Exasper-nation
This week’s parliamentary shenanigans resolved nothing
December 2007 - January 2008
Arts & Letters
Peter Craven's Best Books for Summer 2007-08
Julian Burnside, Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice (Scribe, 320pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9781921215490.
Julia Fox, Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford (W&N, 400pp; $55). ISBN: 0297850814.
Waleed Aly, People Like Us: How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West (Picador, 304pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9780330423809.
Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Allen & Unwin, 320pp; $29.95). ISBN(13): 9781741752229.
Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth (Random House, 384pp; $69.95). ISBN(13): 9780739356975.
Germaine Greer, Shakespeare's Wife (Allen & Unwin, 416pp; $35). ISBN(13): 9780747591702.
Bill Bryson, Shakespeare (HarperCollins, 272pp; $30). ISBN(13): 9780007197897.
AD Nuttall, Shakespeare the Thinker (Yale University Press, 448pp; $59.95). ISBN: 0300119283.
J Bate and E Rasmussen (eds), RSC Shakespeare Complete Works Collector's Edition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2552pp; $385). ISBN(13): 9780230003514.
Catherine MS Alexander, Shakespeare: The Life, the Work, the Treasures (Simon & Schuster, 64pp; US$50). ISBN(13): 9781416546771.
Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach (Random House, 176pp; $29.95). ISBN(13): 9780224081184.
Don DeLillo, Falling Man (Pan Macmillan, 256pp; $55.00). ISBN(13): 9780330452236.
Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest (Hachette Livre, 432pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9780316027380.
Janette Turner Hospital, Orpheus Lost (HarperCollins, 400pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9780732284411.
Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravedigger's Daughter (HarperCollins, 600pp; $55). ISBN(13): 9780007258451.
Edmund White, Hotel de Dream (Allen & Unwin, 240pp; $39.95). ISBN(13): 9780747590590.
William Trevor, Cheating at Canasta (Penguin, 240pp; $39.95). ISBN(13): 9780670917266.
David Malouf, David Malouf: The Complete Stories (Random House, 528pp; $45.00). ISBN(13): 9781741666113.
JM Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year (Text, 192pp; $35). ISBN(13): 9781921145636.
Les Murray, Selected Poems (Black Inc., 256pp; $27.95). ISBN(13): 9781863954044.
Simon Leys, Other People's Thoughts (Black Inc., 160pp; $19.95). ISBN(13): 9781863954150.
Simon Leys, The Death of Napoleon (Black Inc., 128pp; $19.95). ISBN(13): 9781863953344.
Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (Pan Macmillan, 852pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9780330418867.
Peter Conrad, Creation: Artists, Gods and Origins (Thames & Hudson, 592pp; $75). ISBN(13): 9780500513569.
Susan Sontag, At the Same Time (Penguin, 252pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9780241143711.
Janet Malcolm, Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice (Melbourne University Press, 240pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 0-522-85436-2.
Orhan Pamuk, Other Colours (Allen & Unwin, 432pp; $45.00). ISBN(13): 9780571236862.
VS Naipaul, A Writer's People (Pan Macmillan, 188pp; $55). ISBN(13): 9780330485241.
Gunter Grass, Peeling the Onion (Random House, 432pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9781846550621.
Donald Horne, Dying: A Memoir (Penguin, 265pp; $35). ISBN(13): 9780670071029.
Craig Sherborne, Muck (Black Inc., 195pp; $27.95). ISBN(13): 9781863954112.
Philip Roth, Exit Ghost (Random House, 496pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9780224081733.
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Bad Girl (Allen & Unwin, 352pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9780571239337.
Mario Vargas Llosa, Touchstones (Allen & Unwin, 400pp; $59.95). ISBN(13): 9780571214990.
Bruce Beresford, Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to Do This: True Stories from a Life in the Screen Trade (Harper Collins, 320pp; $40). ISBN(13): 9780732284398.
Barbara Angell, The Coral Browne Story: Theatrical Life and Times of a Lustrous Australian (Angell Productions, 242pp; $35). ISBN(13): 9780646473222.
Gideon Haigh, The Green and Golden Age: Writings on Australian Cricket Today (Black Inc., 272pp; $32). ISBN(13): 9781863954167.
Kaz Cooke, Girl Stuff (Penguin, 564pp; $39.95). ISBN(13): 9780670028870.
Cameron Forbes, Under The Volcano: The Story of Bali (Black Inc., 304pp; $32.95). ISBN(13): 9781863954099.
Gerald Stone, Who Killed Channel 9? (Macmillan, 304pp; $45). ISBN(13): 9781405038157.
Wayne Errington and Peter van Onselen, John Winston Howard: The Definitive Biography (Melbourne University Press, 432pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9780522853346.
William Langewiesche, The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor (Penguin, 192pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9781846140112.
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Penguin, 720pp; $35). ISBN(13): 9781846140648.
Rosemary Hill, God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain (Penguin, 624pp; $69.95). ISBN(13): 9780713994995.
Bernard Smith, The Formalesque (Palgrave Macmillan, 135pp; $77). ISBN(13): 9781876832339.
Darleen Bungey, Arthur Boyd: A Life (Allen & Unwin, 576pp; $65). ISBN(13): 9781741149203.
Tina Brown, The Diana Chronicles (Random House, 368pp; $35). ISBN(13): 9781846053122.
Charles Adamson, The Noble Revolt: The Overthrow of Charles I (Hachette Livre, 480pp; $79.95). ISBN(13): 9780297842620.
Diane Purkiss, The English Civil War: Papists, Gentlewomen, Soldiers and Witchfinders in the Birth of Modern Britain (HarperCollins, 624pp; $67.95). ISBN(13): 9780465067572.
Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Harvard University Press, 448pp; $42.99). ISBN: 0674026136.
Graham Lord, Joan Collins (Hachette Livre, 352pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9780752867533.
Helen Mirren, My Life in Pictures and Words (Hachette Livre, 272pp; $49.95). ISBN(13): 9780297851974.
Colleen McCullough, Antony and Cleopatra (Harper Collins, 631pp; $49.99). ISBN(13): 9780732283209.
Robert Harris, The Ghost (Random House, 384pp; $69.95). ISBN(13): 9780091796266.
JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (unabridged; ‘adult' edition), read by Stephen Fry (Bloomsbury, 20 CDs; $199). ISBN(13): 9780747591108.
Homer, The Iliad (unabridged), read by Anton Lesser (Naxos AudioBooks, 13 CDs; $131.95). ISBN(13): 9789626344286.
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (unabridged), read by David Timson (Naxos AudioBooks, 28 CDs; $260.95). ISBN(13): 9789626344422.
December 2007 - January 2008
Losing the plot: the American midterms
Caravan conspiracies, dead candidates and a miasma of acrimony … welcome to the 2018 US campaign trail
Fake it so real: ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ and ‘Colette’
Two new films examine female writers who masquerade for very different reasons
Les Murray’s magisterial ‘Collected Poems’
How to approach a 736-page collection by Australia’s greatest poet?
Fair judgement without surrender: Chloe Hooper’s ‘The Arsonist’
The author of ‘The Tall Man’ tries to understand the motivations of a Black Saturday firebug
To have or not to have: Sheila Heti’s ‘Motherhood’ and Jacqueline Rose’s ‘Mothers’
Heti’s novel asks if a woman should have a child; Rose’s nonfiction considers how society treats her if she does
The end of American diplomacy: Ronan Farrow’s ‘War on Peace’
The Pulitzer Prize winner explains how the State Department’s problems started long before Trump
Patrick White’s immigrant language
White gained from his partner’s Greek Orthodoxy a sensibility that changed how he saw Australia
Fake it so real: ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ and ‘Colette’
Two new films examine female writers who masquerade for very different reasons
Editor’s Note December 2018 – January 2019
‘The Little Drummer Girl’: a masterclass in subterfuge
‘Oldboy’ director Park Chan-wook takes on a le Carré spy drama, with genre-rattling results
‘My Brilliant Friend’ breaks the spell
The television adaptation lacks the all-consuming magic of Elena Ferrante’s novels
Comments