Caught in Time: Talking Australian History

Bill Bunbury, Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2006, 270 Pages, Paperback, $34.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

A collection of Australian stories from popular ABC Radio National historian Bill Bunbury, Caught in Time is a tapestry of snapshots from before European settlement through to the late twentieth century. Stories range from the fascinating account of the 1711 wreck of the Dutch ship Zuytdorp, to an Australian soldier's remarkable escape and lone voyage across the Mediterranean in the 1940s. ... click here to request to review.
 

Last Flight Out Of Dili: Memoirs of an Accidental Activist in the Triumph of East Timor

David Scott, North Melbourne: Pluto Press, 2006, 414 Pages, Paperback, $29.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

Last Flight Out Of Dili is David Scott's remarkable story of East Timor's rise from 'hopeless cause' to freedom, giving us a unique insight into the people and events that have shaped East Timor's recent turbulent history. Australian humanitarian aid leader David Scott was in Dili on 28 November 1975 at the swearing in of the cabinet of the Democratic Republic of East Timor. Next day he was ordered to leave by the Australian Government who were aware of the impending large-scale Indonesian invasion. Australia's role in these terrible events is critically documented. He uses personal correspondence with Jose Ramos-Horta to give immediacy to the story. His use of recently released Australian ... click here to request to review.
 

Eileen Joyce: a Portrait

Richard Davis, Fremantle: FACP, 2001, 264 Pages, Paperback, $24.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

I remember distinctly the first time I heard Eileen Joyce's recording of the de Schlozer study. I had two physical reactions to the performance: my spine began to tingle and my jaw dropped ... [Eileen Joyce] has to be added to the list of great pianists from the past. Stephen Hough In the 1940s and 50s concert pianist, recording artist, radio performer and film star Eileen Joyce enjoyed enormous critical acclaim and popularity that bordered on adulation. In this frank and revealing biography Richard Davis, using previously unreleased material, tells the story of this remarkable and complex woman. The author is available for interview. ... click here to request to review.
 

The Cocos islands Mutiny

Noel Crusz, Fremantle: FACP, 2001, 248 Pages, Paperback, $24.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

A tangled tale of insurrection, death and politics of race in world war II. Noel Crusz has unravelled a human drama which people in high places for too long tried to keep under wraps. A great read.' Alan Gill, Sydney Morning Herald A significant World War Two mutiny took place on the night of 8 May 1942 in a lonely atoll in the Indian Ocean in a setting of intrigue, rebellion and the blood and tears of war. Japanese naval forces were at the peak of their southward thrust ... While the battle of the Coral Sea raged, gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands off Australia's north-west coast attempted to arrest their British commanding officer and compel him to ... click here to request to review.
 

Benevolence: JAS 85

Christy Collis and Maggie Nolan eds, Bentley: API Network, 2005, 225 Pages, Paperback, $34.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

On the television show Backyard Blitz, Australians judged as deserving by their families and friends receive the gift of surprise makeovers to their gardens; in Australian public hospitals, trainee surgeons hone their skills on willing patients; in literary travel narratives, non-Indigenous Australian writers attempt to forge a relationship with the land and its traditional owners; and in inner-city Brisbane, the City Council builds lockers and sleeping areas for the park's homeless occupants. In Australian courts, legislators create copyright laws in an attempt to protect Indigenous ownership of traditional narratives; the South Australian Museum mounts a new Aboriginal ... click here to request to review.
 

Machines for Feeling

Mireille Juchau, St Lucia: UQP, 2001, Paperback, $19.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

Juchau's writing has received widespread critical acclaim. This is a freshly imaginative, poetic novel which examines the emotional and psychological rituals of three characters as they try to cope in a world with little time for difference and patience for sensitivity. Machines for Feeling was shortlisted for The Australia/Vogel Award. ... click here to request to review.
 

Hidden Capacity: A Poet's Journey...

Frances Macaulay Forde, Midleton: Ireland, MMB, 40 Pages, Paperback, Euro $9.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

Bloodied by life's battles and as always, finding succour in words, Frances Macaulay Forde began a Creative Writing degree at theage of 48. Hidden Capacity is her first book and is in three sections. 'The Return of Rainbows' was conceived during her seeminglyaudacious presence at University. This collection exploresthe challenge of that experience and looks anew at life around her. 'Rail Tales' insightfully reflects aspects of a different kind ofjourneying during her studies, inspired by and actually written in the landscape of suburban train travel. After graduation, a chance meeting with an old flame rekindledmemories and presented the choice to love in the afternoon of herlife. ... click here to request to review.
 

In a Bigger City

Tina Giannoukos, Carlton: Five Islands Press, 2005, 74 Pages, Paperback, $18.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

Tina Giannoukos was born in Melbourne. As a child, she lived for several years with her grandparents in Greece where she experienced the richness of the Greek culture firsthand. She studied Arts/Law at the University of Melbourne, later obtaining a Master of Arts. She teaches creative writing and works part-time as a journalist. She has also practised law. She has travelled widely, including Egypt and Bali. ... click here to request to review.
 

One Brief Interval: A memoir

Sir Edward Woodward, Carlton: The Miegunyah Press, 2005, 312 Pages, Hardcover, $49.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

The former Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Sir Edward Woodward, looks back on his life-both public and private-from a childhood during World War II to the present day. He recounts memories of his education at Melbourne Grammar and Melbourne University; his experiences as a young lawyer; his illustrious legal career as he rose from barrister to Queen's Counsel to judge; his appointment as head of ASIO between 1976 and 1981; his continuing relationship with Melbourne University, as lecturer in the Law School and as chancellor throughout the 1990s. In the background, but as notable, are the achievements of his family life--as son, husband, father and grandfather. Over the decades, ... click here to request to review.
 

Race and the Crisis of Humanism

Kay Anderson, London: Routledge, 2007, 226 Pages, Paperback, $18.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

In Kay Anderson's provocative new account, she argues that British colonial encounters in Australia from the late 1700s with the apparently unimproved condition of the Australian Aborigine, viewed against an understanding of 'humanity' of the time (that is, as characterized by separation from nature), precipitated a crisis in existing ideas of what it meant to be human. As consternation grew not only about their inclination but about their very capacity for improvement, and particularly for cultivation, the Aborigines challenged the basis upon which the unity of humankind had been assumed. The intractable Aborigine came to supply seemingly irrefutable evidence for an essential, permanent and ... click here to request to review.
 

The Australian Legend and Its Discontents

Richard Nile ed, St Lucia: UQP and API Network, 2000, 356 Pages, Paperback, $24.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

Written in clear and concise language and featuring the writing of some of Australia's most important public intellectuals, this book travels from the bush to the backyard barbecue. Along the way it considers the construction and uses of such familiar figures as the noble savage and the frontiersman, mates and Anzacs, beachgoers and suburbanites, urban sophisticates and cosmopolitans. The Australian Legend and Its Discontents explores the narrative construction of Australia, and those storylines preferred by Australians when describing themselves and their nation. How do Australians figure in literature, film and television, the visual arts, and daily conversation? As an introductory ... click here to request to review.
 

Into the Wadi

Michle Drouart, Fremantle: FACP, 2000, 376 Pages, Paperback, $24.95:  THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE TO REVIEW.

Whatever happens to me here, my understanding of it will be incomplete. Jokes, stories, events, decisions — like so many things in this part of the world — remain open-ended, intertwined like the encircled and encircling chambers of the thousand and one tales ... On Friday 15 June, Michèle Drouart was awarded the Premier's Prize in the WA Premier's Book Awards for her work Into the Wadi. She was one of six category Winners in the 2000 Awards from a Shortlist of 24 books in 5 categories. The Presentation Dinner took place in the Alexander Library Building on 15 June 2001, with the Premier of Western Australia, Hon. Geoff Gallop, making the presentations. A rare and illuminating insight into ... click here to request to review.