Monash contributor
It is possible that the remainder of 2016 may produce a more memorable film than Sunset Song, but I doubt it. None so far has moved and enthralled me as Terence Davies' latest has. How I wish he didn't keep us waiting so long between films. It was the semi-autobiographical Distant Voices ...
... (read more)John Arnold reviews 'The Vagabond Papers' by John Stanley James
In March 2016 the Royal Historical Society of Victoria hosted a function to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Michael Cannon's The Land Boomers, first issued ...
... (read more)Robin Gerster reviews 'Our Man Elsewhere: In search of Alan Moorehead' by Thornton McCamish
You have to admire the professional writer who describes the chore of churning out the daily ration of words as 'like straining shit through a sock', ...
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Everyone loves a youth orchestra. All that young talent and enthusiasm oozing from the stage energises and captivates. An audience comprising a good number of proud parents and friends lends a sense of heightened anticipation ...
... (read more)Lucas Smith reviews 'She Woke & Rose' by Autumn Royal, 'Lake' by Claire Nashar, 'Common Sexual Fantasies, Ruined' by Rachel Briggs, 'Spelter to Pewter' by Javant Biarujia, 'Koel' by Jen Crawford, and 'Broken Teeth' by Tony Birch
A new poetry press in Australia should always be greeted with joy, and then interrogated with rigour. These six volumes from the recently created book arm of Cordite Poetry ...
... (read more)John Arnold reviews 'Passions of a mighty heart: The selected letters of G.W.L. Marshall-Hall' edited by Suzanne Robinson
George Marshall-Hall was a towering figure both physically and intellectually in Melbourne in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth ...
... (read more)Ilana Snyder reviews 'Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish conflict over Israel' by Dov Waxman
Two Jews, three opinions. Jews nod their heads in agreement when they hear those words, just as they chuckle knowingly at the story of the two Jews stranded on a desert island ...
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Whatever else Peter Evans's production of Othello has going for it, and it has indeed much, the speaking of Shakespeare's verse is outstanding. It is never declamatory, in the way that some famous actors of earlier decades dealt with it. The verse emerges entirely intact, but is always made to ...
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Two doors, two characters, two colours – black and white – produce a surfeit of grey in John Hughes's short allegorical novel Asylum. Featuring a variety of forms ...
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I hazard a guess that more books are published on Anzac – the day, the legend, the myth – than on any other subject in Australian history. The least of these ...
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