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It can be hard to know what to do in the face of all that’s happening in the world. I have friends who are attending protests, writing letters and donating to causes. Some of them are sick with worry for loved ones.
A common urge, alongside practical action, when simmering conflicts erupt into major crises, is to educate ourselves about the history and complexities that led up to the events in the headlines.
When the planes hit the Twin Towers on September 11 2001, I was working in a bookshop. After that night when I woke to find my flatmate watching what I thought was a disaster film but was actually the news, my job became tracking down books about the Taliban and the history of Afghanistan from all over the world. A couple of years later, in 2003, that switched to books about Iraq.
I read those books too, educating myself alongside my customers.
Over the past week, I’ve felt privileged to talk to experts from around Australia, gathering their recommendations to come up with a list of ten books we can all read to educate ourselves about what’s happening now in Israel and Gaza. Those books range from history to fiction, and come from a wide variety of perspectives.
I’ve already ordered some of these books from my local bookshop. The staff tell me I’m one of many asking for these books, looking to understand what’s happening in a deeper way.
How do we think about times like these? How do we speak about them?
Maria Tumarkin, one of Australia’s finest writers and thinkers, provided a knotty answer in last week’s Friday essay.
She wrote about speaking of “the anguish experienced by people in Gaza and in Israel, and by Palestinian and Jewish diasporas” alongside each other. “To me, to speak of each without collapsing them both into a sentimental ahistorical mush, letting them be in a howling tension, letting them be in a shared space of thought and sight, is the only way we (settlers in Australia) can speak of this moment at all,” she wrote.
That howling tension is a difficult space to inhabit. But it’s also, I think, a way to truly attempt to understand our world, in all its complexities. For me, reading will always be a gateway to that space.
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Jo Case
Deputy Books + Ideas Editor
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Dennis Altman, La Trobe University; Daniel Heller, Monash University; Ghassan Hage, The University of Melbourne; Ian Parmeter, Australian National University; Jan Lanicek, UNSW Sydney; Jumana Bayeh, Macquarie University; Micaela Sahhar, The University of Melbourne; Ned Curthoys, The University of Western Australia; Ran Porat, Monash University
With the Israel-Palestine conflict continuing, we asked a range of academics to nominate works that can help explain things.
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Maria Tumarkin, The University of Melbourne; Juliet Rogers, The University of Melbourne
Bit by bit, the philosopher Rai Gaita showed Maria Tumarkin and Juliet Rogers the morally serious worth of face-to-face conversation.
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Weekend long reads
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Matthew Lamb, The University of Queensland
Establishing the facts – and disentangling fact from legend – is not always straightforward when it comes to biography. Frank Moorhouse’s biographer unpacks his process.
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Matthew Sharpe, Australian Catholic University
Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was anything but banal. His case is an apt reminder of how evil agents can deflect accountability, denying victims even the thin consolation of the moral high ground.
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Andrea Waling, La Trobe University
The publication 25 years ago of The Ethical Slut shattered social norms and stigma about non-monogamy. It’s now sold over 200,000 copies – and continues to be important.
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Ananya Jahanara Kabir, King's College London; Alison Donnell, University of East Anglia; Bethany Layne, De Montfort University; Leighan M Renaud, University of Bristol; Liam Harte, University of Manchester; Muireann O'Cinneide, University of Galway
From a longlist of 12, six novels have been shortlisted for the 2023 Booker prize.
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Suzanne Rutland, University of Sydney
There have been 368 reported anti-Jewish incidents in Australia since the Gaza war began. But antisemitism has been a running theme in the country since the mid-1800s.
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Our most-read article this week
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Muhammad Rizwan Azhar, Edith Cowan University; Waqas Uzair, Edith Cowan University
Electric vehicles get all the press – but it’s the smaller unsung two wheelers cutting oil demand the most.
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In case you missed this week's big stories
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Ran Porat, Monash University
Despite mounting public anger, the veteran leader has proven time and again that it is not wise to bet against him.
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Donald Rothwell, Australian National University
War crimes investigations are long, complex and involve international sensitivities. Nonetheless, there is growing inevitability that there will be prosecutions from the Israel-Gaza war.
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Christine Erbe, Curtin University
Australian navy divers have suffered minor injuries from a sonar pulse by a Chinese navy vessel. Here’s what that means and how underwater sound can hurt divers.
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Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Many are asking whether Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raised with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Australian sailors have been injured by sonar pulses from a Chinese destroyer.
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Helen Bird, Swinburne University of Technology
Embattled Optus chief Kelly Bayer Rosmarin who oversaw two network outages in the last year has resigned after admitting her company had no disaster management plan.
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Toby Walsh, UNSW Sydney
It has been an epic backstabbing scene worthy of the HBO drama Succession.
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Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, The University of Queensland
David McBride helped bring about a reckoning with the Australian Defence Force, but came at a legal cost. Will it stop others coming forward?
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Peter Greste, Macquarie University
Today, the government released a review into Australia’s patchwork of a secrecy law system. The proposed changes are a step in the right direction, but there’s so much more work to do.
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Peter Hurley, Victoria University; Melissa Tham, Victoria University
Australia is set to embark on bold changes to early childhood education if a new report is anything to go by.
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Anastasia Powell, RMIT University; Jacqui True, Monash University; Kristin Diemer, The University of Melbourne; Kyllie Cripps, Monash University
While it can feel like little progress is being made to stop women being killed by their partners or ex-partners, the data show a steady decline in recent years.
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C Raina MacIntyre, UNSW Sydney
Wearing a mask at the shops, on public transport and in other crowded settings will improve your chances of a COVID-free Christmas.
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Andrew King, The University of Melbourne
Daily global temperature records keep breaking. It’s a sign we’re on a rapidly warming planet.
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Tony Wood, Grattan Institute
The Australian Labor government’s expanded Capacity Investment Scheme gives us a better chance of hitting high renewable energy targets. It’s not without risk but well worth the rewards.
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Sam Halvorsen, Queen Mary University of London
The maverick ‘anarcho-capitalist’ faces huge challenges as he sets out to completely remodel the Argentinian economy.
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