FROM NAVVY’S ASSISTANT TO PRIME MINISTER – THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AUSTRALIA’S FIRST LABOR PM IN SEARCH OF JOHN CHRISTIAN WATSON: LABOR’S FIRST PRIME MINISTER by Michael Easson Connor Court Publishing 2024 ISBN: 9781923224155 RRP: $29.95 (pb) Reviewed by Keith Harvey Johan Christian Tanck, the son of a German-Chilean merchant seaman and born [...]
A VICTORIAN CONJUROR’S ACT – THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS THE LIFE & LIES OF CHARLES DICKENS by Helena Kelly Icon Books Limited 2023 ISBN: 978 183773 104 6 RRP: $59.99 (hb) Reviewed by Anne Henderson In a beautifully arranged four paragraph opening to her new book The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens, Helena [...]
DANCING TO THE MUSIC OF TIME ANTHONY POWELL by Hilary Spurling Hamish Hamilton 2017 ISBN: 978 0 241 14383 4 RRP: $55 (hb) Reviewed by Anne Henderson “What are you reading?” was the query from an academic friend with a law degree and doctorate. “A biography of the writer Anthony Powell,” was my response. A [...]
TIANANMEN SQUARE AND ITS AFTERMATH – 35 YEARS ON THE TRACES OF TIME – A CHINESE POLITICAL PRISONER SOLICITED BY THE US, by JianMin Wu [Wu Jianmin]. Bouden House, New York RRP: $US38.00 Reviewed by Keith Harvey The 2024 US Vice-Presidential candidates debate between J D Vance and Tim Walz was broadcast live into [...]
THE ASCENT OF EVEREST (BOXED SET) by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen Hybrid Publishers, 2024 ISBN. 9781922768278 RRP: $49.99 (PB) Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono The four novels of the satirical series concerning Professor Grafton Everest, a rambunctious, overweight, fictional academic written together by Ross Fitzgerald (emeritus professor of history and history) and Ian McFadyen (of the Comedy [...]
THE SCHOLEMS: A STORY OF THE GERMAN BOURGEOISIE FROM EMANCIPATION TO DESTRUCTION By Jay Howard Geller Cornell University Press 2019 ISBN:9781501731563 RRP: US$29.95 Reviewed by Anne Henderson It has become a favoured technique in historical writing to enter the past through the connecting links of one family and its extended individuals. Frequently [...]
FRANK KNOPFELMACHER: SELECTED WRITINGS by Andrew Knopfelmacher Connor Court Publishing Pty Ltd, 2024 ISBN: 97819232241 RRP: $32.25 (pb) Reviewed by Gerard Henderson I remember the sense of disappointment experienced when Frank Knopfelmacher’s first and – as it turned out – only book was released in 1968. It was titled Intellectuals and Politics with [...]
THE SHORTEST HISTORY OF ECONOMICS by Andrew Leigh Black Inc, February 2024 ISBN: 978-1760644000 RRP: $27.99 (pb) Reviewed by Gerard Henderson Is there anything that can stop Andrew Leigh? – the Australian Labor Party member for Fraser in the Australian Capital Territory who is the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and [...]
DONALD HORNE – A LIFE IN THE LUCKY COUNTRY By Ryan Cropp La Trobe 2023 ISBN: 9781760641375 RRP: $37.99 Reviewed by Anne Henderson It took a year to write in 1964 but was years in the making; its title came as a light bulb moment when Geoffrey Dutton suggested to Donald Horne [...]
BOOK OF LIFE by Deborah Conway Allen & Unwin 2023 ISBN: 9781761069383 RRP: $34.99 (pb) Reviewed by Anne Henderson Some way into Deborah Conway’s memoir Book of Life, she writes of her “meandering patchwork quilt career”. And what a patchwork of brilliant colour it is. Dark and light, shade and illumination. All [...]
