Luckily for the romantics among us, ‘Women of Letters’ has for the past three years been dedicated to reviving the act of letter-writing, staging regular events in which notable women (and, more recently, men) of the ‘stage, screen, and page’ read letters that they have written to a particular theme. Yours Truly is the third compilation of these letters.

Curated by Women of Letters founders Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, Yours Truly features all kinds of letters: some humorous, like Meanjin editor Zora Sanders’s confessional on stealing; some truly reflective, like Lorelei Vashti’s letter on rewriting history; some deeply political, like Robert Manne’s letter to a member of the Stolen Generations; and some downright baffling, like comedian Lawrence Mooney’s back-handed ode to his ‘crazy bitch’ ex-girlfriends.

Notwithstanding some of the more literary delights of the book (Kári Gíslason’s letter to the woman who changed his life – Lady Chatterley – is a highlight), you get the feeling that some of the more colloquial letters, often by actors and television personalities, would be better enjoyed read aloud by their authors – like Genevieve Morris’s letter on her dietary sacrifices, or Amy Ingram’s to a series of strangers. After all, they were originally penned for performance.