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 [...]
MY FATHER'S SHADOW by Sandra Goldbloom Zurbo Monash University Publishing, 2023 ISBN: 9781922979186 RRP: $32.99 (pb) Reviewed by Keith Harvey Adding to the canon of books by left-wingers and their children is My Father’s Shadow, a memoir written by the eldest daughter of Sam Goldbloom, Sandra. Goldbloom was well known as a [...]
NO COUNTRY FOR IDEALISTS: THE MAKING OF A FAMILY OF SUBVERSIVES By Boris Frankel Greenmeadows, 2024 ISBN: 9780648363385 RRP: $34.99 (pb) Reviewed by Keith Harvey There is an increasing number of memoirs written by left-wing activists and now by their children. None of these could tell a stranger story than No Country [...]
LIFE SO FULL OF PROMISE - further biographies of Australia’s lost generation By Ross McMullin Scribe 2023 ISBN (13):9781922585820 RRP: $49.99 (pb) Reviewed by Lucas Jordan Life So Full of Promise: further biographies of Australia’s lost generation, is Ross McMullin’s second multi-biography featuring young Australians of remarkable talent who were killed in the First [...]
CAMERA GIRL – THE COMING OF AGE OF JACKIE BOUVIER KENNEDY By Carl Sferrazza Anthony Gallery Books 2023 ISBN: 978 1 9821 4187 5 RRP: $49.99 (HB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson It’s hard to imagine there would still be much to reveal about Jackie Bouvier Kennedy that has not been written and made public [...]
FRANK MOORHOUSE A LIFE By Catharine Lumby Allen & Unwin 2023 ISBN: 978 1 74237 224 2 RRP: $34.99 (PB) As his friend and literary trustee Helen Lewis has recorded: “There were many rooms in Frank Moorhouse.” In this cute play on words, Lewis captured the many layered man she had known well. [...]
