Danielle Clode

Danielle Clode is an author and associate professor in creative writing at Flinders University whose first book, Continents of Curiosities, was inspired by the natural history collections of Museums Victoria. Her book Voyages to the South Seas won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Non-fiction in 2007. In 2014 she was the ABR Dahl Trust Fellow and her article ‘Seeing the Wood for the Trees’ appeared in the November 2014 issue of ABR. Her latest book is Koala: A life in trees (2022).

Danielle Clode reviews 'Wild Man From Borneo: A cultural history of the Orangutan' by Robert Cribb, Helen Gilbert, and Helen Tiffen

June-July 2017, no. 392 • 30 May 2017

What does it mean to be human – nearly human, not-quite-human, or even inhuman? Such questions have preoccupied writers and researchers for centuries, from Charles Darwin and Mary Shelley to the uncanny valley of robotics, AI, and a trans-human future. In Wild Man from Borneo, Robert Cribb, Helen Gilbert, and Helen Tiffen explore this question through the prism of our relationship with one of ou ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga story' by Elizabeth Tynan

March 2017, no. 389 • 23 February 2017

Maralinga is a name familiar to most Australians as the site of British nuclear testing in the 1950s. Less familiar are the earlier tests at the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia and Emu Field in South Australia. All have left a toxic legacy in our history. Elizabeth Tynan’s finely researched book on the history of Maralinga and its precursors brings to light a remarkable period of Aust ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'Crusoe’s Island: A rich and curious history of pirates, castaways and madness' by Andrew Lambert

December 2016, no. 387 • 28 November 2016

The story of Robinson Crusoe, penned by Daniel Defoe in 1719, is one those remarkable books that created a new genre. The ‘Robinsonade’ or castaway story became one of the most popular forms of adventure novel, inspiring a host of famous ‘imitators’: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Ebb-Tide (1894), R.M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island (1858), and Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island (1874). De ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'Georgiana Molloy: The mind that shines' by Bernice Barry

June–July 2016, no. 382 • 24 May 2016

By the end of the eighteenth-century, botany was one of the few sciences regarded as suitable for women. Carolus Linnaeus had infamously declared that his system of botanical taxonomy was so simple that even 'women themselves' could understand it. Botanical collection, identification, and cultivation extended the traditionally feminine occupations of flower arranging, gardening, and herbal lore, a ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'The Best Australian Science Writing 2015' edited by Bianca Nogrady

January-February 2016, no. 378 • 18 December 2015

In 2010, writing in Westerly, Carmel Lawrence despaired about the lack of science writing in the collection of 'best non-fiction' of the year that she had been asked to review. It wasn't, she concluded, for want of material. Science writing had undergone a huge resurgence in popularity at the turn of the twenty-first century. With no major anthologies of Australian science writing, nor a regular p ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'Cave' by Ralph Crane and Lisa Fletcher

October 2015, no. 375 • 28 September 2015

What is it about caves? An irresistibly enchanting hidey-hole to any small child and yet the birthplace of our deepest fears. Dragons, narguns, goblins, and gorgons are all born of caves, and yet who can go past an opening in the rock without peeking in? We cannot resist exploring this underworld of darkness which seems to provide safety from the perils outside, while at the same time exposing our ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'Landmarks' by Robert Macfarlane

June-July 2015, no. 372 • 28 May 2015

The Western Isles arch across the north-west coast of Scotland, sheltering the mainland from the North Sea’s fury. In summer there are few places more magical than these islands, which Seton Gordon once described as standing ‘on the rim of the material earth’ looking west to the immortal realm of Tir nan Og. On the northern islands, granite and gneiss mountains rise shattered and fractured ... (read more)

Danielle Clode reviews 'Tambora' by Gillen D'Arcy Wood

May 2015, no. 371 • 29 April 2015

As I sit by the fire, a gale rackets at the door and horizontal sleet sheets across my windows. With monster snowfalls in the Alps, the weather is breaking records again. Each winter, the winds are stronger, rains heavier, and temperatures lower than ever before. I put more wood on the fire and consider my investment in double-glazing well-spent. In our protected and privileged suburban lives, th ... (read more)

Reading Australia: 'Here on Earth' by Tim Flannery

Reading Australia • 15 April 2015

Literature has long provided a powerful outlet for the expression of our hopes and fears for an environmentally challenged future. In recent years, fictional depictions of the future have become increasingly dystopian, disturbed, and pessimistic – from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy to Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book. If our fiction writers are burde ... (read more)

ABR Dahl Trust Fellowship Essay | 'Seeing the wood for the trees' by Danielle Clode

November 2014, no. 366 • 01 November 2014

Many years ago, after working for a while in Europe, we returned to Australia via America. We picked up a car in Atlanta and drove through sprawling cities, alarming slums, and abandoned downtowns. Across Mississippi and the broad, reassuring openness of Texas, to Arizona and the Grand Canyon, we passed through the alien electrics of Las Vegas, down into Death Valley, and up over the Sierra Nevada ... (read more)