The Best Australian Essays 2015

‘Wonky, idiosyncratic, fragmentary, paradoxical, drunk on words, the essay has … a uniquely human thumbprint.’ —Geordie Williamson

In The Best Australian Essays 2015, Geordie Williamson compiles the year’s outstanding short non-fiction. Read Helen Garner on condescension, DBC Pierre on travel, Ceridwen Dovey on autobiography, Tim Winton on injury, Anna Krien on first love, and Nicolas Rothwell on the northern coast. With bracing essays on politics, music, literature, history, art, sport and more, this impressive anthology will entrance, stimulate and entertain.

‘Takes a broad view of subject matter and rejoices in the seemingly endless possibilities of the form’ —the Age

Sebastian Smee • Anwen Crawford • Maria Tumarkin • Tim Flannery • Nadia Wheatley • James Bradley • Tim Winton • Gerard Elson • Rebecca Giggs • Alison Croggon • Mungo MacCallum • Sophie Cunningham • Jeff Sparrow • Nicolas Rothwell • Karen Hitchcock • Tegan Bennett Daylight • Drusilla Modjeska • Noel Pearson • Delia Falconer • Kirsten Tranter • Stephen Romei • Helen Garner • Anna Krien • Guy Rundle • Ceridwen Dovey • Matthew Lamb • Ashley Hay • Christian Ryan • David Walsh • Mark Mordue • Felicity Plunkett • DBC Pierre

Geordie Williamson is chief literary critic of the Australian newspaper, a position he has held since 2008, though his essays and reviews have been appearing in newspapers and magazines here and in the UK for over a decade. In 2011, he won the Pascall Prize for criticism, Australia’s only major national prize awarded for critical writing. In 2012, he published The Burning Library, a collection of essays on neglected Australian writers. He lives in the Blue Mountains with his family.