BOOK AND EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Janet Lee, Fallen Among Reformers: Miles Franklin, Modernity, and the New Woman
Janet Lee, Fallen Among Reformers: Miles Franklin, Modernity, and the New Woman Sydney University Press, June 2020, 168 pp. (plus works cited and index), ISBN: 9781743326886, p/bk, AUS$45.00 In a new full-length work on Miles Franklin (1879–1954), Janet Lee, Professor...
Max Allen, Intoxicating: Ten Drinks that Shaped Australia
Max Allen, Intoxicating: Ten Drinks that Shaped Australia Thames & Hudson, July 2020, 242 pp. (plus a further reading list), ISBN: 9781760761004, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Well-regarded wine writer Max Allen takes readers on a grand tour of some of the most important...
Kathryn Harkup, Death by Shakespeare: Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts
Kathryn Harkup, Death by Shakespeare: Snakebites, Stabbings and Broken Hearts Bloomsbury, July 2020, 340 pp. (plus an appendix, bibliography, acknowledgements and index), ISBN: 9781472958211, p/bk, AUS$29.99 The great Bard is well known for his plays and his poetry....
Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier
Mark Dunn, The Convict Valley: the bloody struggle on Australia’s early frontier Allen & Unwin, 294 pp., ISBN: 9781760528645, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Mark Dunn opens his history of the Hunter Valley, The Convict Valley, with an observation from Lieutenant John Shortland....
Julian Leatherdale, Death in the Ladies’ Goddess Club
Julian Leatherdale, Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club Allen & Unwin, March 2020, p/bk, ISBN: 9781 76052 963 5, RRP AUD$29.99 Death in the Ladies’ Goddess Club by Julian Leatherdale is set in Sydney in the 1930s and follows Joan Linderman, budding crime writer and...
Peter Grose: Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile.
Peter Grose, Ten Rogues: the unlikely story of convict schemers, a stolen brig and an escape from Van Diemen’s Land to Chile Allen & Unwin, February 2020, p/bk, 248pp, ISBN: 978 1 76063 261 8, RRP: AUD$29.99 Any visitor to Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour on...
Anne McKendry, Medieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview
Anne McKendry, Medieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview McFarland & Company, 267 pp., ISBN: 9781476666716, p/bk, US$39.95 Medieval Crime Fiction: A Critical Overview by Anne McKendry is this year’s must-have text for all crime fiction enthusiasts and scholars....
Bettina Bradbury, Caroline’s Dilemma: A colonial inheritance saga
Bettina Bradbury, Caroline’s Dilemma: A colonial inheritance saga NewSouth, November 2019, 352pp, p/bk, ISBN: 9781742236605, RRP: AUD$34.99 If you hold a romanticised appreciation of living a middle-class life on the land in the Victorian era, then this non-fiction...
Antonia Pesenti & Hilary Bell, Summer Time
Antonia Pesenti & Hilary Bell, Summer Time NewSouth, October 2019, 44pp, h/bk, ISBN: 9781742236070, RRP: AUD$24.99 Summertime is a tale of reminiscence, of the best summer activities that prompt happy thoughts. and hint at possibilities for any family looking for...
Cathy Perkins, The Shelf Life of Zora Cross
Cathy Perkins, The Shelf Life of Zora Cross Monash University Publishing, November 2019, 285pp (inc Index), ISBN (pb): 978-1-925835-53-3, RRP: $29.95 ‘£20 and you shall have her’ (p.60). This financial exchange in 1917 between Sydney bookseller James Tyrell and...
