LUCY NEVILLE Oh Mexico: Love and Adventure in Mexico City. Reviewed by Suzanne Rath
In this memoir, Lucy Neville finds love in a city of kidnappers. Mexico City has a population of almost nine million people and boasts the second highest rate of kidnappings in the world. On the other hand, Blackheath, a sleepy town in the Blue Mountains of New South...The Godfather: Peter Corris on the books that stayed unpublished
Like many, perhaps most, scribblers who’ve been at it a long time, I have written books that will never be published. Generally speaking, this is a good thing for the writer and readers. Nothing of Hemingway’s published posthumously enhanced his reputation and the...GERARD WHATELEY Black Caviar: The Horse of a Lifetime. Reviewed by Candida Baker
The champion who won our hearts – and every race she entered. Black Caviar. Even the name is special, isn’t it? It rolls around your tongue, like caviar itself – rich, exotic, luxurious. It reminds me of a vodka and caviar bar that was once all the...The Godfather: Peter Corris on filming Cliff Hardy
I’m often asked why more Cliff Hardy novels haven’t been filmed or made for television. Good question, but it’s a long story. The idea of a Hardy film came up quite early when only three of the books had been published. Director Stephen Wallace responded to my agent...PETER ACKROYD Tudors: The History of England Volume II. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
The Tudors are endlessly fascinating. This new history examines the effects of one small family on a nation’s identity. Tudors, Volume II in Peter Ackroyd’s planned six-part history of England, has a different tone from that of Volume I, Foundation. In both...SEBASTIAN FAULKS A Possible Life. Reviewed by Peter Corris
There are clever and subtle echoes in this book, but it is not a novel. A Possible Life is not a novel and it is misleading of Faulks and his publishers to present it as one. It’s a collection of long short stories, two of which are almost novella length. No...The Godfather: Peter Corris on seeing and hearing
In 1958, when I was sixteen, I was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. In those days methods of injecting insulin and monitoring blood sugar levels were much cruder than they are now and maintaining good metabolic control was difficult. That I did so for the next few...DAVID MARR Political Animal: the Making of Tony Abbott (Quarterly Essay 47). Reviewed by Linda Funnell
He’s anti-abortion and his career owes a debt to Alan Jones. Does Tony Abbott have a problem with women? There’s an unsettling recent tradition of the political subjects of Quarterly Essays meeting with ill fortune. Think of Annabel Crabb’s profile of then-Opposition...EMILY MAGUIRE Fishing for Tigers. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Emily Maguire’s vivid novel of expats in Hanoi reveals some uncomfortable truths. Mischa is a thirty-something Australian woman who washes up in Hanoi in the aftermath of an abusive marriage: I wanted to lose myself so thoroughly that I would never find...The Godfather: Peter Corris on living in Newtown
In Sydney I’ve only ever lived in the inner-west, but it took me a while to find my way to Newtown. I had short stints in Redfern and Balmain in 1970 before going overseas, returning to Canberra, surviving two years in Victoria and then heading to Sydney. In late 1975...NELLIE BENNETT Only in Spain: In Search of My Heart’s Desire. Reviewed by Jody Lee
This warm-hearted memoir of an Aussie girl learning flamenco in Spain may inspire you to run away with the gypsies … or at least a handsome Basque chef. How many times has that little voice sounded in your head, suggesting that you ‘just do it’? Nellie Bennett...
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