, John Clarke, Jennifer Rutherford, Amanda Niehaus, Sam Vincent, Lech Blaine, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Moreno Giovannoni, Janine Mikosza, Melissa Howard, Helen Garner, James Wood, J.M. Coetzee, Robert Skinner, Sebastian Smee and Anwen Crawford. Anna Goldsworthy is the author of Piano Lessons, Welcome to Your New Life and the Quarterly Essay Unfinished Business: Sex, Freedom and Misogyny. Her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, the Australian, the Adelaide Review and The Best Australian Essays. She is also a concert pianist, with several recordings to her name.

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This year's Best Australian Essays ranges far and wide. There are portraits of Michael Jackson, Samuel Beckett, the kookaburra, Julia Gillard and Charles Darwin. There are dazzling pieces on commerce and cricket, extinction and translation, perfume and politics. There are journeys through landscapes scorched and recovering, and reflections on turning points both public and deeply personal. For Robyn Davidson, the best essays 'put oneself and the world to the test.' Here is a collection of pieces that do just that - and also entertain, inspire and provoke.

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The best of the best This essential book takes a decade of Best Australian Essays and selects the cream of the crop. These are the pieces that have captured key events - from September 11 to Victoria's fires - changed the way we see the nation, for good or ill - from Anzac Day to Palm Island - investigated intriguing figures - from Oskar Schindler to Charles Darwin - or which simply represent a peak of the writer's art. Contributors include: Thomas Keneally, Chloe Hooper, Peter Porter, David Malouf, John Birmingham, Helen Garner, Inga Clendinnen, MJ Hyland, Barry Humphries, David Marr, Clive James, Robyn Davidson, Christos Tsiolkas, Craig Sherborne, Kevin Brophy, Frank Devine, Barry Oakley, Jessica Anderson, Alan Frost, Gary Hughes, Christine Kenneally, JM Coetzee, Simon Leys, Anna Goldsworthy, Brenda Walker, Anne Manne, Shane Maloney, Noel Pearson, Tim Flannery, Robert Manne, Richard Flanagan, Gay Alcorn, Mark Riley, Nicolas Rothwell, Robert Dessaix, Anna Krien, Tim Winton, Kate Jennings, Benjamin Law and David Foster