SYLVIA MARTIN Sky Swimming: extract
What makes a biographer? How do you approach writing a biography? Having run an extract from a biography last week – Cathy Perkins’s The Shelf Life of Zora Cross – it seems fitting this week to explore the work of a biographer with an extract from award-winning writer...
CATHY PERKINS The Shelf Life of Zora Cross: extract
This week’s extract is from Cathy Perkins’s biography of Australian poet Zora Cross. Largely unknown today, she was a sensation when, still in her 20s, she published the bestselling Songs of Love and Life in 1917. Frankly erotic by the standards of...
DEREK RIELLY Gulpilil. Review by Bernard Whimpress
Derek Rielly’s biography of actor David Gulpilil is a moving testament to a man who has left a unique imprint on Australia’s cultural life for the last half-century. It might seem appropriate that this book should have a subtitle along the lines of ‘the man and his...
ANNE SCRIMGEOUR On Red Earth Walking: The Pilbara Aboriginal Strike, Western Australia 1946–1949. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
Anne Scrimgeour’s history of the Pilbara Aboriginal Strike recounts a pivotal moment in Australian history when white pastoralists had to start paying their Aboriginal workers. In 1946 Aboriginal workers on the remote sheep stations of the Pilbara walked off the...
PAUL KINGSNORTH Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist. Reviewed by Kurt Johnson
In this collection of essays Paul Kingsnorth charts the changes in the environmentalism movement and proposes a radical new step. By 2020 the environmentalism movement has become fully corporate. It has finally found a three-piece suit that fits and now comfortably...
DONNA WARD She I Dare Not Name: A spinster’s meditations on life. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
Donna Ward’s memoir explores spinsterhood, solitude, and shattering stereotypes. Publisher and poet Donna Ward describes this, her first book, as a meander through her life. In describing it this way she is thinking poor, as she admits to doing when she was...
CHLOE HIGGINS The Girls. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
How do we talk about grief? Chloe Higgins’s memoir reveals her response to the loss of her sisters, and the impact of that loss on her parents. On 31 July 2005, Chloe Higgins’s father, Maurice, was driving home from a weekend ski trip with his two youngest...
PETER J CONRADI A Dictionary of Interesting and Important Dogs. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Not just for dog-lovers, this miscellany contains canine tales from literature and history. First, a confession. I am not particularly fond of dogs. So, when this book was sent to me for review I was unenthusiastic and expected it to be just another collection...
JESSE HOGAN, ANDREW FAULKNER AND SIMON AUTERI For Cap and Country. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
This collection of 22 interviews with Australian cricketers is framed around the symbolism of the baggy green cap and, more importantly, around the actuality of representing their country. Conceived by player agent Simon Auteri, 18 of the interviews in For Cap and...
ANDREW NETTE and IAIN MCINTYRE (Eds) Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and counterculture in pulp and popular fiction 1950 to 1980. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Sticking it to the Man brings together a wide-ranging collection of essays that examine how the counterculture and radical politics have been reflected in popular fiction. In this new book, Nette and McIntyre have produced a companion volume to Girl Gangs, Biker Boys,...
MASHA GESSEN The Brothers: The road to an American tragedy. Reviewed by Kurt Johnson
Masha Gessen explores the world of the Tsarnaev brothers, responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings, and the multitude of theories attempting to explain how this tragedy occurred. It’s not often that the world demands a journalist write a book. Masha Gessen’s...
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