Our summer selection: Stories worth sharing

Looking for something meaningful – or simply fun – to dive into over the holidays?

Across our team, certain stories and ideas have sparked conversations, broadened perspectives, or simply made us smile. Some are on our own ‘can't wait’ list.

We’ve brought these together in a curated summer roundup of books, podcasts, television and film. These recommendations reflect what has captured our attention – and what we think is worth sharing with you.

We hope these staff picks inspire your own summer of learning, reflection and relaxation. 

Watch: 

Kokuho (2025): ‘Premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and selected as Japan's entry to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film, also winning multiple awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Yokohama Film Festival and Hochi Film Awards, Kokuho traces the journey of an aspiring kabuki performer to national treasure. The film probes reflections on human relationships, privilege and ambition.’ 

The Pitt (2025): ‘I was completely addicted to this medical drama last summer. Set in an under-resourced hospital emergency department, each episode comprises one hour of a 15-hour shift. Medical professionals say it’s very realistic, and from a social standpoint, it highlights the grim reality of a health system where tens of millions of people lack insurance and depend on emergency departments for basic health care.’

Nuremberg (2025): ‘I will be seeing this star-studded historical drama tracing the pursuit of justice for the atrocities of the Holocaust at the Nuremberg Tribunal, which is strikingly timely and urgent as the world continues to grapple with how to address alleged genocide and war crimes today.’

My Brother's Band: 'I'm eager to see this on the basis of a review that called it 'a bona fide crowd-pleaser' – because, at this time, who doesn't need a gentle French comedy that interrogates attitudes towards class and culture?’

Listen: 

Called to the Bar: ‘Because I’m a massive geek and it gives great legal insights into current issues in international law from the best lawyers and academics in the business, including UNSW’s own Ntina Tzouvala.’

ABC Rewind: The Kitchen Table – Tea: ‘I didn’t know how much there was to know about Australia’s tea-drinking history, but this was so engaging. It’s an absorbing story about trade and power, about culture and colonialism, about migration and migrating tastes. So, pop on the kettle and have a cuppa while you listen to this episode.’

ChangeMakers with Amanda Tattersall, Scaling change big and small: ‘This is both a personal story and a meditation on social change. An exploration of how the personal and political are interwoven, and how real conversations have the power to drive change.’

We Used to be Journos: ‘It analyses fairly woeful reporting in Australian media of global and local issues. Its initial focus was on Palestine, but it is increasingly broad.’

The Rest is Politics US: ‘An up-to-the-minute and on-the-money analysis of the Trump administration that is informed by a deep appreciation for history and a global perspective.’

The Imperfects: ‘Incredible storytelling and vulnerable.’

Read: Non-fiction 

Calling In: How to start making change with those you’d rather cancel (2025), Loretta J Ross: 'A tool for engaging in difficult conversations in ways that build understanding rather than division. If you’d rather watch than read – or need a quick primer before some anticipated difficult conversations around the holiday – you can watch her TEDTalk.'

38 Londres Street (2025), Philippe Sands: ‘Traces the prosecution of Pinochet in London in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the efforts to counter impunity for genocide in WWII and in Pinochet’s Chile (and the link between Nazis and Pinochet). I found this (almost?) inspiring as to the power of international law to punish international wrongdoing at a time when impunity seems so rife in the world around me.’

Memorial Days (2025), Geraldine Brooks: ‘This is a beautifully written, moving account of love, loss, fragility and resilience.

‘I read it in a single sitting and couldn’t speak when I finished.’

Bullet, Paper, Rock: A Memoir of Words and Wars (2024), Abbas El Zein: ‘In this winner of the 2025 National Biography Award, El Zein charts his life in amid the Lebanese civil war, paying tribute to the love and resilience that carried him along. He describes his style as a “literary foray” and probes us to reflect on something bigger.’

‘Eight Tips for Surviving (and Enjoying!) Academic Writing’ (2025), Conor Gearty, in 76 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 124–29: ‘This is a short but characteristically brilliant essay by my dear friend, the late Conor Gearty. Like Conor, the piece is entertaining, self-deprecating, practical and inspiring. It’s as much a guide to writing as it is a charming reflection on his life and career.’

The Design Politics of the Passport: Materiality, Immobility and Dissent (2018), Mahmoud Keshavarz: 'Nationality and passport take on different meanings for refugees, stateless persons and people in conflict situations. Keshavarz centres the passport as an artefact to understand politics through material objects.’

The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice, and Courage (2022), Philippe Sands: ‘A compelling account of the enduring injustice faced by the communities displaced from the Chagos archipelago to make way for a US military base, told through one woman’s extraordinary fight to reclaim sovereignty from former colonial power, the UK, before international courts.’

Find Me at the Jaffa Gate: An encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family (2025), Micaela Sahhar: ‘A poetic personal story that unfolds in fragments, as memories and moments, spinning through a global history from the Middle East to Melbourne. It loves and aches, as families do, but with the added poignancy and power of the exiled perspective.’

A Man of Two Faces (2024), Viet Thanh Ngyuen: Brilliantly written, this unconventional memoir comes at you in sharply aimed shards thrown down by a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner. A favourite of several Kaldor Centre team members, it’s a story about cultural power and the personal dynamics of being a refugee and an American. You can also listen to Kaldor Centre Director Daniel Ghezelbash in conversation with Viet Thanh Ngyuen and Shankari Chandran from 2024.

Read: Fiction

Theory & Practice (2024), Michelle de Krester: ‘This coming-of-age novel based in 1980s Melbourne won the Stella Prize. It speaks to the challenge of being who we are while trying to be who we wish we were. Very readable.’

Prophet Song (2024), Paul Lynch: ‘I listened to this on audiobook as authoritarianism was suddenly so much more in the news. I remain haunted by the character of Eilish Stack, and driven to reach into the story to help this ordinary mother in Ireland who finds herself fleeing to save her children. No wonder it won the Booker Prize. Storytelling that really does provoke radical empathy.’

Martyr! (2024), Kaveh Akbar: ‘This interweaves family and political history in a poetic way.’

Praiseworthy (2023), Alexis Wright: ‘An incredible, epic work from Waanyi writer Alexis Wright. Set in Australia’s north, it weaves together colonisation and climate catastrophe in a unique voice that the Stella Prize Judges described as “fierce and gloriously funny”.’

The Beekeeper of Aleppo (2019), Christy Lefteri: ‘A heartbreaking and deeply human story that reminds us why these narratives must be told again and again in a world that so reduces refugees to numbers rather than seeing the people they are.’

The Mountain (2012), Drusilla Modjeska: ‘Set in Papua New Guinea during the period of independence from Australia. A lush re-telling of a not-very-well-known chapter of PNG and Australian history (at least in post-boomer Australia), engaging with the complexities of colonialism and cultural (dis)respect.’

Discipline (2025), Randa Abdel-Fattah: ‘A real page-turner engaging with the daily challenges of living life, navigating ethics and employment for Palestinian Australians in the context of the 2021 conflict (written during the ongoing conflict).’

For more, visit the UNSW Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law.