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A Woman of the Future, David Ireland’s sixth novel, is narrated in the first person by a woman, Alethea Hunt. This kind of ‘literary transvestism’ is not new, and in any case is not essentially different from writers who, in third-person narration, inject themselves into the consciousness of a character of the opposite sex. Ireland’s book, however, is remarkable for the way in which a male writer deals obsessively with the sexual thoughts and experiences of a woman. Indeed, it may well incur the ire of feminists that a man should presume, on principle, to understand such experiences. But he handles the role with sensitivity and insight, as he traces a young girl’s awakening sexual consciousness (if it was ever asleep) through to her later contacts with boys and men, most of which are, if not brutalising, at least unsatisfying. Though she claims, even as a small child and much to the satisfaction of her liberated ‘feminist’ parents, that she is without penis envy, she exhibits an extraordinary fascination with the male sexual organ, which is usually described in terms that would make most women want to give up heterosexual intercourse permanently. If these descriptions were meant to be representative of women’s feelings, perhaps one might object, but Alethea Hunt is clearly mad, albeit in the context of a world which is far crazier.

I don’t quite know what to make of J.G. Steele’s dull, parochial catalogue of sketches and watercolours by Conrad Martens. The ‘frontier travels’ of one of our better colonial artists should, you expect, make interesting copy – especially when the artist in question happened to be prolific and the area of his travels the sparsely settled pastoral area of what is now South-eastern Queensland.

I think it was Judith Wright who once remarked that Lawson as a poet wasn’t important; that he seems, usually to have turned to verse as a journalistic medium or as a weapon for propaganda, and that the few of his better poems were such rather because of the intensity of feeling than through any technical or poetic gift.

‘The feelings aroused in us by our old buildings are difficult to define. But they are none­the-less powerful feelings. There’s something of a dream-like quality in going back into the past; of projecting oneself into history; of identifying oneself with outstanding personalities and events in our national story; or perhaps with the simple and unknown pioneers who patiently laid the foundations of today. We, as heirs to this story, become one with our history. And the old buildings, which are visible reminders of that history, become ours in a very personal way.’

Eucalypts for Wood Production is a highly professional reference work produced by a team of Australian forest scientists most of whom work in state, government forestry services, CSIRO or the Department of Forestry at ANU. It consists of a series of reviews of scientific literature bringing together all that is presently known of the growth habits of eucalypts from the point of view of their management as hardwood crop plants. The editors’ purpose is to draw attention to the potential of eucalypts and thereby to point the way to a national strategy for hardwood production. For those in the industry, its appearance is timely. Both softwood and woodchip production are under attack on several fronts, perhaps the most important of which concern the chemical and physical deterioration of soils associated with the harvesting of tree crops. Improvements in techniques for the profitable management of native hardwood forests may overcome some of these problems, and perhaps alleviate some of the pressure for increasing the acreage (hectareage?) of cleared land at the expense of our prime native forests.

Australian children’s literature has its own established heavies, writers whose work is well enough known both here and abroad, frequently in translation, and whose names would be well up in the Public Lending Right cheque lists. Some are so much in demand these days, that the time taken in preparing and giving speeches at conferences of librarians and others leaves them little time for the actual business of writing. However, they continue to dominate; each new work from them is eagerly awaited, read, reviewed and avidly discussed, if not by children then certainly by the growing adult following.

This book has emanated from the University of Newcastle based upon the much needed research into the plight of Australian small businesses by the staff there. The book is intended to make such research findings available in a digestible form and the publication definitely achieves that goal.

Few families in Italian history have enjoyed a fame greater than the Medici whose name has become inseparably linked with the Renaissance. It is paradoxical, therefore, how little has really been known, until recently, of how Cosimo, the founder of its predominance in Florence, paved the way for the establishment of the power it was to exercise over that city. Nicolai Rubinstein, some years ago in his Government of Florence under the Medici, showed how its ascendancy was maintained through a complex system of electoral controls, but it is only now, with the appearance of Australian historian Dale Kent’s study, The Rise of the Medici, that a clear picture is beginning to emerge of the process by which the Medici first issued from the ranks of the Florentine ruling class to the position of dominance which they gradually consolidated over the six decades following Cosimo’s triumphant return from exile in 1434.