This House of Grief by Helen Garner
On the evening of Father’s Day 2005 Robert Farquharson drove his car into a deep dam. Farquharson emerged physically unscathed. His three sons (aged 10, 7 and 2) all drowned. This House of Grief is Helen Garner’s attempt to explain that event, through the prism of Farquharson’s subsequent murder trial. Garner’s prose is as clear…
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
Dark Emu Black Seeds: agriculture or accident? is a short, sharp challenging book. Not challenging because it is difficult to read – far from it – but challenging in the way it undermines everything we thought we ‘knew’ about Aboriginal land management before white settlement. Dark Emu is an evocative title but the text is…
The Ambitions of Jane Franklin – Winner National Biography Award 2014
Congratulations to Tasmanian biographer Alison Alexander who has won this year’s National Biography Award, with The Ambitions of Jane Franklin (Allen & Unwin). I read this one quite a while ago but from memory it was an enjoyable and insightful read. Jane Franklin definitely comes across less as the power behind the throne, and more…
Bertie. A Life of Edward VII by Jane Ridley
Just finished Bertie: A Life of Edward VII. Phew! I enjoyed it, mostly. Full of salacious adulterers and insights into European politics. Reviewed in The Guardian. “This book started out, Ridley tells us, as a short study of Bertie’s relations with the many women in his life (including of course his mother). It turned into…