📚 Talking about the world's most difficult topics

I don’t like small talk. At a festival or conference, I invariably find myself in serendipitous deep dives with strangers on topics like writing trauma or autistic readings of Jane Eyre (just two of this week’s topics). The opportunity for these kinds of knotty, fascinating conversations is among my favourite parts of my job as an editor.

This week, I’ve treasured my behind-the-scenes talks about perhaps the world’s most difficult topics with Juliet Rogers, who researches trauma and transitional justice. She applied her expertise to reading three powerful books of personal testimony from Gaza and Israel, which she unpacks in conversation with survivor testimonies around the world – from post-Holocaust trials and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to Victoria’s recent Yoorrook Justice Commission. There are no easy answers, but her exquisite essay raises crucial questions.

I can’t stop talking about political commentator Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir of her feminist superstar mother Erica Jong, who seems to have been a terrible parent. As Jane Messer says in her immersive review, the blistering book is hilarious, moving and revealing. But I also think it’s messy, written in the heat of the moment without the help of distance to ask deep questions, and layer emotional responses.

Memory is not a recording device, but a reconstruction, writes Nick Haslam in his wise, intriguing review of a new book on how memory works. Reading it cemented my feeling that the best memoirs are often written over time – capturing both the immediacy of events and our evolving interpretations of them. It also shows why books of immediate personal testimony are valuable: they capture life as the memories were made, preserving them for future generations – and as arguments for justice.

Until next time,

Jo Case

Deputy Books + Ideas Editor

Today's newsletter supported by Black Inc Books

Friday essay: ‘whose agony is greater than mine?’ Testimonies of Gaza and October 7 ask us to recognise shared humanity

Juliet Rogers, The University of Melbourne

Survivor testimonies hope for understanding, empathy – and change. From the Yoorrook Commission to Gaza and Israel, they build a case for justice in a shared future.

Mommy dearest? Molly Jong-Fast’s blistering memoir of her ‘always performing’ mother Erica is hilarious and moving

Jane Messer, University of Canberra

Don’t, whatever you do, parent like Erica Jong. Her daughter’s memoir of the ‘worst year’ of her life is fiercely loving – but she’s horrified at how she was raised.

Our memories are unreliable, limited and suggestible – and it’s a good thing too

Nick Haslam, The University of Melbourne

Memories are constantly revised in acts of recollection. They are moulded by new information, beliefs and emotions, and other people’s versions of events.

Australia’s university system is ‘battered’ and ‘broken’ – a new book surveys the wreckage and offers some solutions

Susan Forde, Griffith University

Our universities require a major overhaul. Reform is possible, but only if a government is prepared to take up the challenge.

‘My greatest handicap was the attitude of normal people.’ Alan Marshall’s artful polio memoir, I Can Jump Puddles, turns 70

Amanda Tink, University of South Australia

Polio is in the news, with vaccination under threat and recent outbreaks. This makes Alan Marshall’s classic disability memoir more relevant than ever.