LAST DRINKS: HOW TO DRINK LESS AND BE YOUR BEST By Maz Compton, John Wiley & Sons, 2023 ISBN 9781394184231 RRP $32.95 (PB) Reviewed by Ross Fitzgerald Many Australians now realise that our booze-obsessed culture is extremely destructive. The murder, mayhem, individual, societal and family destruction that alcohol abuse leaves in its wake is, if you’ll [...]
PANDEMONIUM By Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne ISBN - 9781922768131 RRP: $32.99 Reviewed by Ken Spillman The late Barry Humphries knew a thing or two about creating memorable characters. It’s notable, then, that the front cover of Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s latest collaboration, Pandemonium, quotes Humphries’ view that “Grafton Everest [...]
WIFEDOM – MRS ORWELL’S INVISIBLE LIFE By Anna Funder Hamish Hamilton 2023 ISBN: 978 9 14378 711 2 RRP: $36.99 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson From the time some ancient scribbler put the words of the Book of Genesis together, a woman, or the female of the human species, has been known as man’s [...]
SYDNEY – A BIOGRAPHY By Louis Nowra NewSouth 2022 ISBN: 9781742235929 RRP: $39.99 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson The biography of a major global city such as Sydney is a monumental task. How to make it manageable, readable and accessible is the question. Louis Nowra, acclaimed playwright and author, gets it right before [...]
THE FLAME OF RESISTANCE. AMERICAN BEAUTY. FRENCH HERO. BRITISH SPY – THE UNTOLD STORY OF JOSEPHINE BAKER’S SECRET WAR By Damien Lewis Quercus 2022 ISBN: 978 9 152941 675 6 RRP: $32.99 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson The tragic events from mid-1940, with the fall of France to Nazi Germany, and the conflict that [...]
RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER By Kate Grenville Text Publishing 2023 ISBN: 9781922790330 RRP: $45 (HB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson Dolly Maunder’s mistake, according to her grand daughter and literary creator Kate Grenville, was to be born in 1880 and as a woman who was clever and a bit ambitious. As such, she would face [...]
