A TALE OF SURVIVAL – JUST FOR FUN LUNA PARK – The extraordinary story of the showmen, shysters and schemers who built Sydney’s famous park By Helen Pitt Allen & Unwin 2026 ISBN: 978 1 76106 511 8 RRP: $34.99 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson The Victorian age of industrial expansion left many legacies, but [...]
SURVIVING THE INVERTED WORLD OF POLITICAL REPRESSION AN UNLIKELY PRISONER – How an eternal optimist found hope in Myanmar’s most notorious jail By Sean Turnell Viking 2023 ISBN: 978 1 76134 292 9 RRP: $35 (PB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson Literature over decades has left many records of the individual experiences of those forced to [...]
TIED TOGETHER IN WAR THEY FACED EACH OTHER THE LAST TITANS: CHURCHILL AND DE GAULLE by Richard Vinen Bloomsbury Publishing 2025 ISBN: 9781526668936 RRP: $44.99 (HB) Reviewed by Anne Henderson One was short and rotund with an infectious personality, the other was tall and statuesque with little public show of emotion. They were the two [...]
HOW WRONG CAN AN AUTHOR BE? THE ERRORS ABOUND IN REMEIKIS’ BOOK ON HOWARD WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG: The Case Against John Howard By Amy Remeikis Scribner Australia/Simon & Schuster, February 2026 ISBN: 9781761822117 RRP: $29.99 Reviewed by Gerard Henderson Question: Where did it all go wrong? Answer: At the very beginning. The reference is [...]
MYTH AND HISTORY – SEEKING THE END OF THE TZARS RASPUTIN AND THE DOWNFALL OF THE ROMANOVS By Antony Beevor Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2026 ISBN- 978 1 3996 1762 8 RRP: $55 (HB) By Anne Henderson Increasingly stories and events of the past are being rewritten or revamped as the modern era of 24/7 media [...]
TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY HEROES OF STALIN’S TERROR TO THE SUCCESS OF OUR HOPELESS CAUSE, THE MANY LIVES OF THE SOVIET DISSIDENT MOVEMENT by Benjamin Nathans Princeton University Press, 2024 ISBN: 9780691117034 RRP: $79.99 (HB), eBook AUD $27.99 Reviewed by Keith Harvey. To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet [...]
THE ROYAL COMMISSION, THE BISHOP, AND THE UNCHALLENGED EVIDENCE THE ROSE AND THE FIRE: A BIOGRAPHY OF ALFRED AND JOY HOLLAND By Jonathan Holland Connor Court, 2025 ISBN: 9781923568198 RRP - $39.95 (pb) Reviewed by Michael Giffin In the Introduction to his deeply moving biography of his parents - Alfred and Joy Holland - Jonathan [...]
