Jan McGuinness
Jan McGuinness reviews 'A Writing Life: Helen Garner and her work' by Bernadette Brennan
Who is the I in Helen Garner’s work? This is the question Bernadette Brennan probes by canvassing more than forty years of Garner’s writing and her seventy-four-year existence More
Jan McGuinness reviews 'Bob Ellis: In his own words' by Bob Ellis, compiled by Anne Brooksbank
In his introduction to Bob Ellis: In his own words, Bob’s son Jack says of his father that ‘writing was his reason for being ... and through his writing he saw himself in conv More
Jan McGuinness reviews 'Killing Fairfax' by Pamela Williams and 'Rupert Murdoch' by David McKnight
With James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch grinning smugly on its cover, Killing Fairfax: Packer, Murdoch and the Ultimate Revenge projects a strong message that they are indeed th More
Jan McGuinness reviews 'The Memory Trap'
Andrea Goldsmith, in her seventh novel, plunges once more into a world of characters whose ideas and relationships swirl and churn around a psychological trigger. This time it is memory in all its errant, bewitching manifestations. Memory plays tricks as the old adage goes, and for the novel’s main characters it is the trick of emersion in an idealised but rupture ... More
Jan McGuinness reviews two biographies of Gina Rinehart
Reading two books about Gina Rinehart back to back is far from edifying. So rich, so controlling, so opinionated, so entitled – and these are among her less objectionable qualities, as described in the two biographies published since she burst into the headlines amid reports of family litigation, media buy-ins, and escalating wealth. Indeed, whatever she did would ... More
Jan McGuinness on 'Man Bites Murdoch' by Bruce Guthrie
Get in line, Bruce. The world is full of those who have been done over by Rupert Murdoch. In the immortal words of George Cukor to an aggrieved actor: ‘Will you stop about being fired. E More
