We’re all interested in people; misanthropy is not trendy. Contemporary interest in people may be manifested by the success of reality television, the media coverage given to celebrities, and books such as these, which set out to investigate people and what makes them tick.

Robert Holden’s Crackpots, Ratbags and Rebels: A Swag of Aussie Eccentrics is a breezy trawl through a number of characters who appear to the author to fall into these eponymous categories and who, if not Australian (for example, Lola Montez), stake a claim by visiting the country. Holden gives potted biographies of figures ranging from those extremely well known nationally (Alfred Deakin, Percy Grainger, Daisy Bates) to local personalities such as Dulcie Deamer and Arthur Stace. Perhaps the book is too breezy. It would certainly have benefited from more careful editing. There is, for instance, no such thing as an ‘idea fixe’ or a ‘vade medum’; and for a man to be ‘literally hounded to death’ (an assertion irritatingly made twice), he must first be chased or attacked by literal dogs. It is a pity, too, that there are no photographs (or likenesses): this also applies to Up Close: 28 Lives of Extraordinary Australians.