25 Mar 2022

A SECRET AUSTRALIA: Revealed by the WikiLeaks exposés, Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau (eds); Monash University Publishing, 2020

Perhaps we ought not judge a book by its cover, but we are entitled to expect a book’s title to be broadly indicative of what this book [Felicity Ruby.

8 Aug 2021

STRETCHER BEARER, Jeanell Buckley; Ginninderra Press, 2018

There are limits to telling war stories on the screen and stage; rarely can the story only be about those who find themselves in war, who are made to.

1 Jan 2009

‘Police Verbals’, Mutant Death; Big Home Productions (EP), 1984

In Australia’s punk music scene in the early 1980s, The Black Assassins were said to be ‘Brisbane’s Ugliest Band’,(1) a reference to their appearance, not their music. Brisbane’s loss.

1 Jan 2009

MARIE CLAIRE, the ‘human rights’ issue

I was driving up Oxford St in Sydney. Above Taylor Square a billboard advertised the October 2008 issue of Marie Claire with a series of words and phrases, along.

1 Oct 2001

Gene Brucker, ‘Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence’

Gene Brucker, Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1986, 121 pp. I’ll start with the New York Times review I read.

13 Feb 2001

Leviathan: The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney, John Birmingham, Vintage Books, 2000

‘Sydney as psychopath’ said McKenzie Wark. A mad, bad and dangerous place? It depends on your perspective on life; whether you love it (you live there) or hate it.