by NRB | 24 Jun 2014 | Non-fiction |
Absurdity and anger reside in this anthology of personal responses to ASIO’s clumsy and calumnious file-keeping. Meredith Burgmann’s Introduction to this fascinating book foreshadows some of the themes that emerge repeatedly as the contributors discuss their own or...
by NRB | 19 Jun 2014 | Non-fiction |
Telling stories he shouldn’t: the gossipy, titillating and always fascinating world of Edmund White’s Paris. There is something deliciously circular about Edmund White’s fiction and memoirs. I have been reading them constantly since I was a teenager in the late 1980s,...
by NRB | 17 Jun 2014 | Non-fiction |
A family haunted by a tragic death and terrorised by a disease they couldn’t name. Families are as defined by their secrets as they are by their blood ties. The secrets Biff (Elizabeth) Ward’s family kept united them, tormented them and ultimately divided them. Biff...
by NRB | 5 Jun 2014 | Non-fiction |
Morrissey presents his case with palpable bitterness in a book that offers validation in the end. Bitterness and revenge inform this eponymous autobiography, or at least large chunks of it. Morrissey disses his bandmates, his record label, the press and the judges of...
by NRB | 27 May 2014 | Non-fiction |
This book examines human behaviour and moral choices in a hospital fighting for its patients’ lives and its own in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was like a knife, death. Always waiting to cut. The medical profession is predicated upon saving lives and...
by NRB | 8 May 2014 | Non-fiction |
This book restores women’s place in an iconic period of Australian history in a tale of grit, suffering and determination. On the cover of the hardback of Clare Wright’s Stella-Prize-winning history is a fragment of the Eureka flag. Tattered and yellowed...
by NRB | 1 May 2014 | Non-fiction |
The Moomin cartoons were a worldwide phenomenon in the 1950s. Their fascinating artist creator has inspired this detailed, loving biography. Towards the end of her biography of Finnish cartoonist Tove Jansson, writer Boel Westin describes a ‘flowering dream landscape’...
by NRB | 29 Apr 2014 | Non-fiction |
This book details what may be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. There is nothing more terrifying than the irreversible. Whether it’s an old family photo lost in a move, the death of a loved one, or the trust...
by NRB | 24 Apr 2014 | Non-fiction |
The English class system helped Cold War spy Kim Philby, who used his friendships with other agents to thwart their operations. Back when I was working at the National Times, I had the good fortune to meet two men – David Leitch and Phillip Knightley – who’d written...
by NRB | 17 Apr 2014 | Non-fiction |
Gabrielle Carey searches for clues to the life of Randolph Stow in this treasure hunt of family memoir and literary history. In her determination to ‘know’ Julian Randolph Stow – ‘Mick’ to his family and friends – Carey journeys through both...
by NRB | 15 Apr 2014 | Non-fiction |
Should religion be part of children’s education? And what kinds of religion are being taught in schools? Marion Maddox makes her case for a more secular system. Australians have never been satisfied with the way religion has been handled in education, but we have...
by NRB | 27 Mar 2014 | Non-fiction |
‘Fantastic nude profile plastered in central Tassie’: (13 letters)* – if you don’t know where to start, or even if you do, this is the book for you. David Astle – better known perhaps as the Sydney Morning Herald’s cryptic crossword devil-incarnate ‘DA’ – has been...
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