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Australian Book Review
Marcus Clarke’s cigar
Biographies, exhaustively researched, can take years, even decades to write – Jill Roe’s recent life of Miles Franklin is a good example – but few have to wait a century for a publisher. Written in 1906 and sold as a handwritten manuscript to the Mitchell Library in 1926, Cyril (brother of Gerard Manley) Hopkins’s obscure ‘Biographical Notice of the Life & Wo ... (read more)
A question of genocide
Dear Editor,
Defending Inga Clendinnen against my criticisms (ABR, July 2001), John Clendinnen attributes to her a controversial view about the nature of moral judgment. I don’t hold it and, if I were to judge solely by her practice, I would be surprised if she does. Be that as it may: I’ll try to put my points by keeping philosophical assumptions down as much as ... (read more)
Tragedy and loss
Dear Editor,
In his otherwise eloquent defence (‘Seeing Truganini’, May 2010) of Benjamin Law’s busts of Truganini and Woureddy as ‘irreducible historical objects’, secular works of art and therefore items that should be available for free discussion and exchange, and also in his sketching of the various shades of guilt accompanying this very complex issue, David Hanse ... (read more)
Pam Macintyre
Top of my list is Sonya Hartnett’s bitter-sweet story of love and loss, The Ghost’s Child (Viking), for its emotional punch, mixture of realism, fairytale and magic realism, and exquisite prose. Also written with emotional clout is Bill Condon’s witty and frank Daredevils (UQP). Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight (Penguin), by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow, gives sheer pleas ... (read more)
Endemic yowling
Dear Editor,
A footnote for Peter Craven. In 1935, the professor of English at the University of Melbourne, G.H. Cowling, declared that an Australian literature was virtually impossible. This enraged Australian writers everywhere, and provoked P.R. Stephensen’s classic The Foundations of Culture in Australia (1936). It is also the only reason anyone remembers Cowling (‘Yowlin ... (read more)
Patronage and ABR
Private philanthropy has never been more important for the arts, as costs (and expectations) rise, and as traditional sources of funding and revenue become more unpredictable. ABR has had some success in this regard since entering the field two years ago, but June marks a turning point for us, with the formal launch of our philanthropy program in Melbourne, on 2 June. David Malo ... (read more)
Vale Jacob Rosenberg (1922 – 2008)
The presence of octogenarians and even nonagenarians on publishers’ lists is one phenomenon of the age. Sybille Bedford gave us her exotic memoir, Quicksands (2005), in her ninety-fourth year. P.D. James, aged eighty-eight, has just published another novel, The Private Patient.
The Melbourne writer Jacob Rosenberg, who died on October 30, was not quite that ... (read more)
ABR welcomes letters from our readers. Correspondents should note that letters may be edited. Letters and emails must reach us by the middle of the current month, and must include a telephone number for verification.
Books Alive
Dear Editor,
Jeremy Fisher criticises the 2005 Books Alive campaign (Letters, ABR September 2005) for failing to do things it was not set up to do, and then ack ... (read more)
Judith Armstrong
I want to recommend one book only: The Ferocious Summer: Palmer’s Penguins and the Warming of Australia (Allen & Unwin), by Meredith Hooper, an Australian woman living in Cambridge. This is a lovely book, beautifully written, with deep concern for both science and story. It is a study of the effects of rising temperatures on the small Adélie penguins at Palmer Station on A ... (read more)