Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Collins

1915 by Roger McDonald & A Question of Polish by Terry Ingram

by
June 1979, no. 11

The dustjacket designer Christopher McVinish has given the title of this novel an unforgettable identity, with the figure of a soldier superimposed in red on the second one of 1915, which is in black. It is a powerful image that immediately announces the subject of the novel. Most of what follows is disappointing, and apparently not due to McVinish. 

... (read more)

Deep Gold by Arthur Maher & Seven Miles from Sydney by Lesley Thomson

by
July 1988, no. 102

Ignored by literary historians, consumed quietly by the reading public, Australian crime fiction has been evident enough to readers of Miller and MacCartney’s classic bibliography, and restates its bloodied but unbowed presence in two forthcoming reference tools: Margaret Murphy’s Bibliography of Women Writers in Australia, many of whom write thrillers, and in Allen J. Hubin’s near-future third edition of his international bibliography of crime fiction, in which Michael Tolley of the University of Adelaide will exhaustively update and correct the Australian entries.

... (read more)

When I was in London working on a book that Nicholas Whitlam and I wrote on the Petrov Affair, I became friendly with Dr Michael Bialagouski. Bialagouski and I went out several times with our wives to places selected by Michael; a gambling club that had once been run by George Raft, a Chinese restaurant that had a reputation in intelligence circles, that sort of thing.

... (read more)

Worse Than Death by Jean Bedford (in collaboration with Tom Kelly)

by
February–March 1991, no. 128

The publisher’s blurb for Worse Than Death notes that the book is ‘a long awaited move across genres for Jean Bedford’. A backhanded compliment, but no doubt sincerely meant. As it happens, the first Anna Southwood mystery is a pretty lacklustre effort – far from the ‘tight and pacy read’ promised by this same blurb.

Anna Southwood, a tomboy type with – you guessed it – unruly red curls – has set herself up as a private investigator after the death of her husband. He has made a quid or two from shady deals, she has time on her hands, a career in mind and a mate with a PI’s licence.

... (read more)

Keith Willey died on 6 September 1984. He had just submitted the manuscript of what was to be his last book. A study of Australian humour in adversity titled You Might As Well Laugh Mate, it summed up the man, not least in his last days. Sardonic, self-effacing, unashamedly Australian.

... (read more)

Strong-man from Piraeus and other stories by George Johnston and Charmian Clift & The World of Charmian Clift by Charmian Clift

by
July 1984, no. 62

On Hydra last year an old grocer wound up his reminiscences of George Johnston and Charmian Clift with a tolerant grin. ‘They both drank a lot,’ he told me. ‘They had to – yia na katevei i skepsi.’ For the thought to be let down: he used the same verb as for a cow letting her milk flow. ‘They drank a lot; they wrote a lot of books.’ He shrugged.

... (read more)

The letters which form the body of this book are well edited and displayed, the biographical notes, although from necessity they are usually brief, are valuable – in these ways Decie Denholm has been a keen and careful editor. More about the letters later.

... (read more)

The Music of Man by Yehudi Menuhin and Curtis W. Davis & The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium by Gerald Durrell

by
April 1980, no. 19

Irrespective of their countries of origin, books by remarkable men must command attention in the expectation that they will add to or consolidate knowledge, provide grounds for thought or useful debate or, hopefully, entertain.

... (read more)

On one of the early chaotic army days of World War II in France, I was combining the disagreeable tasks of eating and censoring letters home written by the men in my section.

... (read more)

On page eleven of this book, Australians are called an engagingly innocent people ‘splendidly unthinking of anything but the simplicities of affluent living.’ On page twelve, they are called ‘lazy and uncreative’. On page 311, the author writes: ‘Yet in spite of a widespread belief (mainly self-generated) that we are a nation of yahoos, we have as much capacity for some unique kind of greatness as the people of any other race and nation.’

... (read more)
Page 1 of 2