Sarah’s Last Wish: a chilling glimpse into forced medicine
Eve Hillary
2010
ISBN: 9780980662900
$29.95
348 pp with images + references

I have found this book very difficult to read, because it is so well written.  It is the subject of the book that has gripped me by the throat and made breathing difficult.  Eve Hillary is a masterful storyteller and this book is a fine tribute to a courageous girl and her family and a powerful condemnation of professional incompetence and negligence, unethical behaviour and bureaucratic excesses. (more…)

The Quest for Justice
Ken Crispin
Scribe 2010
ISBN: 9781921640438
$35
290 pp + notes

This is above all a thoughtful work.  The author assumes the reader to be intelligent and he treats the reader with respect.  It is not a dispassionate book – Ken Crispin’s hopes and aspirations for society are clearly stated.  He also expresses little patience with those who would impose their prejudices and bigotry on others. (more…)

If I loved you, I would tell you this
Robin Black
Scribe, Melbourne, 2010
ISBN: 9781921640421
PB, 268 pp   $32.95

This is very welcome addition to my short story collections shelf.

It has been said that, while in a novel there is a need for a plot and the development of characters, the short story need be no more than just that: a fragment of life, an interesting tale with a cameo of characters.  Then you come across a writer like Robin Black and you learn that a short story can be a novel in miniature.  (more…)

Etchings Indigenous: Black and Sexy
(anthology)
Ilura Press, Melbourne, 2010
ISBN: 9781921325137
PB, 176 pp

There is an underlying tension in this collection of work by Aboriginal writers and artists, that reflects the real tension between Aborigines and the wider community in Australia.  This wider community is certainly not homogeneous, with its sometimes disparate ethnic groups, the result of waves of migration from different parts of the world.  I myself was part of such a wave in 1955.  As a society, we manage to eventually feel fairly comfortable with each ‘new’ ethnic group that comes to this country.  We accept the differences or cease to notice them. (more…)

Author: Peter Ralph

Publisher: Melbourne Books, 2007

ISBN: 9781877096952

RRP $24.50,

This is a story that needs to be told again and again.  The avarice and self-serving attitudes of the principle character are depicted graphically and chillingly.  People like Douglas Aspine should be locked up as quickly as possible and ‘re-educated’, before they can do more harm. (more…)

Published by Melbourne Books

ISBN: 9781877096660

RRP: $28.59

The reason I’m keen to include this review is that one of my stories is included.

This is the first of what Melbourne Books plans to be an annual publication.

The publisher looked at over a hundred stories and bush poems which had won awards around Australia in the past year and then chose twenty-six of these to showcase some of the best writing being produced in this country. (more…)

In Conversation

Ben Naparstek

Scribe, Melbourne, 2009

SC, 254 pp, $32.95

ISBN: 978-1-921640-11-7

My expectations of this book were set by the title – I was expecting transcripts of interviews with famous writers.  By the third ‘conversation’ I was disabused of this notion. (more…)

The Writing Class

Jincy Willett

ISBN: 9781921372117

$32.95

326 pp

Scribe 2008

I found this novel difficult to get into, because I made up my mind half-way through the first page that I didn’t like the style.  It would have been a big mistake, had I given up then – the first few pages are someone’s diary entry and the narrative begins on page five. (more…)

Eyebabies

David George

ISBN: 9781921325045

$26.95

256 pp

Ilura Press 2008

This is an interesting book with a complex structure.  It is a love story and a psychological thriller.  It is something of a mystery from the enigmatic beginning to the loose end. (more…)

History Unrepeated

Convincing Ground: Learn to fall in love with your country

Bruce Pascoe

Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2007

ISBN: 978-085575-549-2

History depends on who writes it and the writing of it creates that history.  On that basis, much of the history of this country is still missing.  Bruce Pascoe has gone some way to correcting this. (more…)