Australia Books

This is a graceful and unique book that blends fiction with intellectual theory and even biography to explore the themes of agency and self-identity in women's lives. Modjeska's style is unique, using what she calls an essay form to tell the stories of four fictional women characters and such well-known artists and writers as Stella Bowen, Artemisia Gentileschi and Virginia Woolf. Modjeska and her characters discuss such concepts as the formation and preservation of self-identity, with the intellectual theories surrounding these concerns framed, refreshingly, in the context of women's everyday lives. The complexity of this book means it can be read over and over, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who is interested in sexual politics, art history, relationships, literature - or to anyone who loves an engrossing story, well-developed characters and beautiful language.

Modjeska's exquisite novel is told by an unnamed woman who relates her own story, her friends' stories, and the stories of famous women, all woven together to give a greater picture of the lives of women as artists. Virginia Woolf, Stella Bowen, Artemisia Gentileschi, and others are threaded into this vibrant tapestry. The final fable of the princess with the silver hands is actually the single basis of the rest of the book: the idea of women finding their own agency in the world, whether in art or in daily life or in relationships with men and/or women. The language is supple and complex, which might deter some readers seeking light reading, but the sheer beauty of Modjeska's writing seduces and inspires. It's like an essay, but through fiction, as if "A Room of One's Own" were a faerie tale of sorts. "The Orchard" is a powerful book that deserves many visits.

...The Orchard is about a series of issues that recur from place to place in the book: learning from one's past; how women can use their special qualities to advantage even when dominated by a man/men; how a particular event can signify many things when seen in idfferent contexts - the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi, the flowing of the winterbourne, the story of the orchard etc. It also serves as a good precursor to Stravinsky's Lunch to be published shortly in the USA but which I read when it came out in Australia a year ago. Another theme and one that links the two books is the practice of representation through painting and the personal searches and enquiries that lie behind pictures that we see in galleries or in books. The Orchard is one of the most thought-provoking, wise and deeply wordly books that I've read for some time.

This is an excellent discussion of Australian cryptozoological creatures. Debunks many myths yet leads the reader into a world of the possible. The book is thoroughly readable.

The section on the marsupial lion is "interesting" as there have now been 2 (indistict) videos of this creature shown on national television news! Still no bodies though!

An absolutley excellent book, exploring a number of the "mystery" animals of Australia such as the Queensland Marsupial Tiger and the Thylacine. Each chapter has an extensive history of the beast, as well as eyewitness accounts and more. The author never becomes carried away with the subject and declares that such animals DO exist, but deals with it in an interesting and logical manner. A must for any cryptozoology fanatics, especially those from Australia!

Horrified to see this listed as out of print ! I bought a copy in London at UnCon'99. Six mysteries of Australian and Tasmanian animals extinct or fortean in nature. Well written and very enjoyable. Many plates of the Thylacine and locations of sightings and well done illustrations of the various critters so dear to the hearts of armchair monster hunters everywhere.

James Boyd

Pucabob@aol.com

Pemulwuy was a leader of the Eora people - the Aboriginal langauge group that lived where Sydney now stands. This is the story of the resistance of the Aboriginal people to the invasion of their lands.

A gripping novel of an aspect of Australia's contact history not often written about.

This is an excellent fusion of history and creativity. It is a powerful tribute to the courage and spirit of the Aboriginal people who fought fiercely against European invasion in Sydney, and almost won. Hard to put down.

After spending years in the Australian educational system being told there was no resistance to white invasion (settlement) of Australia, reading this book 13 years ago was a revelation. I guess (I hope) there is much more literature around about aboriginal resistance these days, but this book is both educational and a good read. Buying it again.

A Luscious book - with inspirational photos, in both quality and selection. A valuable book for educating those new to this trend in building, so they can abandon old ideas of prefab and look at the hot creative and even green possibilities.

PreFab Now

For me, this was a pleasure to look through. The variety of homes covered in the book are extensive; and the photography captured the Pre-Fab installations beautifully. I plan on building a Pre-Fab in the future and I found this book to be a great source of inspiration and visual information.

PreFabNow, $26.37 Amazon.com, is a two hundred page square-format book from author James Grayson Trulove. His recent hardbacks include 25 Apartments and Lofts Under 2500 Square Feet, New Sustainable Homes, and The Modern Townhouse. This volume highlights prime examples of striking prefabricated homes on the market today - and examines facets such as cost, durability, and sustainability. The book also includes drawings, plans, renderings, and sumptuous full-page color photography from various architects and photographers.

Resolution: 4 Architecture envisioned the Mountain Retreat that occupies 18 of the first 30 pages appearing after the Contents and Foreword. This 1,800-square-foot home was assembled in a factory before being erected on-site in the Catskills. Once the prefabricated bars were raised, exterior sheathing of cedar board and cementitious panels were applied; a deck for entertaining was also added. My favorite element on this house is the butterfly roof with clerestory windows.

English countryside homes like Cedar House - designed by Hudson Architects - are enviable. This 3,450-square-foot home (utilizing off-site construction) was erected in just one week. Timber-panel floors, roofing, and walls allowed for easy installation; 15,000 untreated cedar shingles complete the exterior. Because the roof structure was lightweight, roof beams were not required - therefore the residence has soaring ceilings and vast open spaces. My favorite feature on this structure is the cantilevered corner window in aluminum-frame.

Flexibility and portability are found in the Portable House from Office of Mobile Design. This California dwelling has ample living and sleeping spaces divided by a kitchen and bath. Once the 12-by-60-foot steel frame is trucked to its site and set on a foundation, the exterior is fitted with metal siding and translucent polycarbonate panels that serve as windows. My favorite detail here is the bamboo flooring, since bamboo is a sustainable hardwood.

Another home designed by Resolution: 4 Architecture is in rural Virginia. The Country Retreat is a 2,600-square-foot house with communal areas on the lower level and private areas on the upper level. Once its prefabricated bars were raised, exteriors of horizontal cedar siding and cement-board accents were applied; a ground-level stone courtyard conceals a swimming pool. My favorite attribute of this retreat is the view from the dining/living area onto the aforementioned courtyard.

Besides the Mountain Retreat, my favorite residence in PreFabNow, is the Red Cabin designed by Alchemy Architects. Perched in the Minnesota woods, a 750-square-foot house with two bedrooms and a galley kitchen evokes the image of a tugboat stranded atop a hill. Configured from two pre-built modules, the home appears spacious due to ground level and rooftop decks. Clad in rough-sawn siding, the house is painted firehouse red to mimic nearby cabins.

Next I'll discuss the X 1 which is part of the X-Line from Hive Modular. This 2,300-square-foot modular home - also located in Minnesota - has 15 foot ceilings in the dining, kitchen, living, master and second bedroom, and study area. Its exterior is covered with maintenance-free fiber-cement and metal siding, and the windows are all black-clad aluminum. I'd say the architects at Hive Modular are fans of the artist Mondrian, based on this prototype.

Of the houses featured here, I especially like the Mod3 Riverview. This green home was designed by Studio 804 of Lawrence, Kansas. All its ceiling, floor and wall cavities are filled with recycled cellulose instead of fiberglass insulation. The exterior is home grown Douglas fir used to reduce fuel consumption associated with shipping materials from overseas. Floor to ceiling windows utilized here also insure ample natural light, reducing the need for artificial light.

While I can't imagine living in a Mobile Dwelling Unit - designed by Lot-Ek - it does possess a certain post-Millennial charm. This unit is built from recycled shipping containers. Its interior and sub-volumes are fabricated from fixtures, plywood, and plastic-coated plywood. When all the sub-volumes are extended, the square footage of the dwelling increases by ten percent. Overall, I'd say this is an excellent coffee table book for anyone that's contemplating buying a prefab home.

The latest release of Kamminga and Mulvaney's book is a must for anyone interested in Australia's past. For decades, this book has represented the cutting-edge of knoweledge about Australian prehistory and the latest complete re-write fails to dissapoint.

This work covers all areas of Australian prehistory in a clear and concise manner, that makes is invaluable for students/academics and the interested 'armchair archaeologist' alike.

This book is written by two scientists who have played important roles in the rapidly developing subject of Australian prehistory. It is not simply a revision of the 1971 book - the picture archaeologists have of the prehistory of Australia has transformed in the past 30 years, and this book captures that exciting transformation. The archaeology of aboriginal occupancy of Australia is also a politically charged subject and the authors manage the difficult task of presenting this story with sensitivity. I think that the book is a fine example of how to present a mass of scientific evidence by weaving it into an engaging and moving story. The authors presentation of human response to the shifting Pleistocene and Holocene palaeoenvironment in Australia is excellent. The references are thorough and well organised and a useful glossary of archaeological, geological and biological terms is appended. The book concludes with three chapters on aboriginal rock art. Finally, the book is well formatted and easy on the eye. First rate - highly recommended to all literate Australians (given the wide ignorance of this important subject in our country) and to anyone with an interest in prehistory. I can't recommend it highly enough!

This was an interesting introduction to Australian prehistory. I'd not come across a similar general text on the subject before this one, although I've read some of the data as passing references in other books on prehistory. Some of the discussion on the flint technology was a little slow-going because the differences in technique, stone sources, and styles among the various periods and regions were less apparent and less engrossing to me than they obviously are to the authors. In other respects the book is an excellant starting point for anyone with an interest in Austrilia or in prehistoric culture in general.

Since the first edition of this work came out in 1975, this work has been a must-have for anyone, layman or professional, who is interested in Australia's unique and very speciose collection of reptiles and amphibians. Successive upgrades through the years have kept this book up to date (but at the same time considerably larger and more expensive than the original).

Quite simply, this book is a guide to ALL of Australia's (including it's island territories) frogs and reptiles. Each taxa has a full description of it's appearance, distribution (by way of both text and an accompanying shaded map), habits and, in the majority of species, a corresponding colour photograph of the living animal. The book has very thorough and simple to use dichotomous keys that should allow any specimen in hand to be quickly identified. A comprehensive list of scientific references is also given for those wishing to conduct more in-depth research. Also included are basic guides to the collection, preservation and captive care of specimens.

I have only one gripe with the current (Sixth - year 2000) edition. Since (I think) 1992 there has been no major rewrite of the main text - instead an increasingly large Appendix of has been slapped on the end. The current Appendix is now over 40 pages long with numerous subsequently described species and nomeclatural rearrangements. It can be very annoying having to flick from the main text to the Appendix in such a large volume to see what the current information is.

Still, this is a bearable hardship to pay for such a treasuretrove of information and illustrations.

Very good book, lots of pictures and maps.

I work at David Fleay Wildlife Park on the Gold Coast and this is the reference book I recommend to those wanting to identify either reptiles or amphibians that they have in their backyard, come across while travelling or from photographs. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia is a very large, thick and heavy doorstopper of a book so not really ideal for the backpacker who wants something to carry in their backpack. If you have a car, or want it for the home though it is ideal.

As well as great photographs to compare what you are wondering about there is also a substantial amount of information on each reptile and amphibian. There are also shaded maps to indicate where you are most likely to come across each animal that you seek.

If you are after a book that covers the whole range of animals in Australia and not just reptiles and amphibians I would recommend Encyclopaedia of Australian Wildlife by Janet Healey. If you live in South East QLD then Wildlife of Greater Brisbane by the Queensland Museum is also a great reference book. For those interested only in birds I would recommend Michael Marcombe's A Field Guide to Australian Birds.

Boldrewood was actually Thomas Browne. He took Boldrewood as his pen name. He was a very prolific writer from the late 1800's and early 1900's and he lived in New South Wales, Australia. Browne was a squatter, a stock-farmer, a police magistrate, a goldfields commissioner and a writer during his long and colourful life. This book is a good rousing yarn about life in early Australia, but it's more than that. The story is about an English aristocrat turned bushranger who partook in cattle-stealing and highway robbery. His brushes with the law, and the stories of death and murder is a classic of literature. Boldrewood's character of Captain Starlight was probably based on a real character that lived and committed crimes in Australia. His name was Captain Moonlight. Even Captain Starlight's two desperate accomplices were probably based on Moonlight's real accomplices. The book is a real page-turner and I recommend it highly. Boldrewood could tell a story!

Rolf Bolderwood gives a fantastic insight into the mindset of early Australia. Robbery under arms deals with the classic idea of an honest man driven to crime and the suffering it brings him. It is also full of the adventure and excitement that comes along with the criminal life. The book is deep, moody and allows you to be drawn into both the Australian bush and the character's thoughts.

Like an untrained person in the outback this book is easy to get lost in. It explains in detail how the people involved got into the situation they were in.
I used to enjoy westerns but now all I want is the outback.
The book concurs with other works of the time I have read. It is one of the few books I can say I found hard to put down.
If I forget what visiting the Jungle in FNQ (Far North Queensland) was like or some trails in NSW were like or the lands at Gosford Sydney I only have to see the book cover out fo the corner of my eye and it all comes rushing back. Forget about painting a thousand words with a picture somehow this evokes sentiments that I doubt canvas would be strong enough to capture. In my opinion it is as powerful as 'Born under paperbark tree' is and 'For the term of his natural life' also is.

I dont usually read this style of book but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Initially I didnt feel any real connection with the author, and yet the book was engrossing. As the book progressed my feelings towards her changed. The author manages to absorb you into her day to day life, and writes so well I can clearly envision Pittwater and the characters (and dogs) of whom she writes. I recommend this to anyone who is looking for a fun read with a message which creeps up on the reader, doesnt hit you between the eyes.

Story: The Way of Water

As a fellow author in the biography genre, I was hugely impressed by the passion, honesty and sheer beauty of Susan Duncan's writing. As a fellow Australian, Dorothea Mackellar fan and Sydney bush dweller, I found lots to entice in this story of life, of death and of living in the moment. It was sheer joy to share the author's experiences of life among the small bayside communities of Pittwater, with their idiosyncrasies, their down to earth attitude to living and their enormous generosity. The author also shares with us both her experiences of living with cancer and watching those she loves most die from cancer. Yet this is one of the most positive and romantic tales of recent times. Salvation Creek is a wonderful title and wonderfully evocative of the essence of the book. Can't recommend this highly enough.

Anne E. Lenehan
Author "Story: The Way of Water"
The biography of astronaut and philosopher Story Musgrave

This was the best read I have had in many years. Anyone who is a cancer survivor, or going through chemotherapy and loss, will gain such strength from this story.
Susan is able to put words to the feelings you have when you have been hit with the news. All throughout the book I kept saying "yes, that's exactly how I felt" and in many ways it was like listening to that song "Killing me softly" where the boy is singing her thoughts.
Never does the author get maudlin or depressing ... quite the contrary. She is so positive and practical and just a complete joy. I love her to bits!

"The unconditional surrender of Germany," he said, has just been announced. After six years of the cruel murder of human beings, victims are being mourned, and Europe is now trying to return to peace and order".

Schindler's Ark tells a true story about a German gentleman, drinker and a womanizer who saved many Jewish lives during World War II. This powerful novel gives off a realistic sense of terror, describes the many horrific events and lots of romances being painfully torn apart. This is about a man who wrote a list, a list that made a great impact on many people's lives until one day when it all goes wrong.

Thomas Keneally has told the story in a way which will grip the reader. The reader will go through a whole array of emotions. This book invites us all to remember those lives, some of whom were taken and some of whom have changed forever! After all, this is a true story!

"The dust of the dead fell in hair and on the clothing hung in the back gardens of junior officers' villas".

This book is best suited for ages 13 and up.

Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize-winning, fictionalized biography of Oskar Schindler memorializes a member of the Nazi party who endangered his own life for four years, working privately to save Jews from the death camps. A playboy who loved fine wines and foods, he was also a smooth-talking manipulator (and briber) of Nazi officials, as well as a clever entrepreneur, already on his way to stunning financial success by the early days of World War II. Nowhere in Schindler's background are there any hints that he would one day become the savior of eleven hundred Jewish men and women.

While the excellent film of this novel concentrates on the dangers Schindler and "his Jews" faced daily throughout the war, Keneally, well known for his depictions of characters acting under stress, concentrates on the character of Oskar Schindler himself, beginning with his childhood and teen years. As he explores Schindler's transformation from war profiteer and "passive" Nazi to a man willing to use his fortune to ensure the salvation of his factory workers, Keneally reveals a man of enormous courage and derring-do, a man who thrives by living on the edge.

Presenting episodes from the lives of some of the "Schindlerjuden," Keneally highlights their humanity, creating moments of high drama. Characters such as Leopold Pfefferberg and factory manager Itzhak Stern move in and out of the narrative, illustrating graphically the extent to which their lives depend upon Oskar Schindler, while the constant intrusion of sadistic SS commandant Amon Goeth in Schindler's life shows the fragility of their security. Other stories, of people who just missed being saved by Schindler, highlight the arbitrariness of fate--chance--in their (and our) lives.

Throughout the novel, Keneally stresses the importance of bearing witness and testifying to the atrocities. In one of the novel's most moving passages, Schindler and his lover ride horses to a ridge where they can view the expulsion of the Jews from the Krakow ghetto, watching, horrified, as old or crippled laggards are murdered in front of Jewish children. "They permitted witnesses because they believed the witnesses, all, would perish, too." Later, Schindler works with a Zionist rescue organization, secretly going to Budapest to testify about the hidden death camps.

Schindler's heroism, his goodness within a country committed to the extermination of other humans, his recognition that witnesses are essential, and his ability to use the system in order to hasten its end bring this story of one man's fight against the Holocaust to life. But it is Keneally's incorporation of Schindler's faults and excesses which gives texture and depth to this portrait and make Schindler a character with whom the reader can identify. Keneally's meticulous research and his portrait of Schindler after the war, beloved by Jews but at loose ends personally and professionally, make this novel an unforgettable study of character and time. Mary Whipple

This review is dedicated by a Jew and Zionist Until Death, myself! , To the Righteous among the Nations, those Gentiles who have stood by the Jewish Nation in times of travail and murder, and those who continue to stand by Jews and Israel, in these frightening and sombre times of today.

Many people have wondered how the nation that gave us such great contributors to humanity, such as the Statesman Frederick the Great, the poet and writer Johan Goethe, and musicians such as Bach and Beethoven, could have allowed themselves to be led by the Satanic Adolph Hitler (may his evil name be erased from history) produced the SS and Gestapo, and allowed those evil forces to carry out the Holocaust against 6 million Jewish men, women and children, as well as millions of Roma, disabled people , Slavs and Armenians.

An yet we must not forget the righteous among the nations, which included Germans like Pastor Niemoller and Konrad Adenauer, who opposed the monstrous Nazi tyranny, and Oskar Schindler (and Emily Schindler) among others, who put their own lives on the line to save Jewish lives.

Oskar Schindler was a maverick Sudeten German industrialist, who put his life and livelihood on the line to save 6 000 Jews from the Nazi death machine.

Unlike the move "Schindler's List", in this book we read something of the world before and after World War II and the Holocaust (Shoah).

Hence we see something of the anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church, and how the centuries of Catholic poison against the Jewish people, in some ways paved the way for the horrors of the Shoah (as well as having caused untold suffering and death to Jews through the centuries - since Roman times! -and it continues to cause suffering and death today to Jews when the Catholic Church sides with Palestinian terrorists against innocent Israeli Jewish women and children!

In 1929 Oskar Schindler married Emilie, a German speaking Catholic girl (who would prove to have a heart of gold, but would be treated shabbily by Oskar). From her girlhood Emilie would have a close friendship with the daughter of the local Jewish storekeeper in her village, Rita Reiff.

On a visit to Emile's father, the parish priest told him that it was not good , in principle , for a Catholic girl to have a friendship with a Jew. It is a testament to Emilie's character that she resisted the edict of the bigoted priest, and remained a close friend Rita's, until Rita was executed by Nazi officials, in front of the store, in 1942.

It is a testament to the love and honour that Schindler would be held in by the Jews he saved and their descendents, that when this book was written by Thomas Keneally in 1982 (37 years after the war and 8 years after Oskar Schindler passed away) that a family called the C's who spread malicious rumours about Schindlers, still had to be protected by being granted anonymity by the author! Clearly the Schindlerjuden or their children or grandchildren could take revenge against the C's if the author had revealed their identity!

He was not held by all Germans with such esteem after the war, and as late as the 1960's were spat out and verbally attacked on the streets of Frankfurt (but more of that later).

Just as there have always been a handful of righteous Gentiles, so too there have always been Jews who have acted in ways that have brought destruction on their own people.
The Judenrat (The Nazi puppet councils of Jews) that helped the Nazis oppress their own people, where mainly made up of secular intellectuals, as are the leftist Jewish traitors today, like the loathsome Noam Chomsky, who back the `Palestinian' efforts to destroy the tiny Jewish State of Israel, and thereby subject the Jewish people to a second holocaust.

Over half of all holocaust survivors today live in Israel (as do many descendants of holocaust survivors), and it would be a hideous twist of history for these too to perish in the flames of anti-Jew hatred, as they would do if Israel was destroyed by forces of evil (G-D forbid that this should ever be allowed to happen!)

Towards his later life in the 1960's and early 70's Schindler would be well looked after by the Schindlerjuden in Israel (where he spent half of every year, spending the other half in Germany in poverty and loneliness), and he would choose to be buried in Jerusalem.

Many Schindler Jews mourned him at his funeral in Jerusalem in 1974.

While we will always remember evil enemies of our people those like Pharaoh Amalek, Haman, Torquemada, Chmielnicki, Hitler, Stalin, Gaddafi Arafat, Edward Said and Chomsky (may their souls be eternally erased), we too must remember the Righteous Among the Nations such as Rahab, Emperor Darius, Pastor Niemoller, Oskar and Emilie Schindler , Reverend Pat Robertson , David Dolan and Mike Evans (may they be eternally blessed).

Great story of what it is really like to be a harrier pilot in a war. The book goes into detail about the problems with equipment and bureacracy, the manoeuvres and strategies used to gain an advantage. This complements the descriptions of the actual air battles against the Argentinians.

Wonderfully blunt first person account of the Falkland's air campaign, the Harrier jet, and air combat in general. Read along side of Admiral Sandy Woodward's "100 days" on the naval campaign, one gets contrasting views of the same events. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Falkland's war in general or in air combat in particular.

History of training and tactical development of Sea Harrier aircraft. Description of preparations and training as task force sails to Falkland Islands. Graphically exposes ship-to-ship and inter-service rivalries that compromise the mission. Describes command and staff failures to understand abilities of weapons systems causing unnecessary deaths and ship losses. Makes one wonder if wars are won because losers bureaucracy was more incompetent than winners.