BORIS JOHNSON – AS HE SAW IT AND AS HE LIVED IT UNLEASHED By Boris Johnson William Collins 2024 ISBN 978-0-00 - 861020-9 (pb) RRP: $39.99 (PB) By Anne Henderson Without having read it, his enemies will say it’s self-serving, the political memoirs of a former prime minister who failed to achieve true greatness while [...]
BEYOND THE CONTROVERSY – JACKSON POLLOCK’S BLUE POLES AND GOUGH WHITLAM BLUE POLES - JACKSON POLLOCK, GOUGH WHITLAM, AND THE PAINTING THAT CHANGED A NATION by Tom McIlroy Hachette Australia, 2025 ISBN: 9780733651960 RRP: $34.99 (pb) Reviewed by Judith Pugh Tom McIlroy’s writing, the best kind of writing, has the immediacy and clarity of good [...]
THE JOURNALS OF HUGH TREVOR-ROPER THE CHINA JOURNALS – IDEOLOGY AND INTRIGUE IN THE 1960S edited by Richard Davenport Bloomsbury Academic 2022 ISBN:978-1-3502-7809-7 RRP: $29.99 (pb) Reviewed by Anne Henderson Hugh Trevor-Roper is best known for his The Last Days of Hitler. He is also much respected as an historian for his work on [...]
A CAPITAL DISASTER – BEFORE AND AFTER A BRISBANE FLOOD BRISBANE BREACHED: THE STORY OF A DROUGHT DEFAULTED FLOODPLAIN by David Topp Connor Court 2024 ISBN 9781922815781 RRP: $39.95 (pb) Reviewed by Deane McLennan Anyone who has grown up or lived in Brisbane in the last 50 years will have a story to tell [...]
NEVILLE WRAN’S MEDIA ANTAGONISTS THE ASSASSINATION OF NEVILLE WRAN by Milton Cockburn Connor Court, July 2024 ISBN: 9781923224148 RRP: $29.95 (pb) Reviewed by Gerard Henderson Milton Cockburn’s The Assassination of Neville Wran is an important book with an incomplete title. Neville Wran (1926-2014) was a successful Labor premier of New South Wales from 1976 [...]
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 [...]
