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...JO CASE Boomer & Me: A Memoir of Motherhood, and Asperger’s. Reviewed by James Tierney
One moment after another: Jo Case’s well-crafted memoir is a graceful tale of living with difference. Asperger’s Syndrome describes someone of high intelligence and strong focus, whose social skills are learnt rather than intuitive. Although Asperger’s has been...Crime Scene: JUDITH RODRIGUEZ The Hanging of Minnie Thwaites. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
The real-life hanging of a 19th-century baby-farmer inspired award-winning poet Judith Rodriguez to tell the story in a variety of literary forms. I am Minnie Thwaites. I am under Melbourne. Wherever lime goes, where it seeps, where the sour juices of the city are...Crime Scene: MICHAEL DUFFY Call Me Cruel. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
This true crime account attempts to explain the mind of a manipulative killer. It’s a cliché, but in this case it’s apt; if you came across a scenario like this in crime fiction you’d be hard pressed to stop your eyes from rolling. As is often the...PATTI MILLER The Mind of a Thief. Reviewed by Anna Maria Dell’oso
A return to Patti Miller’s childhood home in country New South Wales sparks this investigation of place, identity and dispossession. ‘D’ya have any blackfella in ya?’ The skinny woman across the room looked directly at me. So begins Patti Miller’s search under...OLIVER SACKS Hallucinations. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
The greatest mystery is the human brain, and Oliver Sacks is the ultimate detective. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist who writes with the imagination of a poet and with the sharp curiosity of the dedicated scientist. He delights in the variety of human experience and in...Crime Scene: MATTHEW CONDON The Toe Tag Quintet and Three Crooked Kings. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
History, mystery, truth and fiction; these two books expose the underbelly of south-east Queensland. In complete control of the genre, Matt Condon adds his own secret herbs and spices to his collection of murder mysteries: an uncanny knack for writing great...RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo. Reviewed by Peter Corris
Lies, puritans and hypocrites: England’s class system and the notorious Profumo Affair of the early 1960s. I can safely say I’ve never read a book with as many hyphenated names in it as this. As the author, with his own double-barrelled name, plots the comings...DAMON YOUNG Philosophy in the Garden. Reviewed by James Tierney
This book invites readers to drink from a beautifully blended philosophical cup. Philosophers occupy a diffident space in Australian public life. No antipodean philosopher dominates debates here in the manner of Europeans like Slavoj Žižek or Bernard-Henri Lévy,...Crime Scene: JOANNE DRAYTON The Search for Anne Perry: The Hidden Life of a Bestselling Crime Writer. Reviewed by Paula Grunseit
Crime novelist Anne Perry began her life as Juliet Hulme, who in 1954 was convicted of murder. Heavenly Creatures, Peter Jackson’s eerie film about the Parker-Hulme murder (starring Kate Winslet) is not easily forgotten. Set in 1954 in Christchurch, New Zealand, it...
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