For millennia, humankind has searched for an intellectual Holy Grail – a unifying theory to explain the origins of the universe and our place in it.
John Sharpe
In the early 1970s, Queensland was a haven for crooks from both sides of the law. It was into this hothouse that Ray Whitrod was controversially appointed as police commissioner in 1970. Just six years later he resigned from the head role of the Queensland Police Force, no longer willing to tolerate the interference of the Bjelke- Petersen government. It was a decision that the Fitzgerald Inquiry would later, gloriously, vindicate.
What if you saved a man’s life and he went on to play a leading role in one of the bloodiest revolutions of modern times?
Ted Whittlemore, a radical Australian journalist, does just that. In the late ‘60s, he saves Nhem Kiry, soon to become known as ‘Pol Pot’s mouthpiece’. The consequences haunt him for the rest of his days. When the Khmer Rouge take power in Cambodia, Whittlemore watches, fascinated and horrified, as the ideals he holds dear are translated into unfathomable violence.
Aboriginal lawyer, writer and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt has long been fascinated by the story of Eliza Fraser, who was purportedly captured by the Butchulla people after she was shipwrecked on their island in 1836. In this deeply personal book, Behrendt uses Eliza’s tale as a starting point to interrogate how Aboriginal people – and indigenous people of other countries – have been portrayed in their colonisers’ stories.
Nanna was an imposing woman. She was large and dark, with strong arms and silver hair. Her scars bore testament to her adven- tures.
In Their Brilliant Careers, Ryan O’Neill has written a hilarious novel in the guise of sixteen biographies of (invented) Australian writers. Meet Rachel Deverall, who unearthed the secret source of the great literature of our time – and paid a terrible price for her discovery. Meet Rand Washington, hugely popular sci-fi author (of Whiteman of LCor) and inverterate racist. Meet Addison Tiller, master of the bush yarn, “The Chekhov of Coolabah”, who never travelled outside Sydney. [click to continue…]
Born on a remote island to a migrant Chinese father and an indigenous mother, Julius Chan overcame poverty, discrimination and family tragedy to become one of Papua New Guinea’s longest-serving and most influential politicians. His 50-year career, including two terms as Prime Minister, spans a crucial period of the country’s history, particularly its coming of age from an Australian colony to a leading democratic nation in the South Pacific.
Confronting and at times terrifying, this is a first-hand account of Domenico ‘Mick’ Cacciola’s life as a Licensing, Special Branch and CIB detective over four decades.
Who’s Who in the Zoo captures the colour and grit of policing in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, which in its heyday was the sleazy epicentre of illegal gambling and prostitution.
The unauthorised biography of Australia’s first media magnate.
Following the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch said his greatest regret was that he had let his father down. Popular history views Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) as a fearless war correspondent – author of the famous letter that led to the evacuation of the Anzac force from Gallipoli – and a principled journalist and dedicated family man who, on his death, left a single provincial newspaper to Rupert. But is there another side to the story of Keith’s success and the origins of News Corporation?
I realise that, despite all the references to my longing to be a writer, two things are apparent. The first is that I don’t actually do much writing; the second is that my teenage reflections display absolutely no talent for it. My Diary is prima facie evidence of self-delusion on a grand scale.
