Browsing No 253 - August 2003 by Issue Date
Now showing items 1-20 of 40
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Hard Hooves on an Old Soil. "Wool: The Australian Story" by Richard Woldendorp, Roger McDonald and Amanda Burdon. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The extraordinary photographer Richard Woldendorp joins writers Roger McDonald and Amanda Burdon in "Wool", a sumptuous presentation that celebrates with every glossy page. But is "Wool" a celebration or a wake? Why publish ... -
An Exclusive Club. "The Complete Book of Great Australian Women: Thirty-six Women Who Changed the Course of Australia" by Susanna de Vries. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The book works best as a sort of extended "Who's Who", introducing readers to a host of captivating female writers, artists, activists and innovators. But whether through lack of editorial guidance or resources, there has ... -
A Burning Fiery Furnace. [poem]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08) -
Peculiar Mercy. "A History of Criminal Law in New South Wales: The Colonial Period 1788-1900" by G. D. Woods. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The book is built around the themes of savagery within the justice system; the entrenchment of the rule of law and the development of legal principle; and the discretionary application of clemency within the criminal law. ... -
Screen Tests and Digital Dead-ends. "Turning Off the Television: Broadcasting’s Uncertain Future" by Jock Given and "Media Mania: Why Our Fear of Modern Media is Misplaced" by Hugh Mackay. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)At a recent Australian Broadcasting Authority conference, federal communications minister Senator Richard Alston conceded that the early adoption of digital television in Australia had been 'modest'. More impartial observers ... -
Drab Caricatures. "The Premiers of Queensland" by Denis Murphy et al (eds). [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Queensland's history is different in many respects from the older states, and similar only to Western Australia in features such as its vastness, its relative emptiness and its history as the last of the ‘frontier’ states. ... -
The Great Pessimist. "The Pope’s Battalions: Santamaria, Catholicism and the Labor Split" by Ross Fitzgerald (with Adam Carr and William J. Dealey). [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Ross Fitzgerald's book is timely, for two reasons. Five years having passed since the death of B.A. Santamaria, an appropriate distance stands between the immediate obituaries and a better perspective on his impact on ... -
We’re All Culturalists Now. "Cultural History in Australia" by Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The essays in this collection find culture in literature, gardens, landscape, tourism, social distinctions, racial and ethnic identities, memories, psychology and much else. Cultural studies proceed from the postessentialist ... -
Broad-brush History. "A Short History of Indonesia: The Unlikely Nation?" by Colin Brown. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)This is a welcome addition to the historical literature about Indonesia. Aimed at new readers with limited or no knowledge of Indonesia, and written in an informal and accessible style, it makes an interesting contrast ... -
Exilic Colour. "Summer Visit: Three Novellas" and "The Island/ L’Île/ To Nisi" by Antigone Kefala. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Readers who share Helen Nickas's view that Antigone Kefala's fiction forms 'a continuous narrative which depicts and explores the various stages of an exilic journey' may be pleased to find more instalments in her fourth ... -
Commentary.
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)An address by Sir William Deane at the University of Queensland on 29 May 2003. -
Life Giving Lies. "My Life as a Fake" by Peter Carey. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Anchored in the well-known facts of the Malley hoax, 'My Life As a Fake' tells the story of Sarah Wode-Douglass who, on a trip to Malaysia, chances upon Chubb reading a rare copy of Rilke’s 'Sonette an Orpheus'. Hopelessly ... -
A Thousand Small Tragedies. "The Meeting of the Waters: The Hindmarsh Island Affair" by Margaret Simons. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Two hundred years of interference are coming home to roost in an environmental disaster. And Margaret Simons's book contains some harsh implications for what this might mean to the Ngarrindjeri people, the heart of whose ... -
The War Against Others. "The Tyrant’s Novel" by Tom Keneally. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The book opens with 'The Visitor’s Preface.' The person in question is a writer who is given permission to enter a detention centre on the outskirts of Sydney where he meets an asylum seeker called Alan Sheriff. But first, ... -
A Grand Disrobing. "Bob Carr: The Reluctant Leader" by Marilyn Dodkin. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Over the past few years, Bob Carr has been tweaking the veils that shroud his inner self. In essays, speeches and book reviews, he has teased and titillated us with glimpses of his diary and extracts from his unpublished ... -
Touching the Sides. "Rights for Aborigines" by Bain Attwood. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)John Howard, someone has remarked, deserves to be remembered for his shabby key to political success: he gave Australians permission to leave their consciences in the cupboard. Paul Keating, who knew what was coming with ... -
A Social Pulse. "The Secret Burial" by Penelope Sell and "The Alphabet of Light and Dark" by Danielle Wood. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The bush gothic of Barbara Baynton shapes the world of this promising first novel from Penelope Sell. "The Secret Burial" deals with the brutal coming of age of fifteen-year-old Elise. The setting is a harsh, drought-stricken ... -
Partridge Wings. "North of Nowhere, South of Loss" by Janet Turner-Hospital. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)Janet Turner-Hospital fans, possibly reminded of their affection for her by the recent publication of her latest novel, "Due Preparations for the Plague" will find this anthology an interesting exercise in retrospection. ... -
Dream on. "Dream Home" by Mark Wakely. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)A fascination with the kinds of abodes we humans inhabit, and dream about, is the central theme around which Mark Wakely has spun his wide-ranging observations, anecdotes and personal stories. The topic lends itself to as ... -
The God of Small Islands. "The Trickster" by Jane Downing. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)This story is told from a number of points of view. One of them is that of Joy, a woman with impeccable light Green political credentials, a job in a suburban library in Canberra and a mother who seems to have a clearer ...