Reviewed by Ian Lipke The book, Circle of Days, is another massive text that threatens to do the reviewer damage if he were foolish enough to drop it on an errant toe. Yet this book is a mere 600 pages, reasonably short by Follett’s standards. Unlike The Evening and the Morning where a pre-1000 AD
Reviewed by Richard Tutin When a club or organisation is fortunate enough to celebrates its centenary, the usual starting point is the formation story. From there the rest of its story unfolds until it reaches the point or date when the centenary is celebrated. The 100-year period that Australian Football’s 100 Year Club marks is
Reviewed by Clare Brook Perspective is everything – it’s not what we’re looking at, it’s where we’re looking from. The Greek philosopher, Socrates, said, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. But such an examination is not as easy as it sounds, there’s a lot going on in the mind. You need a guide. John
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Countless thrillers and books with the World War theme have been written, so to produce an original one of either genre is a nearly insurmountable task. Oriana Ramunno has accomplished this by setting her second full length novel in Berlin in 1944 and partly in Kiev in 1941. The chief character
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I found the initial chapters of Tony Abbott’s new book bracing and balanced, comprehensive within limits and a jolly good read. I was all too familiar with the author’s political philosophies and his blind acceptance of Roman Catholicism. I even found myself warming to him as I worked my way patiently
Reviewed by Colleen McLennan William McInnes is an Australian author and actor. He grew up on the Redcliffe Peninsular in Queensland and attended the Humpybong Primary School and Clontarf Beach State High School. In 1985 he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Rockhampton Campus of Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education (now Central Queensland University).
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Despite the odd nature of the title, this is a serious piece of research. Lesley Synge identified an unresearched area of knowledge from our nation’s history and, employing accepted means of academic scholarship, has unfolded a new area of knowledge and published it for the benefit of mankind. Her study is
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Aficionados of mystery writing are used to greeting the latest Michael Connelly story with enthusiasm and pleasure. The American author has written many books, all mysteries, and most where a murderer is brought to justice or a spy comes undone. A simple outcome in each case but delivered to justice only
Reviewed by Ian Hamilton To be blunt, this autobiography starts poorly but, fortunately, the second third of the book is more insightful and the last third of the book is engaging and challenging. In some ways it resembles a play where slowly but surely a one-dimensional (flat) character evolves into a three dimensional (round) one.
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Of the millions of detective novels that have been written over time, one has to wonder which attributes determine the success of one, as opposed to another. Ann Cleeves has written forty or more very successful ones, and in the case of the Shetland and Vera series, they have become much
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Clinton Fernandes was once an intelligence officer in the Australian Army. More recently he co-founded the Indo-Pacific Studies program at the UNSW where he assessed the threats, risks and opportunities that military forces will face in the future. There is little doubt of his qualifications to comment on the subject matter
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Going by the title and jacket on this hard covered book it is obvious that this is a story about a First Nations person. It is now twenty-five years since the original edition of this book was published and the fella in question is now 87 years old. This is the
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Few people can resist the thrill of the spine-tingling ghost story. Drenched in atmosphere, aided by vivid imagination, unusual natural phenomena, and colourful descriptive language, chilling tales have been part of life for 4,000 years or more. Poetry and drama have an occasional ghostly presence, and even writers such as Arthur
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Christmas Time is the fourth book in the Early Learning first word books by Tom Jellett. This Aussie Baby’s, six-inch board book has twenty- two pages of content, including the covers. It follows other books with words addressing Dinner Time, Bed Time and Bath Time. The pictures are large with the
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Over the past several years Lothian Children’s Books have published work belonging to a set of illustrated Encyclopaedia on animals by natural history illustrator, Sami Bayly. The illustrations in these books are watercolours while the line drawings on the pages which provide interesting facts are produced by pen. The first of