Catriona Menzies-Pike
@catrionamp.bsky.social
Editor and critic at large. SYD →YVR. I write a newsletter about literature and the internet called Infra Dig. https://infra-dig.ghost.io
A slight tangent: always amusing to go home and hear people crap on Trump when he couldn't dream of legislating anything like Australia's decades-old, bipartisan immigration policy. When he told Malcolm Turnbull "You're worse than me" he was 100% correct
If I were a betting person or understood Polymarket I would have put odds on the LRB commissioning Emily Wilson to write about The Odyssey; the NYRB commissioning Daniel Mendelssohn; both of them hating the film –– and you know what, I WOULD HAVE CLEANED UP www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
Artful Weaving | Daniel Mendelsohn
The most authentic thing about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is its densely braided narrative, but its tormented hero sounds like the heroes of Christopher Nolan movies.
nybooks.com
I have neglected my newsletter of late, for which omission I credit work, life and the Rocky Mountains. A new missive now in circulation, which mainly gathers new reviews, and restores some of the notes, asides and caveats that got cut to satisfy word limits. infra-dig.ghost.io/bear-season/
Bear Season
On bears; feral women and weird fiction; novels about grief and the climate crisis; and too many books.
infra-dig.ghost.io
I wrote about Maria Takolander's new novel for Guardian Australia - among other things, this novel is a bracing and timely rebuke to climate denialism. You want adaptation to the climate crisis? Try this... www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
The End of Romance by Maria Takolander – a bleak, bold and urgent novel for our times
A mother and son scavenge and pillage in a violent post-apocalyptic world, in the poet and short story writer’s tense and engrossing debut
theguardian.com
Reading this another grim reported piece about the state of the arts in Australia, this time musical theatre, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Albanese government is perfectly ready to let arts and culture wither on the vine. www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/j...
The show must go on: musical theatre cancellations lead to industry calls for urgent government help
In the space of a week, two major musicals, Waitress and Beetlejuice, and a $20m opera were forced to cancel shows amid skyrocketing costs, putting hundreds out of work
theguardian.com
Happy 100th birthday to Mel Brooks. May he continue to scarf these delicacies for another hundred years.
Michael Schulman@michaelschulman.bsky.social · last mo.I also asked him his favorite sandwich, because I knew he’d have an answer this good.
I'm very grateful to everyone who spoke to me, on and off record, about publishing and promoting Australian books. Since this story appeared, my inbox has been running hot with with more tales of books and careers stymied by burnout, fuckups, cut corners, and the rush ethos. It's grim out there.
Alice Grundy@alicektg.bsky.social · 2mo agoCollapsed timelines, floods of new titles and a low-paid workforce under pressure. @catrionamp.bsky.social examines what's happening in contemporary Australian publishing. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Spoke with the excellent @catrionamp.bsky.social for this important piece on our stressed-out publishing industry. It’s no wonder authors and editors are struggling with burnout. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Australia is publishing books too quickly – and everyone is losing out
Thanks to rushed deadlines, financial pressure and overworked staff, titles are going to market before they’re ready – and then sliding from view immediately
theguardian.com
"So ... so I said ... why not sign your treaty here, at Versailles?"
Somehow it escaped my notice that the NYT now has a 'canon editor'. "Gilbert Cruz, a creative, forward-thinking editor, will take on the new role of Canon editor." Foremost among his responsibilities: crafting lists of definitive works and experiences. www.nytco.com/press/defini...
Defining the Modern Canon | The New York Times Company
nytco.com
We’ve hit peak Oz journalist abroad very early this World Cup. Look at this city, it’s just like this reference point in Australia! (Vancouver is not, actually, particularly hilly, although there are mountains nearby, and it is not anything like Melbourne.) www.theguardian.com/football/202...
Socceroos fans feel right at home in Vancouver: ‘Like a hilly Melbourne’
An Australian takeover is unfolding in British Columbia as fans pour in for the World Cup, joining the thousands of snow-obsessed expats who live there
theguardian.com
I wrote about Ilka Tampke's HOW TO LOVE THE WORLD for @australia.theguardian.com. Among other things, it's an experiment with radical immersion in the more-than-human world and its intelligences. Not entirely successful, but I enjoyed thinking about it a lot www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
How to Love the World by Ilka Tampke review – a woman is trapped by a fallen tree
The stuck narrator records the minutiae of the forest and her harrowing life in a purposeful novel that demands a slow read but doesn’t always reward it
theguardian.com
Thank the goddess for this smart response by Rebecca Starford in @kydmagazine.bsky.social to the recent nonsense on moral hygiene and Australian literature. Someone needed to write it! www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/shed...
Shed a Tear for the Norman Mailers
A recent article on Australian literature’s ‘moral hygiene’ finds familiar scapegoats for publishing's problems.
killyourdarlings.com.au
I loved Capture by Amanda Lohrey, a book full of big swings and unexpected detours. These are tough times for the novel, and what I find myself admiring most at the moment are those writers willing to take risks with their work. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...
Capture by Amanda Lohrey review – a superb novel about a study of alien abductees
The Miles Franklin winner’s plot teeters on the edge of profound silliness, but it’s also a vehicle for making meaning of our lived experiences – and those of others
theguardian.com
My god, why are we doing this again?? I know these packages are supposed to be conversation-starters, aka engagement bait, but these are honestly and truly not either useful or urgent conversations to be having right now about books, publishing, the novel www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
The 100 best novels of all time
A countdown of the greatest literature ever published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?
theguardian.com
Yep, I grew up in Farrer too and I’m gutted by the result, but not really surprised. What with the LNP knifing a very popular local member, the ALP not even bothering to field a candidate, and blizzards of bullshit FIFO commentary about rural Oz, the space was left wide open for ON.
Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman)@drspacejunk.bsky.social · 3mo agoI'm really fucking disappointed about Farrer. I grew up there. I know many of my friends and relatives will have voted ONP. But I'm also disappointed to see all the country-bashing on here. Perhaps not giving a fuck about rural issues is part of the problem. #AusPol
Giving this another plug because it seems to be outside the paywall for the moment.
The Monthly@themonthly.com.au · 3mo agoRead more: mnth.ly/7XQSL5N
Bluesky gets sketchy, I go offline, come back and there’s a Massive Attack x Tom Waits collab doing the rounds. Actual omg
Yanis Varoufakis@yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social · 4mo agoMassive Attack / Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-57...
‘We support entrepreneurial scholars and practitioners’ - what a ride (and how tf to read this parable of contemporary literature?)
Alex Shephard@alexshephard.bsky.social · 4mo agoabsolutely incredible ending to this saga
New from me on Guardian Australia: a review of Kathryn Heyman’s Circle of Wonders, a novel notable for its sharp attention to the humanity of its vulnerable central characters www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
Circle of Wonders by Kathryn Heyman review – solace and healing in an acid-etched portrait of a dysfunctional family
Heyman’s story about women struggling to put aside their hurts and do right by one another is all about rage, vulnerability, forgiveness and a bit of woo-woo
theguardian.com
I wrote for ABR about, The Ruin of Magic, a new essay collection by Kate Holden. I’ve long admired Holden’s work but this collection, which deals with pressing questions of home, belonging, migration and exile, struck me as seriously undercooked. www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/c...
Catriona Menzies-Pike reviews ‘The Ruin of Magic: Longing and belonging in strange times’ by Kate Holden
Kate Holden made a striking début with her 2005 memoir of addiction and sex work. In My Skin was both a critical and commercial success; in it, readers encountered a frank, opulent stylist possessed of a remarkably compassionate point of view. In My Skin pre-empted the boom in life writing by women that has been a fixture of Australian literature this century. If the tropes of recovery lit are more familiar now than they were in 2005, the brisk confidence of Holden’s voice and the curiosity of her gaze remain impressive. Holden refined and hybridised her approach in her next book, The Romantic (2010), a memoir that incorporated travel writing and literary criticism. These early works won Holden a devoted readership and she continued to publish new material as a columnist and cultural journalist over the next decade.
australianbookreview.com.au
This is a fine @catrionamp.bsky.social review of @erinvincent.bsky.social 's outstanding book. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...
Fourteen Ways of Looking by Erin Vincent review – an exhilarating, dazzling reckoning with grief
The author confronts the trauma of losing her parents as a teenager in a succession of fragments – almost all of which contain the word ‘fourteen’
theguardian.com
I wrote about Fourteen Ways of Looking by Erin Vincent for GuarDian Australia, a very accomplished, very affecting work. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...
Fourteen Ways of Looking by Erin Vincent review – an exhilarating, dazzling reckoning with grief
The author confronts the trauma of losing her parents as a teenager in a succession of fragments – almost all of which contain the word ‘fourteen’
theguardian.com
I'll always remember Kristi Noem for the "Meth. We're on it." campaign.
Catriona Menzies Pike on what the Los Angeles Review of Books mess says about the landscape for literary journals, and the big test ahead for the new Meanjin. On point as always
Returning Home
Fingers crossed for editorial independence: Meanjin, LARB, Michael Silverblatt
infra-dig.ghost.io
I’m still writing my newsletter Infra Dig, which covers digital literary culture and related themes. The latest deals mainly with editorial independence - at Meanjin and LARB. infra-dig.ghost.io/returning-ho...
Returning Home
Fingers crossed for editorial independence: Meanjin, LARB, Michael Silverblatt
infra-dig.ghost.io
Carney is rightly getting hosed for this softly-softly response - but you know what, I think Albanese, desperate to make it look like Australia’s most important defence partnership hasn’t been sidelined, is going to be much more effusive. (Happy to be wrong!)
Mark Carney@mark-carney.bsky.social · 5mo agoMy statement on Iran-related hostilities in the Middle East:
If only it were possible to wrest the microphone on Australian republicanism from the easy does it yacht club crowd at the ARM. The ARM promise that nothing would change in an Australian republic is yet another example of small target politics making itself irrelevant.
NPR@npr.org · 6mo agoBREAKING NEWS: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, reports say.
