From Manus to MONA to birds to the Black Summer, from the destruction of our natural world to the hope offered by Indigenous Australia to the growing corrosion of democracy, from Salman Rushdie to the Segal Report, family and love, Flanagan's non-fiction writings carry the author's trademark elegance, subversive wit, and humanity. This showcase of Richard Flanagan's heretical brilliance over twenty years speaks to the heart of our troubled times now.

'Heresy allows a writer to write freely, allows writing to be an act of joy that arises from the same deep place where laughter lives, countering the farce of dogma with the reality of life ...

Perhaps for any of us to write of hope, to write of love, we must learn once more to be free, and to embrace heresy.'