No 259 - March, 2004
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Dianne Dempsey reviews Elizabeth Stead's The Different World of Fin Starling;
Sara Hardy reviews Edna Walling's A Gardener's Log;
Christopher Menz reviews India, China, Australia: Trade and Society 1788-1850;
Sebastian Smee reviews Irena Zdanowicz and Stephen Coppel's Fred Williams;
Neil Blewett reviews Robert Manne's (ed.) The Howard Years;
Jill Jolliffe reviews James Dunn's East Timor
Copyright to all textual material owned by Australian Book Review Inc. Flinders Dspace has made every effort to contact the copyright owners of other material, and will remove items upon request.
Recent Submissions
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The Quiet Guy. "The Book of my Enemy: Collected Verse 1958-2003" by Clive James. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Clive James has been writing poetry for some time. The rich centre of this book is these recent poems, and the songs, which fit so much into few words and which show us that James, despite all the other hats he has worn ... -
Private Murcutt. "Glenn Murcutt: Buildings + Projects 1962-2003" by Françoise Fromonot (trans Charlotte Ellis). [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)"Buildings + Projects 1962–2003" is an updated version of the author’s "Glenn Murcutt: Works & Projects" (1995). It adds ten new buildings and projects to the twenty-three selected for the first book. And it is a beautiful ... -
Sweet Profusion: The National Gallery of Victoria Renewed. [essay]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This month's La Trobe University Essay discusses the newly reopened National Gallery of Victoria and compares it with other galleries. -
Bestsellers / Subscription.
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This is the February 2004 Bestsellers / Subscription page for this issue. -
Challenging Change. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This article is a review of Junior Fiction books, including: Graeme Base, "Truck Dogs"; Susanne Gervay, "Super Jack"; Elizabeth Honey, "The Ballad of Cauldron Bay"; Glenda Millard, illus. Caroline Magerl, "The Naming of ... -
Animal Farm. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This article is a review of various children's picture books, including: Tania Cox, illus. Greg Holfeld, "Wolf's Sunday Dinner"; Jackie French, illus. Bruce Whatley, "Too Many Pears!"; Leigh Hobbs, "Fiona the Pig"; Carolyn ... -
A Surfeit of Enigmas. "The Different World of Fin Starling" by Elizabeth Stead. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Stead has a remarkable ability to create bravura set pieces, such as the storm that devastates the village. Her prose is consistently eloquent and inventive. But there is an ephemeral quality to the novel that left this ... -
Eternal Walling. "A Gardener's Log" by Edna Walling. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Were she alive, Edna Walling would probably be delighted to know that another of her books has been reissued. She might also be astonished and just a little peeved. After a brilliant career as a garden designer, columnist ... -
Some Kind of a Man. "Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life" by Peter Conrad. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)One is struck often by the astuteness of Conrad’s insight and phrasing. His intellectual range and grasp, hurtling across millennia, continents and media, often amazes, even if it also sometimes wearies; and the strategy, ... -
Bounty from Zero. "Plenty: Art Into Poetry" by Peter Steele. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Here is a production that most poets would die for. Peter Steele’s new book is a spectacular hybrid beast, a Dantesque griffin in glorious array: it is a new volume of poetry and an art book, with superb reproductions of ... -
Early Traffic. "India, China, Australia: Trade and Society 1788-1850" by James Broadbent, Suzanne Rickard and Margaret Steven. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Given the vast amount of imports from Asia available today — from tableware to mobile telephones, and much of it demonstrating the latest in technology — one could be excused for thinking that our reliance on Asian trade ... -
Big Bertha. "Peter Booth: Human/Nature" by Jason Smith (with John Embling and Robert Lindsay). [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)At each stage of his retrospective, Booth comes across as a burdened artist. That burden is what Smith and Lindsay seek to unpack. Their modus operandi is to hurl big words, high-end concepts and luxuriant quotations at ... -
Momentary Tremors. "Yvonne Audette: Paintings and Drawings 1949-2003" by Christopher Heathcote et al. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)The term "lost in translation" does not apply to this book, especially considering the deft ways in which each of the writers has contextualised Yvonne Audette’s art, but has not lost in their translations of her practice ... -
Bessie in Paris. "A Studio in Montparnasse: Bessie Davidson: An Australian Artist in Paris" by Penelope Little. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Australian expatriate artist Bessie Davidson was a woman who ripened with age. After decades of living in Paris and dressing somewhat dowdily ‘à l’anglaise’, she gained confidence with the liberation of France towards the ... -
Visceral Life. "At Home In Australia" by Peter Conrad. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)We've been hectored by Miss Greer and savaged by Mr Hughes, but, like Goldilocks with the three bears’ bowls of porridge, Mr Conrad loves us just right. His book "At Home in Australia" is a collaboration between the National ... -
Williams Abroad. "Fred Williams: An Australian Vision" by Irena Zdanowicz and Stephen Coppel. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This article is a review of "Fred Williams: An Australian Vision" by Irena Zdanowicz and Stephen Coppel. -
Gough's Mestizos. "East Timor: A Rough Passage To Independence" by James Dunn. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)History has proved Dunn right in his support of Timorese independence. Despite minor flaws, "East Timor" is an important work of record, setting out the sad story of East Timor’s betrayal by the international community at ... -
Advances, Contents, Letters, Imprints and Contributors.
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This items contains miscellaneous information about this issue of "ABR". -
Light and Shade. "City of Light: A History of Perth Since the 1950s" by Jenny Gregory. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)Perth has been well served by its historians. C.T. Stannage’s "The People of Perth" (1979), a pioneering urban social history, covered the period to World War I, with a summary of developments into the 1970s. His work, ... -
Art in Brief. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-03)This article contains brief reviews of various art books, including: David Raizman, "History of Modern Design: Graphics and Products Since the Industrial Revolution"; John Dowson, "Old Fremantle: Photographs 1850-1950"; ...