Self-publishing has always happened. Once the province of the very rich who like to press their thoughts in slim monogrammed volumes on friends and governments, or the last desperate resort of the very nutty, books published by their authors were usually given away and probably rarely read.
Book 1 Title: How to Publish Your Own Book
Book Author: Bill Hornadge
Book 1 Biblio: Review Publications, $14.95 pb, 88 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
Self-publishing has always happened. Once the province of the very rich who like to press their thoughts in slim monogrammed volumes on friends and governments, or the last desperate resort of the very nutty, books published by their authors were usually given away and probably rarely read.
On April 8 1901 the LMS missionary James Chalmers was eaten by Goaribari villagers in the Gulf of Papua. The cannibalistic nature of Holy Communion notwithstanding, the Christian administrators of British New Guinea conducted several punitive raids against the offending gourmets during the next three years. In consequence there were a lot of people killed by arrows and guns, a Royal Commission of Inquiry, and a suicide. The suicide was that of Judge Christopher Robinson, the first Australian to act as Administrator in New Guinea. With a revolver he blew his brains out at the base of the government flagpole in Port Moresby on June 20 1904.
Book 1 Title: Sticks That Kill
Book Author: Trevor Shearston
Book 1 Biblio: UQP, $14.95 pb, 594 pp
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
On April 8 1901 the LMS missionary James Chalmers was eaten by Goaribari villagers in the Gulf of Papua. The cannibalistic nature of Holy Communion notwithstanding, the Christian administrators of British New Guinea conducted several punitive raids against the offending gourmets during the next three years. In consequence there were a lot of people killed by arrows and guns, a Royal Commission of Inquiry, and a suicide. The suicide was that of Judge Christopher Robinson, the first Australian to act as Administrator in New Guinea. With a revolver he blew his brains out at the base of the government flagpole in Port Moresby on June 20 1904.
The dawn and the evening of the world, alike, are seeding-grounds of myth and archetype: the distant past, when chthonic Ancestors are imagined to have emerged from a landscape of rocks and dust – the post-holocaust world of the future, where a landscape of rocks and dust is imagined to have emerged as fruit of hidden and poisonous seeds within the human psyche.
Book 1 Title: The Beast of Heaven
Book Author: Victor Kelleher
Book 1 Biblio: UQP, $10.00 pb, 205 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
The dawn and the evening of the world, alike, are seeding-grounds of myth and archetype: the distant past, when chthonic Ancestors are imagined to have emerged from a landscape of rocks and dust – the post-holocaust world of the future, where a landscape of rocks and dust is imagined to have emerged as fruit of hidden and poisonous seeds within the human psyche.
R.W. Connell is unquestionably the most intellectually ambitious Australian socialist. To call him a prodigious synthesiser is an insult, yet his mind is hospitable to an amazing variety of theoretical influences and thoroughly digested bodies of empirical data. Since his seminal essay ‘Images of Australia’(l968) he has set out to upgrade radically Australian sociology. While his assumptions are often contested, and his achievements are sometimes regarded as trite or tautologous, there is no doubt that he has originated the most consistent and theoretically sophisticated analysis of Australian society.
Book 1 Title: Which Way is Up?
Book 1 Subtitle: Essays on class, sex, and culture
Book Author: R.W. Connell
Book 1 Biblio: George Allen Unwin, $9.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
R.W. Connell is unquestionably the most intellectually ambitious Australian socialist. To call him a prodigious synthesiser is an insult, yet his mind is hospitable to an amazing variety of theoretical influences and thoroughly digested bodies of empirical data. Since his seminal essay ‘Images of Australia’(l968) he has set out to upgrade radically Australian sociology. While his assumptions are often contested, and his achievements are sometimes regarded as trite or tautologous, there is no doubt that he has originated the most consistent and theoretically sophisticated analysis of Australian society.
There is a long tradition in Australian music publishing that only the worst will do. In the era of long-winded and Latinised Victorian histories and reminiscences of old colonists, the music sector easily bested the rest for pontification and inaccuracy. In the thirties, when even journalistic standards were at an all-time local low, the few music histories and biographies that managed to find their way into print, often via the vanity presses, were tediously pedantic. The forties actually improved on matters, due to war-time isolation and a new awareness of music as propaganda; but the fifties produced the most conservative of demi-books, their authors still mentally located somewhere on their knees before a middle European iconostasis that concealed, artistically, a good deal of ritualised nonsense in the name of cultural superiority.
Book 1 Title: Cause to Rejoice
Book 1 Subtitle: The Life of John Bishop
Book Author: Audrey Hewlett
Book 1 Biblio: Rigby, $14.95 pb, 159 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Book 2 Title: Playing for Australia
Book 2 Author: Charles Buttrose
Book 2 Biblio: Macmillan, 186 pp
Book 2 Author Type: Author
Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 2 Cover (800 x 1200):
Book 3 Title: A Handbook of Australian Music
Book 3 Author: James Murdoch
Book 3 Biblio: Sun Books, $15.95 pb, 158 pp
Book 3 Author Type: Author
Display Review Rating: No
There is a long tradition in Australian music publishing that only the worst will do. In the era of long-winded and Latinised Victorian histories and reminiscences of old colonists, the music sector easily bested the rest for pontification and inaccuracy. In the thirties, when even journalistic standards were at an all-time local low, the few music histories and biographies that managed to find their way into print, often via the vanity presses, were tediously pedantic. The forties actually improved on matters, due to war-time isolation and a new awareness of music as propaganda; but the fifties produced the most conservative of demi-books, their authors still mentally located somewhere on their knees before a middle European iconostasis that concealed, artistically, a good deal of ritualised nonsense in the name of cultural superiority.
In 1956 my husband and I lived in Perth for some months, and that is when our continuing friendship with Mary Durack; her late husband Horrie Miller, pioneer aviator, and their family, and her artist sister, Elizabeth, began. My friendship with Mary deepened over years, often at Writers’ Weeks in Adelaide, occasionally in Sydney or Perth. The various Duracks I’ve been lucky enough to know are great Australians and from them I’ve learned more about a vast country and goodness and bravery, than from almost any other people or sources. Mary is more generous than I have room to describe here, and to her a long list of Australian writers, white and black, owe debts of gratitude for help of many kinds – some acknowledged, some taken, perhaps, more for granted than it should be.
Book 1 Title: Sons in the Saddle
Book Author: Mark Durack
Book 1 Biblio: Hutchinson, $22.95 hb, 442 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
In 1956 my husband and I lived in Perth for some months, and that is when our continuing friendship with Mary Durack; her late husband Horrie Miller, pioneer aviator, and their family, and her artist sister, Elizabeth, began. My friendship with Mary deepened over years, often at Writers’ Weeks in Adelaide, occasionally in Sydney or Perth. The various Duracks I’ve been lucky enough to know are great Australians and from them I’ve learned more about a vast country and goodness and bravery, than from almost any other people or sources. Mary is more generous than I have room to describe here, and to her a long list of Australian writers, white and black, owe debts of gratitude for help of many kinds – some acknowledged, some taken, perhaps, more for granted than it should be.
We have to thank Julian Croft for this selection of Slessor’s light verse first published in Smith's Weekly between February 1928 and November 1933. Here is a worthy successor to Slessor’s Darlinghurst Nights, until now the only selection of frivolous Slessor available to the general reader. The verses here are no less charming than those of the earlier selection and their omission from Darlinghurst Nights, first published in 1933, seems merely to be based on the fact that they do not fit easily into the theme of that volume. They are certainly no less delightfully capricious in their rhyme schemes and no less artfully artless.
Book 1 Title: Backless Betty from Bondi
Book Author: Kenneth Slessor
Book 1 Biblio: A & R, $9.95, 35pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
We have to thank Julian Croft for this selection of Slessor’s light verse first published in Smith's Weekly between February 1928 and November 1933. Here is a worthy successor to Slessor’s Darlinghurst Nights, until now the only selection of frivolous Slessor available to the general reader. The verses here are no less charming than those of the earlier selection and their omission from Darlinghurst Nights, first published in 1933, seems merely to be based on the fact that they do not fit easily into the theme of that volume. They are certainly no less delightfully capricious in their rhyme schemes and no less artfully artless.
Take, for example, the first stanza of the poem Julian Croft has chosen to name the selection:
In Carlton the graffiti’s already been around for months: ‘Oscar Oswald is right ... 1984’. Now even if you’ve never heard of Oscar Oswald you’ll know one thing about him and that is that he's not George Orwell ‘If Oscar Oswald is right in 1984,’ the graffiti might easily be saying, ‘then George Orwell must have had it all terribly wrong in 1949’.
Book 1 Title: The Obsession of Oscar Oswald
Book Author: Frank Hardy
Book 1 Biblio: Pascoe Publishing, $5.95 pb, 214 pp
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
In Carlton the graffiti’s already been around for months: ‘Oscar Oswald is right ... 1984’. Now even if you’ve never heard of Oscar Oswald you’ll know one thing about him and that is that he's not George Orwell ‘If Oscar Oswald is right in 1984,’ the graffiti might easily be saying, ‘then George Orwell must have had it all terribly wrong in 1949’.
Nigel Krauth’s first novel is an intriguing blend of fact and fiction – or rather, a reworking of a little known set of factual events. As the novel explains, in 1895 the famous Australian poet ‘Banjo’ Paterson travelled to Queensland to visit his fiancée. Two events of importance occurred during that short period: Paterson’s engagement was broken off, and while there he wrote what was to become his and the nation’s most famous song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Paterson always refused to speak of the period in later life so that what exactly happened between himself and Sarah Riley remains unknown and Nigel Krauth feels free to speculate. There are ethical problems, I feel, in the fictional reconstruction of an historical personage and Krauth’s portrait of Paterson, while by no means wholly unsympathetic, is that of a man in many ways vain and narcissistic; certainly, it enraged the poet’s descendants to the point where they refused Krauth permission to quote the words of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in his novel. Copyright does not run out until 1991 when, presumably, if the novel is still in print Krauth will fill in the blank spaces he has left.
Book 1 Title: Matilda, My Darling
Book Author: Nigel Krauth
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $12.95 pb, 222 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
Nigel Krauth’s first novel is an intriguing blend of fact and fiction – or rather, a reworking of a little known set of factual events. As the novel explains, in 1895 the famous Australian poet ‘Banjo’ Paterson travelled to Queensland to visit his fiancée. Two events of importance occurred during that short period: Paterson’s engagement was broken off, and while there he wrote what was to become his and the nation’s most famous song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Paterson always refused to speak of the period in later life so that what exactly happened between himself and Sarah Riley remains unknown and Nigel Krauth feels free to speculate. There are ethical problems, I feel, in the fictional reconstruction of an historical personage and Krauth’s portrait of Paterson, while by no means wholly unsympathetic, is that of a man in many ways vain and narcissistic; certainly, it enraged the poet’s descendants to the point where they refused Krauth permission to quote the words of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in his novel. Copyright does not run out until 1991 when, presumably, if the novel is still in print Krauth will fill in the blank spaces he has left.
The authors’ respective backgrounds gave them excellent qualifications to write this history of the FIA and the result is a book which should have much wider interest than its bland title suggests.
Book 1 Title: The Ironworkers
Book 1 Subtitle: A History of the Federated Ironworkers Association of Australia
Book Author: Robert Murray and Kate White
Book 1 Biblio: Hale & Iremonger, $11.95 pb, 341 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
The authors’ respective backgrounds gave them excellent qualifications to write this history of the FIA and the result is a book which should have much wider interest than its bland title suggests.
The book’s title and the fact that it was commissioned for the seventieth anniversary of the FIA may give the misleading impression that it is just a dutiful chronicle bespattered with lots of names of worthy, former officials. On the contrary, it is a lively, readable account of a union in which the rise and fall of political factions mirrored events in the entire labour movement and the community as a whole.
In Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, Colin Johnson presents the invasion of Australia by white men, referred to as ‘nums’ or ‘ghosts’, through the eyes of the Aborigines, ‘humans’. With the central character Wooreddy and his wife Trugernanna, (Truganinni) we witness the annihilation of a race of people, the breakdown of their culture.
Book 1 Title: Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the End of the World
Book Author: Colin Johnson
Book 1 Biblio: Hyland House, $12.95 pb, 207 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
In Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, Colin Johnson presents the invasion of Australia by white men, referred to as ‘nums’ or ‘ghosts’, through the eyes of the Aborigines, ‘humans’. With the central character Wooreddy and his wife Trugernanna, (Truganinni) we witness the annihilation of a race of people, the breakdown of their culture.
Presenting this disturbing period of Australian history imaginatively, and from an Aboriginal viewpoint, Johnson is able to explore, intimately, the complex and varied responses his people displayed towards white man’s oppression. And although we always feel a passionate concern for the Aborigines, Johnson sustains throughout a remarkable detachment, one which creates impact for his tale of horror.
Despite the advent of television, people apparently still like to read good stories. These novels, the first by a well established writer and the other by a former journalist now earning a deserved reputation as a novelist, provide both the kind of entertainment value offered by a good television series and a bonus of the kind of intellectual stimulation which is normally expunged by the masters of the screen. Of the two, I would guess that Moffitt's is the better commodity for the medium, but this is only because West spends more of his space writing about ideas which Moffitt is content to leave implicit, and which our television masters would regard as anathema.
Book 1 Title: The World is Made of Glass
Book Author: Morris West
Book 1 Biblio: Hodder and Stoughton, $18.95 pb, 315 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Book 2 Title: The Colour Man
Book 2 Author: Ian Moffitt
Book 2 Biblio: Collins, $15.95 pb, 239 pp
Book 2 Author Type: Author
Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 2 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
Despite the advent of television, people apparently still like to read good stories. These novels, the first by a well established writer and the other by a former journalist now earning a deserved reputation as a novelist, provide both the kind of entertainment value offered by a good television series and a bonus of the kind of intellectual stimulation which is normally expunged by the masters of the screen. Of the two, I would guess that Moffitt's is the better commodity for the medium, but this is only because West spends more of his space writing about ideas which Moffitt is content to leave implicit, and which our television masters would regard as anathema.
Mapping the boundaries of relationships between church and state is a vital part of religious history. Walter Phillips makes a major contribution to our understanding of the changes which followed the ending of state aid in the nineteenth century. The pressures of voluntaryism made the retention of vision of a Christian country very hard, for protestant individualism and denominational competition made the shaping of a common ethos impossible. Nevertheless, Phillips makes it clear that the protestant churches, through their leadership, put up stiff resistance to the trends of the times.
Book 1 Title: Defending ‘A Christian Country’
Book 1 Subtitle: Churchmen and society in New South Wales in the 1800s and after
Book Author: Walter Phillips
Book 1 Biblio: University of Queensland Press, $30.00 pb, 332 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
Mapping the boundaries of relationships between church and state is a vital part of religious history. Walter Phillips makes a major contribution to our understanding of the changes which followed the ending of state aid in the nineteenth century. The pressures of voluntaryism made the retention of vision of a Christian country very hard, for protestant individualism and denominational competition made the shaping of a common ethos impossible. Nevertheless, Phillips makes it clear that the protestant churches, through their leadership, put up stiff resistance to the trends of the times.
Article Title: Genesis of Poetry of Delicate Genius
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:
Douglas Stewart is one of the great all-rounders, perhaps the greatest, of our literature; one recalls that Nancy Keesing once described him as probably t
Foremost as a poet, the subject matter of his poetry is astonishingly wide-ranging from ballads and narrative poems to the most delicate and delightful of nature and love lyrics. He has been a notable and inspiring literary editor; in a period that has now passed into history he so exploited the creative potentialities of radio to communicate culturally that he achieved an international reputation as a verse playwright; and his literary criticism down the years has been consistently respected by his peers.
Book 1 Title: Springtime In Taranaki
Book 1 Subtitle: An Autobiography of Youth
Book Author: Douglas Stewart
Book 1 Biblio: Hale & Iremonger, $19.95 pb, 256 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
Douglas Stewart is one of the great all-rounders, perhaps the greatest, of our literature; one recalls that Nancy Keesing once described him as probably the most versatile writer who ever lived in this country.
Foremost as a poet, the subject matter of his poetry is astonishingly wide-ranging from ballads and narrative poems to the most delicate and delightful of nature and love lyrics. He has been a notable and inspiring literary editor; in a period that has now passed into history he so exploited the creative potentialities of radio to communicate culturally that he achieved an international reputation as a verse playwright; and his literary criticism down the years has been consistently respected by his peers.
John Gould, English scientist, came to Australia in 1838 with the object of obtaining additional specimens to continue preparation of his work describing the birds of Australia. While here, he travelled extensively throughout south-eastern Australia between 1838-1840 and, naturally, spent time recording his observations on mammals.
Book 1 Title: The Mammals of Australia
Book Author: John Gould
Book 1 Biblio: Macmillan, $90.00 hb, 416 pp
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
John Gould, English scientist, came to Australia in 1838 with the object of obtaining additional specimens to continue preparation of his work describing the birds of Australia. While here, he travelled extensively throughout south-eastern Australia between 1838-1840 and, naturally, spent time recording his observations on mammals.
The fact that two major publishing houses have produced anthologies of Australian short stories at about the same time suggests that a discernable market has been perceived, that the short story, in this country, survives fit and healthily enough to command considerable interest. The images that the dust-covers of the two books project, however, could hardly differ more and lead to obvious conclusions about the sectors of the market at which the books are aimed. Kerryn Goldsworthy’s Australian Short
Book 1 Title: The State of the Art
Book 1 Subtitle: The mood of contemporary Australia in short stories
Book Author: Frank Moorhouse
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, $9.95 pb, 282 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Book 2 Title: Australian Short Stories
Book 2 Author: Kerryn Goldsworthy
Book 2 Biblio: J.M. Dent, $9.95 pb, 376 pp
Book 2 Author Type: Editor
Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 2 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
The fact that two major publishing houses have produced anthologies of Australian short stories at about the same time suggests that a discernable market has been perceived, that the short story, in this country, survives fit and healthily enough to command considerable interest. The images that the dust-covers of the two books project, however, could hardly differ more and lead to obvious conclusions about the sectors of the market at which the books are aimed. Kerryn Goldsworthy’s Australian Short
Article Title: Diabolical Conspiracy or Mad Hatter’s Tea Party?
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:
‘“No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.’ In her introduction to There's Always Been A Women's Movement this Century, Dale Spender admits that the elan of involvement in the recent women’s movement made her overlook ‘the unlit corridor of women's history’. She deplores ‘the process of reducing women to invisibility’. In a patriarchy, ‘sexism’ is ‘something that all members do ... There weren’t many patriarchal traps that I did not fall into’. Wanting to ‘generate a tradition of strong authoritative women’, she interviewed five ‘elder stateswomen’, all born between 1890 and 1910: journalist and leader of the six Point Group for equality Hazel Hunkins Hallinan; journalist and novelist Rebecca West; pacifist, educationalist and writer Dora Russell; journalist and Fawcett Society stalwart Mary Stott; sociologist Constance Rover. The result was ‘a genuine educational experience’ that prompts some flushed prior publicity: ‘it would be a (patriarchal) mistake to think of these discussions as insignificant but pleasant gossip about old times. This is a form of women's history ... each women tells her own story ... despite all the many limitations, we have here a valuable record’.
Book 1 Title: Intruders on the Rights of Men
Book Author: Lynne Spender
Book 1 Biblio: Pandora Press, $6.95 pb, 136pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 2 Title: There's Always Been a Women's Movement this Century
Book 2 Author: Dale Spender
Book 2 Biblio: Pandora Press, $6.95 pb, 220pp
Book 2 Author Type: Author
Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 2 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
‘“N o room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.’ In her introduction to There’s Always Been A Women's Movement this Century, Dale Spender admits that the elan of involvement in the recent women’s movement made her overlook ‘the unlit corridor of women's history’. She deplores ‘the process of reducing women to invisibility’. In a patriarchy, ‘sexism’ is ‘something that all members do ... There weren’t many patriarchal traps that I did not fall into’. Wanting to ‘generate a tradition of strong authoritative women’, she interviewed five ‘elder stateswomen’, all born between 1890 and 1910: journalist and leader of the six Point Group for equality Hazel Hunkins Hallinan; journalist and novelist Rebecca West; pacifist, educationalist and writer Dora Russell; journalist and Fawcett Society stalwart Mary Stott; sociologist Constance Rover. The result was ‘a genuine educational experience’ that prompts some flushed prior publicity: ‘it would be a (patriarchal) mistake to think of these discussions as insignificant but pleasant gossip about old times. This is a form of women’s history ... each women tells her own story ... despite all the many limitations, we have here a valuable record’.
In an essay on ‘Equality’ Craig McGregor tells us that when he was a kid he was mystified by those tales where the fisherman’s wife or whoever would be given three wishes by the Good Fairy and she ‘always wished for crazy self-indulgent things like ‘ I wish everybody I touched turned to gold’, and of course it always rebounded on them ... and I always wondered why they didn’t wish for something more general, like wishing that everyone in the world ... should be happy every afterwards, because then nothing could ever go wrong again and the world would be a perfect place to live in ... all it needed of the fishermen and fishermen’s wives and shoemakers and others was a bit of imagination, and a bit of common sense, and just a hint of generosity ... Ah! the birth of utopianism.’
In an essay on ‘Equality’ Craig McGregor tells us that when he was a kid he was mystified by those tales where the fisherman’s wife or whoever would be given three wishes by the Good Fairy and she ‘always wished for crazy self-indulgent things like ‘ I wish everybody I touched turned to gold’, and of course it always rebounded on them ... and I always wondered why they didn’t wish for something more general, like wishing that everyone in the world ... should be happy every afterwards, because then nothing could ever go wrong again and the world would be a perfect place to live in ... all it needed of the fishermen and fishermen’s wives and shoemakers and others was a bit of imagination, and a bit of common sense, and just a hint of generosity ... Ah! the birth of utopianism.’
While most of us know something of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, the more painstaking and routine, although often equally courageous, work of the scientific expeditions in the last fifty years rarely commands public attention. Dr Phillip Law, Leader of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions from 1949 to 1966 redresses this neglect in the first volume of his autobiography, reviewed here by Clive Coogan, who assesses Law’s own contribution and the Importance of his work to Australia.
Book 1 Title: Antartic Odyssey
Book Author: Philip Law
Book 1 Biblio: Heinemann, $35, 282 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
While most of us know something of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, the more painstaking and routine, although often equally courageous, work of the scientific expeditions in the last fifty years rarely commands public attention. Dr Phillip Law, Leader of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions from 1949 to 1966 redresses this neglect in the first volume of his autobiography, reviewed here by Clive Coogan, who assesses Law’s own contribution and the Importance of his work to Australia.
Gary Catalano is perhaps better known for his poetry and art-criticism rather than as a writer of short fiction. The Woman Who Lives Here, a book which contains five short stories and sixteen ‘Sketches’, will do little to alter this. For though the writing is stylistically unexceptionable, Catalano's material is perilously thin, lacking in dramatic situation, intellectual vigour and point. Of the five stories which comprise the opening section of the book, four deal with those ubiquitous themes of ‘modernism’: alienation and absence. Given the by now long and rich literary heritage which concerns itself with these concepts it is hardly surprising to find that Catalano's various formal devices rely heavily on earlier models. Techniques of discontinuity, fragmentary notes and deliberate concealments are variously used in these stories giving them an air of unresolved mystery and sometimes menace. But unlike the pioneers in such forms Catalano seems to be experimenting for experimentation's sake; no pressure of feeling informs the writing, leaving the reader with a sense of the writer's ennui, as well as that of his characters.
Book 1 Title: The Woman Who Lives Here and Other Stories
Book Author: Gary Catalano
Book 1 Biblio: Champion Books, $5.00 pb, 80 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Book 2 Title: Point of View
Book 2 Author: Joan Woodberry
Book 2 Biblio: The Tasmanian Fellowship of Australian Writers, 125 pp
Book 2 Author Type: Author
Book 3 Title: Under Mount Egmont and Other Poems
Book 3 Author: Max Richards
Book 3 Biblio: Neptune Press, $5.95 ph. 70 pp
Book 3 Author Type: Author
Display Review Rating: No
Gary Catalano is perhaps better known for his poetry and art-criticism rather than as a writer of short fiction. The Woman Who Lives Here, a book which contains five short stories and sixteen ‘Sketches’, will do little to alter this. For though the writing is stylistically unexceptionable, Catalano's material is perilously thin, lacking in dramatic situation, intellectual vigour and point. Of the five stories which comprise the opening section of the book, four deal with those ubiquitous themes of ‘modernism’: alienation and absence. Given the by now long and rich literary heritage which concerns itself with these concepts it is hardly surprising to find that Catalano's various formal devices rely heavily on earlier models. Techniques of discontinuity, fragmentary notes and deliberate concealments are variously used in these stories giving them an air of unresolved mystery and sometimes menace. But unlike the pioneers in such forms Catalano seems to be experimenting for experimentation's sake; no pressure of feeling informs the writing, leaving the reader with a sense of the writer's ennui, as well as that of his characters.
Lloyd Robson has produced a finely researched and lucid book which will become a standard reference on the early political history of the island of Tasmania. Volume One deals with the intrigues, conflicts and self-indulgences that were endemic in the emerging society and boldly illustrates the path to ‘self rather than ‘responsible’ government, together with the feelings of animosity that were generated towards particular colonial governorships.
Book 1 Title: A History of Tasmania, Volume 1
Book 1 Subtitle: Van Diemen’s Land from the earliest times to 1855
Book Author: Lloyd Robson
Book 1 Biblio: Oxford University Press, $50.00 hb, 632 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 1 Cover (800 x 1200):
Display Review Rating: No
Lloyd Robson has produced a finely researched and lucid book which will become a standard reference on the early political history of the island of Tasmania. Volume One deals with the intrigues, conflicts and self-indulgences that were endemic in the emerging society and boldly illustrates the path to ‘self rather than ‘responsible’ government, together with the feelings of animosity that were generated towards particular colonial governorships.
In a recent issue of the British ‘Bookseller’, a columnist wishing to explain the apparent lack of success in UK of Anthony Grey’s attempt to convince people that the late Harold Holt was a spy for the Chinese said ‘the fact is that the British public does not give a damn for Australian Prime Ministers’. Perhaps the reason for the comparative failure of the same book in Australia is that the Australian public does not give a damn for the views of pommy journalists.
Display Review Rating: No
In a recent issue of the British ‘Bookseller’, a columnist wishing to explain the apparent lack of success in UK of Anthony Grey’s attempt to convince people that the late Harold Holt was a spy for the Chinese said ‘the fact is that the British public does not give a damn for Australian Prime Ministers’. Perhaps the reason for the comparative failure of the same book in Australia is that the Australian public does not give a damn for the views of pommy journalists.
Monash University bookshop, which has had nearly as many managers in its short history as Melbourne University in its much longer period of glory, may well have found the best in Jim McGrath, who recently took up the appointment. Jim, who was successful in educational books for Nelsons and Prentice Hall, is reputedly very happy to have made the change from poacher to game-keeper.
I feel a bit embarrassed writing about myself. It suggests the individual is at the centre, whereas I believe the group or community is. It also directs attention to the person instead of what is written, the thing itself. Also, it extols the artist instead of the tradition which he represents.
What I've written is more important than what I am. ‘I could bear anything in my life,’ a New York friend said once, ‘except being misunderstood’. Perhaps writing it all down is one way of making sure you aren’t misunderstood ... except often it’s hard to write with the passion you feel.
Booksellers like to think themselves a cut above the average shopkeeper (and I am no exception). They are the middlemen in the distribution of other people’s creativity. George Orwell was a bookseller, albeit briefly ... and there’s Max Harris too.
Display Review Rating: No
Booksellers like to think themselves a cut above the average shopkeeper (and I am no exception). They are the middlemen in the distribution of other people’s creativity. George Orwell was a bookseller, albeit briefly ... and there’s Max Harris too.
But come Christmas time they tend to hide their misgivings when publishers talk of books as ‘product’ and brag about their marketing strategies. This Christmas was no exception; the economic indicators were out, the recession was over and woe betide the bookseller who didn’t get behind the ‘product’.
During his lifetime, Alan Marshall enoyed one of the finest rewards that any country can give to a writer – he knew that his writing had been taken into the hearts of the Australian people. More than four million copies of his books had been sold, and he had been translated into more than forty languages. He had received national, academic and international honours, and had given unstintingly of his time to further the interests of the handicapped and to promote peace and friendship between peoples. Yet he remained a man of the people, able to establish warm relationships with all he met, even those separated from him by the barrier of language, and proud that his stories appealed to readers from all ages and all parts of society.
Display Review Rating: No
During his lifetime, Alan Marshall enoyed one of the finest rewards that any country can give to a writer – he knew that his writing had been taken into the hearts of the Australian people. More than four million copies of his books had been sold, and he had been translated into more than forty languages. He had received national, academic and international honours, and had given unstintingly of his time to further the interests of the handicapped and to promote peace and friendship between peoples. Yet he remained a man of the people, able to establish warm relationships with all he met, even those separated from him by the barrier of language, and proud that his stories appealed to readers from all ages and all parts of society.
One of the biggest problems facing the book trade in Australia is the distribution of Australian books both within Australia and overseas. The situation is not improving, because of both the economic depression and the increasing stranglehold overseas publishing firms have on the Australian market. Last year two important bookshops in Sydney, Exiles and Abbeys, ceased to be effective outlets for small press books, in the former because of bankruptcy, in the latter because of a decision to rationalise their holdings. The provision of alternative views and new ideas in Australia is such a fragile matter that we simply cannot afford to have the few current outlets closed to us.
Display Review Rating: No
One of the biggest problems facing the book trade in Australia is the distribution of Australian books both within Australia and overseas. The situation is not improving, because of both the economic depression and the increasing stranglehold overseas publishing firms have on the Australian market. Last year two important bookshops in Sydney, Exiles and Abbeys, ceased to be effective outlets for small press books, in the former because of bankruptcy, in the latter because of a decision to rationalise their holdings. The provision of alternative views and new ideas in Australia is such a fragile matter that we simply cannot afford to have the few current outlets closed to us.
Your reviewer Jack Clancy, discussing The Phar lap Story (ABR Nov. 1983), writes that the horse Phar Lap died in Mexico. He died in California and, as far as I know, never trod on Mexican soil. I have learned lately an interesting lesson about books and film. I have not seen the film based on the life of Phar Lap, but whenever I speak to someone who has seen it. he tells me solemnly and reverently some purported fact about the life and times of Phar Lap which, when I check it, turns out to be false.
Display Review Rating: No
Dear Sir,
Your reviewer Jack Clancy, discussing The Phar lap Story (ABR Nov. 1983), writes that the horse Phar Lap died in Mexico. He died in California and, as far as I know, never trod on Mexican soil. I have learned lately an interesting lesson about books and film. I have not seen the film based on the life of Phar Lap, but whenever I speak to someone who has seen it. he tells me solemnly and reverently some purported fact about the life and times of Phar Lap which, when I check it, turns out to be false.
