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Articles by Tom Doig
What were you reading in the 90s? 5 literary experts go back in time Original
What were you like in the 90s? This question is a social media trend right now, with achingly nostalgic slideshows of old photos, set to music. When bookish types think about what we were like, we also remember the books that helped make us who we are. So the Books & Ideas team asked five literary experts for their picks. Because we never just engage with the new, their answers range from stone-cold classics (one from the late 60s, which was all the rage in the 90s) to iconic works from the decade.
Best books of 2025: our experts share their picks Original
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The end of the year means holiday celebrations, summer breaks … and for us, one important thing: best books lists. We asked 35 expert readers for their favourite picks, ranging from novelists to anthropologists, scientists to criminologists – and experts in politics, publishing and philosophy. The only rule? The book had to be published this year. And the Books & Ideas team are sharing our own best books of 2025.
By James Ley, Jo Case Verified, Alexander Howard, Alice Grundy, Allanah Hunt, Andrew Pippos, Carol Lefevre, Edwina Preston, Elizabeth Finkel, Emma Shortis, Euan Ritchie, Eve Vincent, Fiona Wright Verified, Intifar Sadiq Chowdhury, Jen Webb, Jindan Ni, John Long, John Quiggin, John Woinarski, Joelle Gergis, Julian Novitz, Juliet Rogers, Jumana Bayeh, Lynda Ng, Matthew Sharpe, Melanie Saward, Mia Martin Hobbs, Michelle Hamadache, Natalie Kon-yu, Nick Haslam, Peter Mares, Sandra Phillips, Sophie Gee, Tom Doig, Tony Hughes-D'Aeth, Vijay Mishra, Wanning Sun
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The Conversation
Verified
What is prepping-and how does it work in Australia?
Speculation swirls about fugitive accused double murderer Dezi Freeman's potential ties to prepper groups and possible doomsday beliefs. There are even questions over whether he's hiding in a homemade underground bunker.
What is prepping - and how does it work in Australia?
By Tom Doig and Jordan McKenzie Speculation swirls about fugitive accused double murderer Dezi Freeman’s potential ties to prepper groups and possible doomsday beliefs. There are even questions over whether he’s hiding in a home-made underground bunker.
What is prepping - and how does it work in Australia?
Speculation swirls about fugitive accused double murderer Dezi Freeman’s potential ties to prepper groups and possible doomsday beliefs. There are even questions over whether he’s hiding in a home-made underground bunker. One Facebook user in a prominent Australian Preppers group wrote: I don’t like that the prepper community will now be made to look nuts again […] There is zero reason to shoot at police […] We may disagree with some laws but we are also not the law.
Representations of Youth Climate Anxiety: A Framing Analysis of Emotional Responses to the Climate Crisis in International News Media
ABSTRACT Reports of children feeling distressed, anxious, or angry about the impacts of climate change have appeared in the international news media with increasing frequency since 2019. There is international evidence that young people are increasingly worried about climate change, and such distress negatively affects their daily lives. The ways that such distress is framed in public discourse vary widely.
Best Australian books of the 21st century: as chosen by 50 experts Original
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Like so many avid readers around the world, I was fascinated by the recent New York Times list of the Best Books of the 21st century, as voted by 503 authors, critics and book lovers. But like many Australians, I was disappointed to see no Australian books on the list. Even those authors who’ve made a splash in the US literary scene this century – Helen Garner, Gerald Murnane, Maria Tumarkin – didn’t get a guernsey. That’s where we come in.
By Jo Case Verified, Aidan Coleman, Alexander Cothren, Alexander Howard, Ali Mohammad Alizadeh, Amanda Tink, Astrid Edwards, Brenda Walker, Brian Castro, Brigid Magner, Brigitta Olubas, Briohny Doyle, Camilla Nelson, Carol Lefevre, Clare Wright, Danielle Wood, David McCooey, Debra Adelaide, Edwina Preston, Elfie Shiosaki, Emmett Stinson, Hsu-Ming Teo, Jane Gleeson-White, Jen Webb, Julian Novitz, Julieanne Lamond, Jumana Bayeh, Kevin Brophy, Leah Jing McIntosh, Liz Evans, Lyn McCredden, Lynda Ng, Maggie Nolan, Matthew Lamb, Monique Rooney, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Natalie Kon-yu, Nicholas Jose, Paul Giles, Penni Russon, Ronnie Scott, Sally Breen, Sarah Holland-Batt, Sian Prior, Stephen Romei, Tanya Dalziell, Tom Doig, Tony Hughes-D'Aeth, Vijay Mishra, Yves Rees
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The Conversation
Verified
Can Sleepy Don and his MAGA dream pivot against Biden's replacement?
Near the end of Donald Trump’s 93-minute speech in the final hours of the Republican National Convention — mere days before President Joe Biden officially announced he was dropping out of the race for president — a woman sitting with the Illinois delegation was heard saying, “Wrap it up, Don!” As I crushed against photographers laden with long-lens cameras jostling against journalists clutching tiny notebooks, Secret Service agents and convention organisers were trying to keep the aisles...
A front-row seat at Trump World
What’s it like to stare at Donald J Trump for an hour and a quarter, from a little under 10 metres away? It is very strange and intense. Once I made it out onto the main floor of the convention (this took four hours), pushed through the crowds of officials and delegates and journos, and manoeuvred myself into an aisle with a half-decent view of Trump sitting in the bleachers, I lost interest in listening to the speeches up on stage. I just wanted to, well, stare at the guy.
Sleepy Trump and cowboy hats ad infinitum: Day two of the Republican National Convention
At the end of a long first day at the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC), I ordered a beer from the Drink Wisconsinbly Pub (a bar across from the convention centre), found a table and lit a cigarette. “How did you get a lighter in here?” Shonda Little, a lively journalist from Oklahoma, had had her lighter confiscated by the Secret Service, possibly because she was being a smartarse. She lit a smoke and started spouting crazy factoids.
Ten years on from Hazelwood: last decade’s second-worst disaster
Snap, crackle, pop It was already dark outside, and it was getting cold. I pushed the dictaphone closer. Embrace Australia’s finest writers: subscribe to Meanjin Subscriptions start at just $5 a month — which goes directly towards our writers’ fees. SUBSCRIBE
Commentary: Why are billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg building bunkers and buying islands?
BRISBANE: In December 2023, WIRED reported that Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire CEO of Meta and one of the foremost architects of today’s social-media-dominated world, has been buying up large swathes of the Hawaiian island Kauai. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are constructing a gigantic compound - known as Ko’olau Ranch - on this land, which will most likely cost over US$200 million to complete.
Billionaires are building bunkers and buying islands. But are they prepping for the apocalypse - or pioneering a new feudalism?
In December 2023, WIRED reported that Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire CEO of Meta and one of the foremost architects of today’s social-media-dominated world, has been buying up large swathes of the Hawaiian island Kauai. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are constructing a gigantic compound – known as Ko’olau Ranch – on this land, which will most likely cost over A$400 million to complete.
Billionaires are building bunkers and buying islands. But are they prepping for the apocalypse – or pioneering a new feudalism? | Flipboard
1 day ago WAIMEA, Hawaii — A life-size bronze statue of a cowboy sits at the center of Waimea. The cowboy is riding a horse, lasso in hand, pursuing a wild bull. It's a monument to Ikua Purdy, a hometown hero, who was the first Hawaiian to become a hall-of-fame rodeo roper. This statue is meant to represent …
Best books of 2023: our experts share the books that have stayed with them
Jen Webb has received funding from the Australian Research Council. Anna Clark has received funding from the Australian Research Council. Edwina Preston has received funding from Australia Council for the Arts and Creative Victoria. She is currently employed by the Australian Education Union Heidi Norman is affiliated with the University of Technology Sydney where Graham Akhurst is also a colleague. Julienne van Loon receives funding from Creative Victoria.
Friday essay: if the world's systems are 'already cracking' due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?
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if the world's systems are 'already cracking' due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining? Original
Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good … so far so good … so far so good … ― La Haine, 1995 If it felt to you like things started going off the rails around the year 2016, you’re not alone. Symbolically, the double blow of Britain voting for Brexit, then the United States voting for Donald Trump, seemed like the “end” of something. (The postwar liberal consensus?
if the world's systems are 'already cracking' due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?
Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good … so far so good … so far so good … ― La Haine, 1995 If it felt to you like things started going off the rails around the year 2016, you’re not alone. Symbolically, the double blow of Britain voting for Brexit, then the United States voting for Donald Trump, seemed like the “end” of something. (The postwar liberal consensus?
The preppers next door
Society The preppers next door When Tom Doig started reading about doomsday preppers and survivalist subcultures, his first question was: “What if they’re crazy?” His second question was: “What if they’re right?” One otherwise ordinary morning in the early 1990s, Paul Flint woke up and hauled himself out of bed. He put on his suit, his tie, his polished black shoes, then trudged outside and fired up his little Honda Prelude.
the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world
Douglas Rushkoff’s newest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, grew out of a brilliant 2018 Medium article of the same name, which went viral and had people (aka his US editor) clamouring for a full-length treatment.
THE FARAWAY NEAR: NOTES FROM AN APOCALYPSE
Before Irish writer Mark O’Connell published Notes from an Apocalypse in early 2020, he had no idea that he would be launching his funny-but-serious book into what was possibly the actual end of days. Notes details preppers around the world, from environmentalists fearing the ravages of climate change to billionaire entrepreneurs dreaming of life on Mars, to the strange story of Peter Thiel and New Zealand artist Simon Denny, which went viral in the Guardian online.
Living with the Climate Crisis
If much of the world can work together to beat a deadly pandemic, imagine what might happen if we turned our collective energy to tackling the climate crisis. The devastating summer of Australian bush fires underlined the terrifying sense of a world pushed to the brink. Then came Covid-19, and with it another dramatic shift. Fears have been raised that the all-consuming effort to control the pandemic will distract us from the long-term challenge of limiting catastrophic climate change.
Hazelwood coal fire - a consequence of privatisation
Hazelwood By Tom Doig Penguin Books, 2019. 304pp. $34.99 *** In February 2014, the Hazelwood brown coal mine in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley caught fire and for 45 days sent toxic smoke over Morwell and nearby towns. This is a story of profiteering and denial at the expense of the health of tens of thousands of people, told by those affected. The Hazelwood coal mine is 7km long, 4km wide and 40 storeys deep, situated on the edge of Morwell, a town of 14,000 people.
Hazelwood by Tom Doig
Published: 1 July 2020 ISBN: 9780143793342 Imprint: Viking Format: Trade Paperback Pages: 304 RRP: $34.99 Tom Doig Formats & editions Buy from… A gripping and immediate account of one of the worst disasters in Australian history. Early in the afternoon of 9 February 2014, during the worst drought and heatwave south-eastern Australia had experienced in over a century, two separate bushfires raged towards the massive Hazelwood open-pit brown-coal mine, near Morwell in the Latrobe Valley.
The Coal Face: Penguin Special by Tom Doig
Tom Doig Tom Doig has written for The Big Issue, Crikey, New Matilda and Voiceworks. Tom's first book, Moron to Moron, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2013.
Alistair Thomson reviews 'Hazelwood' by Tom Doig
Tom Doig’s Hazelwood begins with Scott Morrison proclaiming to Parliament, ‘This is coal. Don’t be afraid … It won’t hurt you’, and concludes, 284 riveting pages later, that ‘the Australian coal industry doesn’t just cause disasters – it is a disaster’. In February 2014, during ‘the worst drought and heatwave south-eastern Australia had experienced in over a century’, embers from two bushfires ignited the worked-out northern coalface of the Hazelwood mine.
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