Reviewed by Angela Marie What do the following celebrities, rock stars, super stars, politicians, oligarchs, musicians, artists and actors have in common? Jean Shrimpton, Gregory Peck, Clyde Packer and Andrew Peacock. Charles Blackman, Winifred Atwell, Maurice Chevalier, Bert Newton and Bob Dylan. Andres Segovia, Don Chipp, Marcel Marceau, Zoe Caldwell and Fred Astaire. Ava Gardener,
Reviewed by Dr Kathleen Huxley This book is a captivating and delightful work that presents Shakespearian plants in the form of an alphabetically organised botanical guide. It consists of the twenty-five articles entitled Mr Guilfoyle’s Shakespearian Botany which were originally published in the Bankers Magazine of Australasia between June 1899 and June 1901. The work is skilfully
Reviewed by Dr Kathleen Huxley In this academic and scholarly book, Judith Shoaf has translated and edited the early-thirteenth-century canonical version of ‘The Quest for the Holy Grail’. The Quest being the next to last part or ‘branch’ of the Old French version of the Lancelot-Grail cycle. The cycle comprises a much larger number of
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Squatters by Barry Stone is a thoroughly researched history of a particular group of early Australian settlers. It contains a lot of facts and figures about sheep and cattle in the various early settlements. Many statements are supported by written evidence from the actual time of settlement. The content
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This book is about the man called John Cleese, widely known as a comedian in the popular Fawlty Towers, The Monty Python Show, and The Life of Brian, but his talents as an academic and his correspondingly wide interest in academic matters are not so well known. The book Professor at
Reviewed by E B Heath If any living thing has been kicking around this planet since the Eocene epoch, some 45 million years, one can assume that its organisational abilities have been honed to perfection. And so it is with bees. Jürgen Tautz and Diedrich Steen, in their absorbing book The Honey Factory, give readers
Reviewed by Dr Kath Huxley This informative novel is penned by Martin Duberman; a recognised, well-accomplished writer and Professor of History at the City University of New York where he founded and directed the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. He has written several biographies, memoirs and other works and is the recipient of
Reviewed by Rod McLary An Orchestra of Minorities is deeply imbedded in the religious practices and the cultural beliefs of the Igbo people of Southern Nigeria. The title of the book – An Orchestra of the Minorities – refers to the sound a flock of chickens makes when one of its members dies
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders How does a penal colony become a bastion of liberal thought? With its autocratic governors appointed by Britain, military control and exploitative monopolies, colonial Australia could well have decomposed to dictatorship and poverty. David Kemp is preparing “a biography of liberalism in Australia” in five volumes. By any measure, this is