The Godfather: Peter Corris on a suburban hot spot
Very kindly, a neighbour recently gave Jean a jar of home-made marmalade. I was reminded that my mother used to make jam and what a hive of DIY activity the dreary southern suburb of Bentleigh, Melbourne, really was. As I’ve mentioned before, my father cemented paths...
TRENT DALTON Boy Swallows Universe. Reviewed by Chris Maher
Boy Swallows Universe is a first novel rich in adventure, description and plot. Mark Twain famously said that truth is stranger than fiction, and the parts of Boy Swallows Universe that draw on Trent Dalton’s actual boyhood are as intriguing as the fictional plot...
CLARE PAYNE One: Valuing the single life. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
One is driven by a keen sense of social justice, and an intolerance of all the ways in which society devalues those who, for various reasons, live alone. If this is the age of single living, as Ita Buttrose proclaims on the cover of this book by Clare Payne, it...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on being doubly bookish
I’ve written before about having two books on the go to read – one on my Kindle and one as an audio. Colour me bookish, but it doesn’t always work out well. Recently I abandoned one of each, a rare thing for me to do, having paid for them. One was a crime story and...
TIM WINTON The Shepherd’s Hut. Reviewed By Tom Patterson
The Shepherd‘s Hut is more than a novel: it has the shape and pattern of a very Australian, very modern, epic. Tim Winton can be hard on his characters. He drowned the Lambs’ favourite son, then only half gave him back. He sent Scully on a chase through Europe...
JOHN BIRMINGHAM Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney; DAVID HUNT Girt: The unauthorised history of Australia. Reviewed by Kurt Johnson
Leviathan and Girt are engaging because they do what official histories shy away from – they spin a ripping yarn. We Australians have a strained relationship with our past. As the ongoing culture wars rage ever louder, it might seem that we respond to our history...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on the great indifference
I remember a conversation on ABC radio between Philip Adams and Gore Vidal, both avowed atheists, in which Adams said that whereas America had initially been settled by Puritans, Australia’s first white settlers were criminals. In his honeyed tones Vidal said, ‘You...
GIDEON HAIGH A Scandal in Bohemia: The life and death of Mollie Dean. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
In exploring the death – and life – of Mollie Dean, Gideon Haigh covers a lot of fascinating ground. A young woman walks home after a Melbourne theatre performance, making a phone call to a friend along the way. Then, metres from her front door, she is...
Roundup of the shortlists for the 2018 Ned Kelly Awards. By Karen Chisholm
This year’s shortlists for the Australian Crime Writers Association Ned Kelly Awards celebrate the novels of well-established crime writers and talented newcomers. In July the ACWA released their longlists of entries, decided by individual panels of judges...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on AFL at the crossroads
There is talk of the AFL making changes to the rules of Australian football to make it a more interesting and watchable game. Something such is sorely needed. Attendances are down and many people, including players, confess to turning off the television coverage. In...
DAVID RITTER The Coal Truth: The fight to stop Adani, defeat the big polluters and reclaim our democracy. Reviewed by Caleb Goods
The Coal Truth brings into sharp focus why the proposal to mine coal in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland is so critical to our common future. The unassuming word Adani has come to represent an immense conflict over how Australia’s, and the world’s, future...
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