• Bestsellers / Subscription. 

  Unknown author (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  This item outlines the February 2003 Bestsellers, subscription information from this issue, and 2002 Bestsellers.

• Festival Days. 

  Armstrong, Judith (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  'What do women want?' Even if Sigmund Freud didn't have writers' festivals in mind when he framed his famous question, it is apt enough in the context of the many pleasant-faced, intelligent-looking, female ticket-holders ...

• Magic Moments. "Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic" by Simon During. [review] 

  Salzman, Paul (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  During's discussion of magic lanterns, photography and film is extremely suggestive and stimulating, but at the same time it remains rather fragmentary: a series of suggestions, rather than a continuous argument. During ...

• Dazzling Complexes. "After Electra: Rage, Grief and Hope in Twentieth-Century Fiction" by Eden Liddelow. [review] 

  Rutherford, Jennifer (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  This book continues the conversation between psycholanalysis and literature, drawing on Klein, Kristeva, Deleuze and Guattari to frame the work of twentieth-century women writers in the psycho-pathology of their time. The ...

• National News. 

  Holmes, Robin; Ayres, Marie-Louise (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  The National Library holds more than 50,000 pieces of Australian sheet music as part of its collection of 200,000 music items. The Library collects, holds and individually preserves 'mint condition' copies of all music ...

• Seeds in the Woods. "Barossa Food" by Angela Heuzenroeder and "The Market: Stories, History and Recipes from the Adelaide Central Market" by Catherine Murphy. [review] 

  Bilson, Gay (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Catherine Murphy’s "The Market" is not a major work in the way that "Barossa Food" is, but both books share a belief in placing recognition fair and square in specific communities and the lives of 'ordinary' people rather ...

• Breaking the Ice. "Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files" by Mara Moustafine. [review] 

  Beecham, Rodney (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Harbin is a city in north China. In the 1920s it was a city of Russians: workers and their families associated with the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), effectively a Russian colony in Manchuria; Jews who had fled from Tsarist ...

• Catholic Daydreams. [poem] 

  Ryan, Brendan (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

• Over the Rainbow. "George Pell" by Tess Livingstone, "A Long Way From Rome: Why The Australian Catholic Church is in Crisis" by Chris McGillion (ed) and "The Suicidal Church: Can The Anglican Church be Saved?" by Caroline Miley. [review] 

  Rickard, John (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Just as it used to be said that the middle class was always rising, in recent times it seems as if the churches are in perpetual crisis. And it is now almost a cliché to remark the apparent paradox that, while religion is ...

• Media. [essay] 

  Griffen-Foley, Bridget (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Newspapers love anniversaries. Anniversaries of disasters, political milestones and sporting triumphs make good copy. Newspaper anniversaries are even better, providing publishing companies with opportunities to celebrate ...

• Whatever Happened to Feminism? Review of "Feminism and the History of Philosophy" by Genevieve Lloyd (ed). [review] 

  Keuneman, Katrine Pilcher (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  The essays in this collection represent a range of styles and approaches, variously scholarly, hermetic, reflective, boldly argued or tightly dialectical. All are well-written and intellectually worthwhile. The quality and ...

• Paramount Place. "Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought" by Peter Hay and "Vandiemonian Essays" by Pete Hay. [review] 

  Bantick, Christopher (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Poet, scholar, teacher, writer and essayist are just a few terms that could be used to describe Peter Hay (or 'Pete Hay' as he presents himself on the second of these book covers). Hay, as Reader in Geography and Environmental ...

• Spinoza's Advice. "Against Paranoid Nationalism: Searching for a Home in a Shrinking Society" by Ghassan Hage and "Hope: New Philosophies for Change" by Mary Zournazi (ed). [review] 

  Broinowski, Alison (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  In his much-discussed documentary "Bowling for Columbine", Mike Moore pursues a practical question: what is it that makes so many Americans shoot each other? He finds an abstract answer: fear. The more guns people have, ...

• Peter Singer and the Bovver Boys. "One World: The Ethics of Globalization" by Peter Singer. [review] 

  Patience, Allan (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Singer's lucid ethical enquiry demands that we focus intelligently and independently on selfish states and rogue-like super-states. Maybe we Australians, with our wealth of multicultural experience, have something to say ...

• Strange Truths. "Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 16: 1940-1980, Pik-Z" by John Ritchie and Diane Langmore (eds). [review] 

  Thompson, John (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  Like sport, the "Australian Dictionary of Biography" is a national institution. Since publication commenced in 1966, the appearance of each new volume is one of the perennial delights of Australian letters. Now, with Volume ...

• The Horror. "Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800" by Raymond John Howgego. [review] 

  Robb, Peter (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  You open Raymond John Howgego's book and dive into the world's great and terrible past. "The Encyclopedia of Exploration" is a vast, meticulous and absorbing record of human restlessness that seems to be quite without ...

• The Brightest of True Names: A Sketch Portrait of Fred Williams. [essay] 

  McCaughey, Patrick (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  For McCaughey, Fred Williams remains the brightest of the true names. Two decades after his death, his art has taken on an epic quality, the long struggle to realise fully the extremes and the norm of the Australian ...

• Lest We Forget."Sydney Sandstone" by Gary Deirmendjian (ed) and "John Horbury Hunt: Radical Architect 1838-1904" by Peter Reynolds, Lesley Muir and Joy Hughes. [review] 

  Tibbits, George (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  The camera is the eye through which we are able to appreciate the great Sydney-based architect John Horbury Hunt (1838–1904), in whose memory both an exhibition (at the Museum of Sydney, August to December 2002) and this ...

• Downmarket Derring-Do. "White Dog" by Peter Temple. [review] 

  Caterson, Simon (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  "White Dog", an extract from which appeared in "Best Australian Stories 2002", is the fourth novel in the Jack Irish series. This time around our hero is called upon to find out whether the capricious, unstable artist ...

• Complex by the Yarra. "The Place Across the River: The Story of the Building of the Victorian Arts Centre" by Vicki Fairfax. [review] 

  Lewis, Miles (Australian Book Review, 2003-03)

  The Victorian Arts Centre is not the Sydney Opera House, but, in its humbler way, it is also a miraculous creation. The reader of Vicki Fairfax's account will be struck by the serendipitous way in which the institution ...

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