No 255 - October, 2003
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Tony Birch reviews Stuart Macintyre and Anne Clark's The History Wars
and Robert Manne's Whitewash
Peter Ryan reviews Chester Porter's autobiography Walking on Water
Spring Reading by Lolla Stewart
Copyright to all textual material owned by Australian Book Review Inc. Flinders Dspace has made every effort to contact the copyright owners of other material, and will remove items upon request.
Recent Submissions
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A Comet of Wonder Fallen to Earth: The Diaries of Miles Franklin.
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Franklin published fifteen books in her lifetime becoming a respected literary figure in Australia in her last twenty years. But none of the books would be quite the success that "My Brilliant Career" was, at least in her ... -
Bestsellers/Subscription
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)This item is the September 2003 Bestsellers and Subscription Form page of this issue. -
Among the Chinese. "From Rice to Riches: A Personal Journey Through A Changing China" by Jane Hutcheon. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)The opening scene of "From Rice to Riches" has the author travelling in a taxi with a camera crew through the city of Bengbu in China’s central Anhui province. A furtive glance in the mirror of her powder compact convinces ... -
Shoals of Fingerlings
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)This article is a review of Poetry, including: "Tightrope Horizon" by Ross Donlon, "Flight" by Jan Teagle Kapetas, "Venus Steps Out" by Helen Lambert, "Tender Hammers" by Tric O'Heare, "Compound Eye" by Louise Oxley and ... -
Striated Tears. "Blood and Old Belief" by Paul Hetherington. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)The scene of Paul Hetherington's ‘verse novel’, "Blood and Old Belief", is established in the opening stanza. From the start, we are in the hands of a skilled verse practitioner for whom ‘conservative’ metrical forms are ... -
Familial Thrills. "Lethal Factor" by Gabrielle Lord. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)This is a crime novel written largely in headlines. "Lethal Factor" is replete with references to such choice items as bio-terrorism, the conflict in the Balkans, paedophilia, Nazi war criminals, strange goings-on in the ... -
The Brothers Who Ate the Wind. "Mao's Last Dancer" by Li Cunxin. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Determination, and its collision with what resists it, is central to the story of "Mao’s Last Dancer". Cunxin’s resistance to the systems of oppression was sustained by the constant presence in his mind of the Li family ... -
Unlocking Dupain. "Dupain's Australians" by Jill White (text by Frank Moorhouse). [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)It is interesting to recall the number of times, in book titles alone, that Max Dupain’s name has been linked to ‘Australia’. Joining Dupain’s own "Max Dupain’s Australia" (1986) and "Max Dupain’s Australian Landscapes" ... -
Guarding the Oeufs. "Allan Fels: A Portrait of Power" by Fred Brenchley. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Assuming the chair of a business regulatory authority might not be thought of as an ideal path to media stardom, but Allan Fels showed otherwise. Fels is easily Australia’s best-known cartel buster and the scourge of ... -
Fixing the Bounds. "The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas" by Anne Salmond. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Anne Salmond has been assiduous in searching the records, archival as well as published; and her knowledge of Maori history and ethnography allows her to write authoritatively about culture contact. There are some very ... -
The Last Respectable Prejudice?
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)A broad anti-Americanism seems on the rise among Australians, possibly due to the resentment many feel about US power and the policies of the Bush administration. Brendon O'Connor discusses anti-Americanism in Australia. -
Asian Challenges. "Facing North: A Century of Australian Engagement with Asia, Vol. 2, 1970s to 2000" by Peter Edwards and David Goldsworthy (eds) and "Losing the Blanket: Australia and the End of Britain's Empire" by David Goldsworthy. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)The second volume of "Facing North" deals with contemporary and sometimes contentious events. Many of the policy makers are still active (Alexander Downer and John Howard beam out from the book’s cover), and the issues are ... -
Advances, Contents, Letters, Imprints and Contributors.
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)This item includes miscellaneous pieces from this issue. -
Ethel's Storm in a Teacup. "The Ern Malley Affair" by Michael Heyward [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Alister Kershaw’s review first appeared in the September 1993 issue of "ABR". UQP was the original publisher of "The Ern Malley Affair." -
The Amplitudes. "The Global Reach of Empire: Britain's Maritime Expansion in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, 1764 - 1815" by Alan Frost [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Frost’s British empire of the eighteenth century may not be the one that others prefer to write about. He doesn’t take naked imperialism to task as others do. He doesn’t make it his job to look closely at the other side ... -
Get Porter. "Walking on Water: A Life in the Law" by Chester Porter. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)All young persons contemplating ‘a life in the law’ as a career should read this book, ideally when they are about sixteen, to allow adequate time to switch to dentistry, say, or engineering. But whatever your age, Chester ... -
No Free Ride. "The Bright Shapes and the True Names: A Memoir" by Patrick McCaughey. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)"The Bright Shapes and the True Names" is an autobiography-to-date by a man of many parts, a natural extrovert who has directed three major art galleries, as well as having been a youthful Monash professor. As the title, ... -
Suspension Bridges of Disbelief. "The Anatomy of Truth" by Kate Wild. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)As a whole, Wild struggles to establish a fictional world the reader can fully relax into. In this strange, dramatic story, Wild requires the reader to build suspension bridges of disbelief, at times without her assistance. ... -
Five-Finger Exercise with Doctors and Insects. "A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies" by John Murray. [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Murray knows what he’s doing with the short story form. Hardly a wrong note is sounded or tentative step taken in 274 pages. This is an assured début. Murray is of the ‘epiphanic’ school of short story writers who leave a ... -
Dry Norms. "The Default Country: A Lexical Cartography of Twentieth-Century Australia" by J.M. Arthur [review]
(Australian Book Review, 2003-10)Vocabulary is linked to culture in perhaps an obvious way. But it’s not just suasive words and expressions that we have to guard against. There are also the structural patterns of language. These are loaded with bias, too, ...
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