Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%
Skip to main content
Absolutely Revolting

April 2013, no. 350

Welcome to issue number 350 of ABR! Leading the way is our Calibre Prize winner for 2013 – Martin Thomas’s magnificent account of the violation and restitution of Aboriginal bones in west Arnhem Land. Gillian Terzis and Alison Broinowski review new books by Al Gore and Oliver Stone, respectively. Patrick Allington praises a novella by Marion May Campbell, who is our guest on Open Page. There is news of two new ABR writers’ fellowships, each worth $5000. We also have poems by Laurie Duggan, Clive James, and Jennifer Maiden.

Nick Haslam reviews Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry by Maxwell Bennett
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Psychiatry
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

An unsuspecting reader might guess that this book belongs to the disreputable genre of psychobiography. Beginning with Sigmund Freud’s analysis of Leonardo da Vinci (1910), which explored themes of unconscious homosexuality and maternal attachment, biographers have attempted to make sense of individual lives with the aid of psychological theory, most often of a psychoanalytic stripe.
Book 1 Title: Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry
Book Author: Maxwell Bennett
Book 1 Biblio: Springer, $40 hb, 232 pp, 9789400757479
Display Review Rating: No

An unsuspecting reader might guess that this book belongs to the disreputable genre of psychobiography. Beginning with Sigmund Freud’s analysis of Leonardo da Vinci (1910), which explored themes of unconscious homosexuality and maternal attachment, biographers have attempted to make sense of individual lives with the aid of psychological theory, most often of a psychoanalytic stripe.

Read more: Nick Haslam reviews 'Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry' by Maxwell Bennett

Write comment (0 Comments)
Rachel Robertson reviews Welcome to Your New Life by Anna Goldsworthy
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Memoir
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

The welcome in the title of this memoir refers both to Goldsworthy welcoming her baby son and to her recognition that her own life has irrevocably changed. The commonplace but also profound shifts resulting from motherhood are gently displayed for the reader, without sentimentality or the relentless self-deprecating irony of many motherhood memoirs and blogs. As readers of her earlier memoir, Piano Lessons (2009), will know, Goldsworthy’s touch is light but sure. It is a simple story of pregnancy, birth, family dramas, and learning to parent, but it is engaging and often very funny.
Book 1 Title: Welcome to Your New Life
Book Author: Anna Goldsworthy
Book 1 Biblio: Black Inc., $29.99 pb, 224 pp, 9781863955935
Display Review Rating: No

The welcome in the title of this memoir refers both to Goldsworthy welcoming her baby son and to her recognition that her own life has irrevocably changed. The commonplace but also profound shifts resulting from motherhood are gently displayed for the reader, without sentimentality or the relentless self-deprecating irony of many motherhood memoirs and blogs. As readers of her earlier memoir, Piano Lessons (2009), will know, Goldsworthy’s touch is light but sure. It is a simple story of pregnancy, birth, family dramas, and learning to parent, but it is engaging and often very funny.

Read more: Rachel Robertson reviews 'Welcome to Your New Life' by Anna Goldsworthy

Write comment (0 Comments)
Laurie Steed reviews The Dunbar Case by Peter Corris
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Fiction
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

Known in certain quarters as ‘the godfather of Australian crime fiction’, Peter Corris is certainly persistent. Prior to this, he has written thirty-seven novels involving the wily, irrepressible Cliff Hardy. The Dunbar Case showcases an older but still sprightly Hardy, who deals with maritime mysteries, amorous women, and a notorious crime family.
Book 1 Title: The Dunbar Case
Book Author: Peter Corris
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $27.99 pb, 247 pp, 9781743310229
Display Review Rating: No

Known in certain quarters as ‘the godfather of Australian crime fiction’, Peter Corris is certainly persistent. Prior to this, he has written thirty-seven novels involving the wily, irrepressible Cliff Hardy. The Dunbar Case showcases an older but still sprightly Hardy, who deals with maritime mysteries, amorous women, and a notorious crime family.

Read more: Laurie Steed reviews 'The Dunbar Case' by Peter Corris

Write comment (0 Comments)
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Picture Books
Custom Article Title: Margaret Robson Kett reviews eight new picture books
Non-review Thumbnail:

A pile of picture books to savour – what better start to the year? Experienced authors and artists are met again, and new favourites are found, in these eight books.

Margaret Wild and Freya Blackwood, wonderful book makers in their own right, make a special team in The Treasure Box (Viking, $24.99 hb, 32 pp, 9780670073658). A boy and his father are forced to flee their home as the enemy advances, bombing the town’s library on their way. They take one surviving book with them as a treasure ‘rarer than rubies, more splendid than silver, greater than gold’.

Read more: Margaret Robson Kett reviews eight new picture books

Write comment (0 Comments)
Carol Middleton reviews Madame Bovary’s Haberdashery by Maurilia Meehan
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Fiction
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

With her fifth novel, Maurilia Meehan has carved out a subversive niche of chick-lit mystery. Touted as the first of a trilogy, Madame Bovary’s Haberdashery is an amusing romp for the thinking woman, with references to Flaubert, Milan Kundera, and Agatha Christie. The decidedly feminist viewpoint is tempered by a mordant use of irony and satire.
Book 1 Title: Madame Bovary’s Haberdashery
Book 1 Subtitle: Maurilia Meehan
Book 1 Biblio: Transit Lounge, $29.95 pb, 272 pp, 978921924415
Display Review Rating: No

With her fifth novel, Maurilia Meehan has carved out a subversive niche of chick-lit mystery. Touted as the first of a trilogy, Madame Bovary’s Haberdashery is an amusing romp for the thinking woman, with references to Flaubert, Milan Kundera, and Agatha Christie. The decidedly feminist viewpoint is tempered by a mordant use of irony and satire.

Read more: Carol Middleton reviews 'Madame Bovary’s Haberdashery' by Maurilia Meehan

Write comment (1 Comment)

More Articles ...