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Allen & Unwin

Don Dunstan: The visionary politician who changed Australia by Angela Woollacott

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October 2019, no. 415
Christina Slade reviews 'Don Dunstan: The visionary politician who changed Australia' by Angela Woollacott

Don Dunstan tended to divide those around him, even his parents. His father, Viv, moved from Adelaide to become a company man in Fiji. Peter Kearsley, a contemporary of Don’s who later became chief justice of Fiji, said Viv was ‘a fair dinkum sort of chap’, ‘the sort who would have been an office bearer in a bowling club’. His mother, according to Kearsley ...

Bruny by Heather Rose

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October 2019, no. 415
Nicole Abadee reviews 'Bruny' by Heather Rose

Tasmanian writer Heather Rose’s fifth adult novel, Bruny, about a joint venture between the Chinese, Australian, and Tasmanian governments, is well timed, given current concerns about the covert infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party into Australia’s universities and given Federal MP Andrew Hastie’s recent warning that Australia should approach i ...

The Breeding Season by Amanda Niehaus

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October 2019, no. 415
Fiona Wright reviews 'The Breeding Season' by Amanda Niehaus

The Breeding Season is a novel that grapples with big ideas: the connections between death; grief, mortality and the bodily experience of them; how the male gaze preconditions how women (and female animals) are portrayed and described in science and art. It is an ambitious book, and the ideas that drive it are one of its main pleasures, even if they sometim ...

Project RAINFALL: The Secret History of Pine Gap by Tom Gilling

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October 2019, no. 415
Alison Broinowski reviews 'Project RAINFALL: The Secret History of Pine Gap' by Tom Gilling

Since the 1960s, US military bases have continuously occupied Australian territory, with the permission of successive governments. Of the original sites, the missile-launch tracker Nurrungar is closed and North West Cape no longer communicates with US nuclear submarines, but it has since gained space surveillance and military signals intelligence functions. Pine Gap ...

Global Sex by Dennis Altman

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August 2001, no. 233
Robert Reynolds reviews 'Global Sex' by Dennis Altman

If there was any doubt about the need for intelligent writing on sex, international relations, and that current political catch-phrase – globalisation – look no further than last month’s United Nations General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS. Convened by the Secretary-General, the session ground to a halt as Syria, Egypt, and Malaysia ...

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Fortune by Lenny Bartulin

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October 2019, no. 415
Francesca Sasnaitis reviews 'Fortune' by Lenny Bartulin

Fortune begins with Napoleon’s triumphant entry into Berlin on 27 October 1806. Does it matter whether the popular image of the emperor astride a magnificent white stallion is an embellishment? ‘Time sullies every truth,’ Lenny Bartulin tells us. History is as much a fiction as this tale of derring-do and dire misfortune  ...

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The Rich Man’s House by Andrew McGahan

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September 2019, no. 414
James Bradley reviews 'The Rich Man’s House' by Andrew McGahan

Andrew McGahan’s final book, The Rich Man’s House, opens with an apology. ‘It’s a finished novel – I wouldn’t be letting it out into the world if it wasn’t – but I can’t deny that my abrupt decline in health has forced the publishers and I to hurry the rewriting and editing process extremely, and that this is not quite the book it would have been had cancer not intervened … 

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Women, Men and the Whole Damn Thing by David Leser

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September 2019, no. 414
Paul Dalgarno reviews 'Women, Men and the Whole Damn Thing' by David Leser

Australian journalist and author David Leser’s 2018 Good Weekend article, ‘Women, Men and the Whole Damn Thing’, sparked a wildfire of commentary, confession, and praise. Written in the early white heat of the #MeToo movement, the Harvey Weinstein exposé, and Oprah Winfrey’s 2018 Golden Globes speech in which she spoke out on behalf of the Time’s Up campaign ...

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The Colonial Fantasy: Why white Australia can’t solve black problems by Sarah Maddison

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August 2019, no. 413
Richard J. Martin reviews 'The Colonial Fantasy: Why white Australia can’t solve black problems' by Sarah Maddison

‘Fuck Australia, I hope it fucking burns to the ground.’ Sarah Maddison opens this book by quoting Tarneen Onus-Williams, the young Indigenous activist who sparked a brief controversy when her inflammatory comments about ...

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Australia’s Original Languages: An introduction by R.M.W. Dixon

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August 2019, no. 413
Bruce Moore reviews 'Australia’s Original Languages: An introduction' by R.M.W. Dixon

Bob Dixon has researched Australian Indigenous languages since the 1960s, has constructed grammars of five languages, and has written numerous scholarly books and articles on Aboriginal languages ...

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