Books Australia
In the land of the blind
Somehow, American culture has got itself into a terrible mess of division and acrimony: elites against mainstream, progressives against conservatives,…
In the trenches
I can hardly recall a more engaging and uplifting biography than this life of Major-General William Holmes, who was killed…
Queer Teen Craze
It is remarkable how quickly the cause of transgenderism has moved from being a strange object at the back of…
Xi’s Big Red Book
As well as micromanaging the lives of 1.4 billion Chinese, Xi Jinping is becoming a prolific author. His latest book,…
Speaking Our Language
The Australian language is one of the few bonds that still binds together the Australian nation. And, heaven knows, we…
George Pell: Behind Bars
This is the prison diary that should never have been written because Cardinal George Pell should never have been in…
Summer books
Bad year, good books
Office boy
For most of us, going to work means going to an office, to sit at a desk and perform bureaucratic…
In the land of the blind
Carter William Page, born in 1971, is the former United States Navy officer with personal, business, scholarly and government connections…
Blame game
Ah, millennials. Golden children of the Digital Age or dysfunctional, over-educated slackers? Bit of both, says Anne Helen Petersen, although…
Born comics die laughing
Evolutionary theory is primarily about survival but, as Jonathan Silvertown makes clear in this intriguing book, as well as having…
Portrait of the piss artist as a young man
Being the son of the revered John Olsen has often been intriguing, and sometimes difficult. Olsen, 92, is arguably Australia’s…
Anatomy of fiction
By more than a mile the best book I have read during the pandemic is Tim Finch’s Peace Talks. It…
A darkling plain
Thirty years ago, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its puppet regimes unleashed widespread celebration, especially among their suppressed…
Base politics
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York moved to the lectern. It was the Cow Palace in San Francisco in…
Bedwetter’s lament
The trouble with political memoirs is that it’s very hard to get the balance right between the book-length version of…
Decency personified
The life of Paul Ramsay shows that business people don’t have to be ruthless to succeed. Many will find this…
Next year in Jerusalem
Alex Ryvchin’s book couldn’t possibly have come at a better time. On an almost daily basis, voices opposed to the…
A smaller man
Never trust a person who keeps a diary. After all, who keeps a diary other than someone who wants subsequently…
Women’s world
One of life’s perennial questions is what would the world look like if it was ruled by women. It’s an…
Smith not Mill
For a long time in this country, conservatism was the political creed that dare not speak its name. The term…
Stone not gathering moss
If you are part of that multitude of Australians who fear that our country is drifting backwards – becoming less…
White House gossip
When the brilliant American biographer, Robert A. Caro, first approached the task of writing a biography of the 36th President…
Religion of peace?
This easy-to-read volume of essays, each originally published in the journal of Catholic culture, Annals Australasia, is an important caveat…
Spy who came in from the EU
I read Mr le Carré’s latest spy novel, Agent Running in the Field last weekend, despite everything. What do I…
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