Reviewed by Rod McLary The impetus for this book was – quite appropriately – a relationship breakup experienced by the author only days before she and her partner were due to travel overseas. Bereft in an airport bookshop and failing to find a book – any book – which would ‘put words around how I’m
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Before Trump, two avenues led to the presidency of the United States: one was through demonstrated intellectual capacity i.e. having ‘the smarts’ to read the constantly changing currents that swirl around high office and divert them to your own advantage, and the second is the capacity to handle an enormously heavy,
Reviewed by Rod McLary In May 2009, seven teenagers in Toowoomba were involved in a car crash which killed three of them and left two in comas. Lech Blaine – the author of this memoir – survived without injury. Although it was rumoured that drugs and/or alcohol and speed were causes of the crash, subsequent
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Younger lovers of today’s classical or semi-classical music may not be familiar with the name June Bronhill. I know her well. I remember sitting with my ear glued to a not very good wireless in the 1950s as June and others of that period transported me from rubber boots and sloppy
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This book is written by a talented young woman who founded her own global self-titled jewellery company and is a must read for all business students especially those who may aspire to start their own companies. It is a memoir of her own creative life to date, and as such, talks
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Challenging, difficult and sometimes overwhelming in its content, this book was written by an NHS doctor working in the year of the pandemic. Rachel Clarke is a young doctor whose role, prior to Covid 19, was to tend patients facing their battle with terminal illness in a hospice in Oxfordshire. There
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I began reading this study with high hopes. What an interesting person Kate was! Her family is comprehensively described in history and, to my mind after numerous assays by various scholars, probably accurately. Soon I discovered, despite the sub-heading emblazoned on the cover viz. The True Story of Ned Kelly’s Little
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Strange and unusual stories have been a feature of Australian life since colonisation. As we all become more familiar with new cultures our collection of unusuality is expected to expand. We’ll hear other strange, and perhaps unexplainable incidents. There is a rich harvest to emerge as yet from indigenous and Asian
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This book is regarded as more than simply a collection of reminiscences about Michael Parkinson’s father. The author sets out to record his father’s sporting obsessions, his sense of humour and his determination to produce a cricketer worthy of playing for Yorkshire. The book is intended to contain two viewpoints to
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Tracie White, award winning journalist and a science writer for Stanford University, has used her skills to present the story of a scientist and his desperate hunt to cure Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) in the hope to save his son. The first four chapters of this book introduce the
Reviewed by Rod McLary While the origins of HIV/AIDS remain uncertain, it seems that it was first recognised as a pandemic in the early 1980s. There was then much confusion and misinformation about how it was transmitted and, in some circles, HIV/AIDS was known as the ‘homosexual disease’. Indeed, in the 1980s, it was given
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This book is an expression of love. It was written to be a testament to love. It is a message to the reader that Leonie Matheson has an immutable love for her grandfather. This is captured within the covers, but overflows. It reveals itself within the prologue. A reader cannot do
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Suny’s monumental work is not the first to attempt to tell the story of how a young seminarian became the horrific butcher who left this world in 1953. Such misbegotten luminaries as Leon Trotsky and Isaac Deutscher made attempts that are viewed with some degree of askance today. Robert Tucker made
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders To read Mosul is to take a journey into another world. In fact, it is several worlds that are connected by terrorism and war. At once secret, brutal, tragic, and chaotic, the worlds are populated by heroes and villains – most of whom are troubled individuals with axes to grind and
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Inspiration guided the person who coined the title of this memoir. Son of the Brush allows the writer to give the reading public information about the writer’s famous father – his virtues and vices, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses while making available information about himself, one of the recognized business