[Review]Iris Ralph, Packing Death in Australian Literature: Ecosides and Eco-Sides, Routledge, 2022, 174pp.

At first glance, a review of Iris Ralph’s Packing Death in Australian Literature (2020) does not fit neatly into an issue themed ‘Strange/Letters’, for, as Ralph’s acknowledgements page indicates, this book grew out of the inaugural 2005 conference of ASLEC-ANZ (then known as ASLE-ANZ). However, Ralph’s analysis, which ‘addresses plants and animals in Australia and its literature’ (1), is very much about strangeness if we consider that, until fairly recently, the contemplation of the nonhuman was an unfamiliar approach to Australian literary criticism.