Today’s review is The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. This is a book I never would have read without my blogging habit. When she died last year, several of my favourite bloggers wrote about her. The book is an indictment of pretty much everything aboutContinue Reading
An alcoholic, manic-depressive, plagued with self doubt, he spent all but three years of his working life working for the unions before being elected to parliament. Alternatively, the man regarded by many as Australia’s greatest leader – wartime Prime Minister John Curtin. After watching the miniseries Curtin six months ago,Continue Reading
Today’s book review is The Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson. Bill Bryson is one of my absolute favourite authors, mainly driven by two quite different books: Neither Here nor There (a story of backpacking around Europe) and Mother Tongue, which is his history of the English language. So I hadContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The complete Polysyllabic Spree – the Diary of an Occasionally Exasperated But Ever Hopeful Reader, by Nick Hornby (interestingly only available on Amazon UK, not US). This is a collection of Nick Hornby’s monthly essays on the books he’s read that month, from Believer magazine (aContinue Reading
Today I’m reviewing one of the Quarterly Essays – The History Question; Who owns the past? by Inga Clendinnen. Quarterly Essays are 20,000 words published quarterly, with responses generally in the next issue. I’ve previously reviewed Clendinnen’s Dancing with Strangers, which is a detailed deconstruction and pieceing together of the historyContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The World According to Y: inside the new adult generation, by Rebecca Huntley. I probably wouldn’t have bought this book if I didn’t have some flying to do (four hours each way to NZ meant I needed more than just some magazines), but I’m glad IContinue Reading
Today’s Book Review is Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt. I read, and loved Angela’s Ashes, when it first came out. I had avoided Tis, as the reviews were mostly unfavourable. But I expected quite a lot of this book, given how good Angela’s Ashes was, and also given that IContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The Long Tail: why the future of business is selling less of more, by Chris Anderson. Originally a Wired magazine article, then workshopped as a blog, it got the biggest response of any Wired magazine, so Anderson decided to develop it as a book. I had beenContinue Reading
Today’s book review is Why TV Is Good for Kids : Raising 21st Century Children, by Catharine Lumby and Duncan Fine (who incidentally are married to each other with two small children). Despite the title, its not just about TV. Its a series of chapters (in some cases rants) aboutContinue Reading
Today’s book review is The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, by Jared Diamond. I read this book after his other two; Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (a worthy Pulitzer Prize winner), and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (notContinue Reading
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