Craig Sherborne

Craig Sherborne reviews ‘A Life Worth Living’ by Nicholas Shehadie

October 2003, no. 255 • 01 October 2003

Not one word is wasted in Sir Nicholas Shehadie’s memoir, A Life Worth Living. Almost all the words are. This book is a triumph of lack of style over lack of substance. It’s a pity to attach such a proud word as ‘book’ to a publication like this, as it is to attach ‘music’ to two-fingered renditions of Chopsticks. Shehadie is no writer, nor does he pretend to be, which is a shame. A li ... (read more)

Craig Sherborne reviews 'New Faces of Leadership' by Sinclair and Wilson and 'Executive Material' by Richard Walsh

April 2003, no. 250 • 01 April 2003

Big business is a kind of communism. Employees in their vertical villages banter this truth, checking over their shoulders for fear an office spy is eavesdropping. It is a communism that aims for the inequitable distribution of wealth, just as traditional communism aims for the inequitable distribution of poverty. It is the People’s Republic of Capitalism (PRC). Its languages are Bluff and Spin ... (read more)

Craig Sherborne reviews 'The Best Ever Australian Sports Writing: A 200 year collection', edited by David Headon

December 2001–January 2002, no. 237 • 12 August 2022

What would Samuel Johnson have made of sports writing? Not much, I suspect. He believed literature should strike bold notes of moral activism, of ‘Truth’ with a capital T, be an edifier, not merely entertainment. That’s asking a lot of sports writing. Or it may just be asking a lot of Australian sports writing. I mention Johnson only because I happened to be reading his Lives of the English ... (read more)

Craig Sherborne reviews 'Dawn: One hell of a life' by Dawn Fraser

August 2001, no. 233 • 01 August 2001

Dawn Fraser had a hundred or so pages of fair prose in her and she put them in this book, her autobiography. The trouble is that the book is 400 pages long. But that’s not a bad result. If a David Malouf or Helen Garner lined up for an Olympic swimming final, you’d expect them to sink. ... (read more)

'Power of Attorney' a poem by Craig Sheborne

February 2007, no. 288 • 01 February 2007

I put away my eyes for the night.I forget dreams,perhaps I don’t have them any more,not close at hand.I’m not book-sick from the gloomy others.I haven’t read a word in years.In me, drink-nettles – I’ve a glass with the same stings,and ice which comes out as clear sweat onthis side of my skin,the right-way-up for drying. ... (read more)

Craig Sherborne reviews 'Razor: A true story of slashers, gangsters, prostitutes and sly grog' by Larry Writer

June 2001, no. 231 • 01 June 2001

The only organised crime boss I ever knew was Perce Galea, in the mid1970s. He owned illegal casinos and raced thoroughbreds. ‘Colourful racing identity’, the polite broadsheets called him. My dad raced horses too and would go to Randwick at dawn to watch them work. I’d tag along on Saturdays and there Perce would be – Windsor-knotted tie, brown cashmere long-coat, and porkpie hat – stra ... (read more)

Craig Sherborne reviews 'Always Unreliable: The memoirs' by Clive James

April 2002, no. 240 • 01 April 2002

Clive James is a fussy A-grade mechanic of the English language, always on the lookout for grammatical misfires or sloppiness of phrasing that escape detection on publishing production lines. Us/we crashtest dummies of the written word, who drive by computer, with squiggly red and green underlinings on the screen to help us steer, should therefore expect perfection in James’s own work, and pounc ... (read more)