Australian Books
Summer books
2022: good reads for a mixed bag of a year
Not camping out
As is the case with one of my favourite Australian writers and playwrights, Louis Nowra, Sydney is also my adopted…
Skinful
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Dr Jordan Peterson remarked, ‘It’s really something to see, constantly, how many people…
A cinematic offer we could not refuse
Francis Ford Coppola’s superb film The Godfather changed American cinema and, by extension, American culture. The film had it all:…
Fool’s gold
With Australia heading toward a referendum next year on a constitutionally enshrined indigenous ‘voice’ to parliament, the need for a…
Preparing for war
This is not a book for anyone complacent about the China challenge, yet it should be compulsory reading for everyone…
Trump’s legal eagle is candid
There may have been irregularities in the processing and counting of ballots that warranted official investigation
Hockey sticks to diplomacy
If you want an inside view on the Trump White House, there could hardly be a better read than Joe…
Atomic reading
So you think you know the story of Britain’s notorious atomic tests in Australia? In that respect, the name of…
Presumption of guilt
The Pell case is a contemporary Australian version of the infamous Dreyfus case in 19th century France and may even…
Blowing in the wind
He’s still smiling but Scott Morrison might not be after reading this revealing book. If he reads it that is.…
French Kiss-Off
For decades the purpose of British settlement in New South Wales seemed too obvious to question. The American War of…
Communists down under
When I was a fifteen-year-old student at Melbourne High School, I tried to join the Communist Party of Australia. One…
Summer books
2021: grit your teeth and read a good book
Unexplained connection
Why would an Australian lawyer and historian write a book explaining how the English and American Revolutions produced the American…
Disappointed in the Libs?
How might the centre-right do better? This is the question that the promising young writer Jake Thrupp has posed; and…
Jesus & the journo
Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of the Australian newspaper, is best known for his shrewd analysis of our country and…
Hooray for Hollywood
Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood – and hates it.…
Australian art in the Roaring Twenties
The only criticism that can be levelled at For the Fallen by Paul Paffen is that it lacks the hard…
Justice betrayed
It was always an inherently implausible accusation: that Australia’s most senior Catholic prelate had sexually assaulted choir boys after Mass…
Missing chapters
Between them, Peter van Onselen and Wayne Errington have a wealth of research and writing experience, and their biography of…
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,…
