Australian Book Review
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Book reviews by Gillian Dooley for the Australian Book Review.
Recent Submissions
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The Darwin in the Detail. "Charles Darwin in Australia", by F.W. Nicholas and J.M. Nicholas. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2002-08) -
Untrimmed detail
(Australian Book Review, 2002-12)Halfway through "Matthew Flinders' Cat", the protagonist admits that, when writing, he finds it 'almost impossible to leave out what others might think of as superfluous detail. It was, he knew, self-indulgence.' Is this ... -
The Missing Captain. "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" by Robert Holden. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-08)The perils of a certain kind of historical writing are painfully demonstrated in "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", billed as 'the life of Australian whaling captain, William Chamberlain: a tale of abduction, adventure and ... -
Feisty Times. "Women on the Rocks: A Tale of Two Convicts" by Kristin Williamson. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-11)Early Sydney has beguiled many writers, and the latest to succumb is Kristin Williamson. She has combined an interest in the Rocks area with a self-confessed ‘obsession with our feisty female forebears’, and has produced ... -
Batmania. "Bright Planet" by Peter Mews. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2004-05)"Bright Planet" is a wry, laconic book; bold, entertaining and slightly mannered. Mews’s vocabulary is vivid and his epithets at times startlingly original. It is a kind of sustained exercise in bravado; Mews is playing ... -
The Scurrying World. "The Secret Cure" by Sue Woolfe. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)In some ways, Sue Woolfe’s new novel, "The Secret Cure", deals with similar themes to her last novel, the award-winning "Leaning Towards Infinity" (1996). The central character of the novel is a young laboratory technician, ... -
Rescuing Iris. "From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction: Conversations with Iris Murdoch" by Gillian Dooley (ed) [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-11)While most of Murdoch’s novels are now back in print under the Vintage Classics imprint, Gillian Dooley’s collection of twenty-three interviews and conversations with Murdoch provides a welcome opportunity for the philosopher ...