by NRB | 26 Nov 2024 | Non-fiction |
There’s more to Joe Aston’s book about Australia’s national carrier Qantas than access to a luxury airport lounge. From 2011 to 2023, Joe Aston wrote the highly entertaining ‘Rear Window’ column for The Australian Financial Review, and delighted in exposing the...
by NRB | 3 Nov 2022 | Non-fiction |
This expert analysis of the 2022 federal election examines Labor’s rebuilding process, the six-week campaign, and the challenges ahead. Victory was released for sale just over four months after election day, but it would be foolish to categorise it as a ‘quickie’. It...
by NRB | 29 Sep 2022 | Non-fiction |
Cameron K. Murray and Paul Frijters reveal how Australia is run by the ‘Game of Mates’, the cosy relationships at the centre of power. Given current discussions about a federal ICAC, and a continuing avalanche of corruption allegations against former members of the...
by NRB | 26 Jul 2022 | Non-fiction |
Matthew Ricketson and Patrick Mullins make the case for Australia’s public broadcaster. If the title of Matthew Ricketson and Patrick Mullins’s book is a question, the subtitle – ‘Why taking it for granted is no longer an option’ – implies the answer: everyone....
by NRB | 9 Dec 2021 | Non-fiction |
Gideon Haigh has written a captivating account of the legal career of one of Australia’s most enthralling public figures, Herbert Vere Evatt, and a defining court case. Better known as ‘Doc’ or ‘Bert’, Evatt was Minister for External Affairs and Attorney General...
by NRB | 8 Sep 2020 | Non-fiction |
Samantha Maiden’s Party Animals is a multi-faceted analysis of the 2019 federal election, the election the Labor party was expected to win – but didn’t. In her introduction, political journalist Maiden offers a depressing thesis: that from recent evidence the...
by NRB | 25 Aug 2020 | Non-fiction |
Terry Irving charts the politics of early twentieth century Australia through the life of writer and polymath Vere Gordon Childe. Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957) was one of Australia’s most distinguished scholars and public intellectuals in the first half of the...
by NRB | 28 May 2020 | Non-fiction |
Malcom Turnbull’s expansive autobiography, A Bigger Picture, is as much a rebuttal of critics of his prime ministership as it is a personal memoir. In it, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia defends his legacy, savages his opponents and describes a modern Australia...
by NRB | 30 Jul 2019 | Non-fiction |
Australian politicians might rank low in public esteem but as this incisive book from Judith Brett reveals, our system of voting is admirable compared to the rest of the world’s democracies and certainly superior to those of the United Kingdom and the United States....
by NRB | 14 May 2019 | Non-fiction |
How did the politics of climate change become so intractable? Power Failure gives an account of the Rudd–Gillard years – a pertinent reminder as Australia goes to the polls in 2019. Again, something is in the air. It is the acrid tang of a looming election. With it...
by NRB | 4 Oct 2018 | Non-fiction |
From asylum seekers to politics, climate change and the personal challenges of dealing with cancer, Robert Manne’s essays are a rich canvas and urge us to interrogate prejudice and injustice wherever they threaten to take root. When Robert Manne, Emeritus...
by NRB | 2 Feb 2016 | Non-fiction |
This unashamedly partisan account of Australia’s recent political history is part comedy, part reality check. It’s been said that on the night Tony Abbott lost power, you could hear the sound of a thousand comedians crying. And not only in Australia – tears were shed...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]