THOMAS KENEALLY and ROSIE SCOTT (eds) A Country Too Far: Writings on Asylum Seekers. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
This anthology of essays, fiction, memoir and poetry contains some powerful and impassioned writing from some of Australia’s best-known writers. The first contribution in this absorbing book, ‘Moonlight’, by Rodney Hall, is a wonderful piece of...ROBYN OYENIYI Love versus Goliath: Two People Against the Weight of Bureaucracy. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
This true story outlines one woman’s battle against Australian bureaucracy to be reunited with her husband. In this book Robyn Oyeniyi details the relentless struggle she endured to marry an asylum seeker, reunite him with his children and bring her new family back to...BILL GARNER Born in a Tent: How Camping Makes Us Australian. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
History seen through a tent flap: this view of post-settlement Australia is ‘alive and itchy’. The act of camping strips us bare – quite literally, sometimes, when every piece of clothing is wet through and it is easier to simply offer unadorned skin to...MATT MURPHY Weight of Evidence. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Forgery, drunkenness, prejudice, injustice – the notorious Newtown Ejectment Case of the 1850s provides a fascinating slice of colonial life. Scandalous land deals are nothing new in New South Wales. The Newtown Ejectment case ran for 10 years in the middle of the...ROSS FITZGERALD and KEN SPILLMAN (eds) Australia’s Game: Stories, Essays, Verse & Drama Inspired by the Australian Game of Football. Reviewed by Nicole Hayes
Footy – for spectators and participants – has the power to connect and the power to crush. There’s much to love in this book. As a lifelong footy fan, I hunted through this collection for the things that interest me most: stories written by or...ROBERT MACKLIN Dark Paradise: Norfolk Island – Isolation, Savagery, Mystery and Murder. Reviewed by Peter Corris
From convicts to mutineers to modern scandals, Robert Macklin taps the history of Norfolk Island. Robert Macklin has successfully woven together the stories of the early settlement of New South Wales, the history of the penal colony on Norfolk Island and later...DENNIS ALTMAN The End of the Homosexual? Reviewed by Walter Mason
In an age dominated by the idea of gay marriage, one of the founding fathers of homosexual liberation asks where Queer culture has gone. Many people have forecast the end of gay culture in recent years. Indeed, even the very word ‘gay’ seems to have...EF Benson, his life and times. An appreciation by Walter Mason
This literary figure from a forgotten age retains a cult following for his charmingly sharp-eyed novels, which may even have curative powers. ‘We will pay anything for Lucia books,’ read a legendary advertisement in the Times at some point in the 1940s, placed by a...KERRY-ANNE WALSH The Stalking of Julia Gillard: How the Media and Team Rudd Contrived to Bring Down the Prime Minister. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Leaks, rumours, polls and deniability: Kerry-Anne Walsh paints an ugly picture of Kevin Rudd’s road back to the prime ministership. This book, which details the covert media campaign run by Kevin Rudd and his supporters over the course of the Gillard government, went...ANNIE COSSINS The Baby Farmers. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Sydney in the 1890s: shame, syphilis and infanticide. If you were unmarried and pregnant, or married and unable to afford another child, you had very few choices in Sydney in the late 1800s. There was no contraception, no safe abortion, no support for poor families...MEL CAMPBELL Out of Shape: Debunking Myths About Fashion and Fit. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
A fascinating, engaging and witty look at our often fraught relationship with what we wear. Everyone has to wear clothes, there’s no way around it: if you were to leave the house naked, you’d be arrested. That doesn’t mean getting dressed each day is easy. What you...
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