PETER DOYLE Crooks Like Us. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Peter Doyle seeks to unlock the stories behind this extraordinary collection of police mug shots from the early 20th century. Around 1910 the New South Wales Police began photographing some of the people who passed through Sydney’s Central and other inner-city police...
ANDREW P STREET The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat Reviewed by Chris Maher
Street continues to blend fact and witticisms as he takes on Captain Abbott’s mutinous replacement. As your humble scribe suggested when reviewing The Short and Excruciatingly Embarrassing Reign of Captain Abbott, Andrew P Street could well have embarked upon a sequel...
NRB Editors on their favourite books of 2016
Unusually, this year Jean only features one crime novel, but as usual our picks are widely different. Linda’s close following of Australian women’s fiction is evident, while Jean has returned to some classics. Jean’s picks: Wide Sargasso Sea,...
NRB reviewers pick their best books of 2016
This year, we’ve asked some of our regular reviewers to nominate the best book they have read in 2016. The result is a diverse and fascinating round-up. Ashley Kalagian Blunt David Hunt’s Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 1: From Megafauna to...
DAVID HUNT True Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 2. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
In True Girt Hunt successfully blends his tongue-in-cheekiness and sometimes dark humour with detailed research. Following on from the death of Governor Macquarie, the cliffhanger ending of his 2013 bestseller Girt, Hunt’s new volume opens with the colonisation of...
GEORGINA ARNOTT The Unknown Judith Wright. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
Arnott reveals the literary growth of an important Australian artist, bringing to life a complex, contradictory human being. Georgina Arnott was surprised to realise that existing biographies, autobiographical works and critical studies of Judith Wright merely skimmed...
BRENDA NIALL Mannix. Reviewed by Yvonne Perkins
This biography is a valuable and engrossing contribution to Irish-Australian history. ‘Archbishop Mannix used to live there,’ my Presbyterian grandmother said as we passed the stately mansion Raheen on Studley Park Road. It was the mid-1970s and the Catholic...
JOHN LE CARRÉ The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from my life. Reviewed by Peter Corris
The distinctive flavour of le Carré’s writing is unmistakeable from the first page of The Pigeon Tunnel. This review is of the audio version of the book. That format has given me an extra insight into the abilities of David Cornwell, aka John le Carré. In his...
JOSHUA HAMMER The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And their race to save the world’s most precious manuscripts. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
This book reveals not only Africa’s significant literary heritage but also the courage of the librarians who endangered themselves to preserve it. This is the story of Abdel Kader Haidara, one of the librarians of Timbuktu, and how he smuggled 350 000 ancient...
ROBBI NEAL After Before Time. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
Robbi Neal has captured a truthful, no-holds-barred and deeply sensitive range of Indigenous Australian experience. For seven years from 2008, Robbi Neal and her family lived and worked in a Cape York Aboriginal arts community. There, Neal heard the narratives of six...
CHARLOTTE WOOD The Writer’s Room: Conversations about writing. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The winner of this year’s Stella Prize brings together 12 conversations from The Writer’s Room journal. Ten seconds’ googling will find a plethora of writing advice from amateurs and professionals alike. List after list of writing ‘rules’ to follow for success and...
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