Frank’s Book Reviews

NETHERWOOD – By: Jane Sanderson

Reviewed: 23rd January 2012
Publisher: Sphere
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The Edwardian era in England has been a rich souce of inspiration for books and TV series. Jane Sanderson’s Netherwood is set on the vast Hoyland Estate in Yorkshire where collieries have desecrated the pristine beauty of the land as they bring untold wealth to its fortunate owner Lord Hoyland. While the Hoyland family lives in luxury in the stately home, coal miners and their families occupy the nearby village. When miner Arthur Ward is killed in a mine accident, his enterprising wife, Eve, sets up in business selling Puddings and Pies. The business is such a success that even King Edward the Seventh becomes a grateful customer.
The story of the rich and the poor of Netherwood is an entertaining one and appears a likely source for a TV series. The book also provides a glimpse of the social and economic changes which were talking place in Edwardian England. A bonus is an appendix which contains some of Eve’s Recipes!

THE OPAL DESERT – By: Di Morrissey

Reviewed: 23rd January 2012
Publisher: Macmillan
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Popular and prolific writer Di Morrissey takes her readers to the opal fields west of Broken Hill in her latest book The Opal Desert. Three very different women meet up in the remote community of Opal Lake. A middle-aged widow, an 80 year old recluse and a 20 year old prospective Olympic runner make up an unlikely mix, but each is able to help the others sort out some of their problems. As with many of Morrissey’s books, the The Opal Desert is told in a fascinating setting inhabited by likeable people. The desolate but strangely beautiful landscape, where hardy prospectors search for the elusive opal, provides an apt environment for the three main characters as they search for inner peace.

RAY MARTIN’S FAVOURITES – By: Ray Martin

Reviewed: 16th January 2012
Publisher: Melbourne University Press
RRP: $49-99
Review: Frank Nolan
After 45 years of journalism, Ray Martin calculates that he has conducted well over 10,000 interviews. Those interviewed include Hollywood stars, Prime Ministers, U.S. Presidents, elite sportsmen, criminals such as Ronnie Biggs and churchmen such as Pope John Paul 2. Martin surveys this range of characters in Ray Martin’s Favourites: The Stories Behind the Legends. He devotes a chapter to thirty selected and gives his personal recollections of each of them. He tells of his interview with Kerry Packer, the last interview Packer ever gave. He provides the full transcript the last of of his memorable interviews with Don Bradman, and he praises Michael Crawford as “simply the best” of all the entertainers he has ever spoken to. Martin also reveals his favourite interview of all time.
A handsome coffee table book, Ray Martin’s Favourites is also an entertaining read.

UNDER THE HAWTHORN TREE – By: Ai Mi

Reviewed: 16th January 2012
Publisher: Virago
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Under the Hawthorn Tree is a love story set in the period of China’s Great Cultural Revolution. A young girl named Jingqiu whose family has been branded as “politically questionable” is sent into the countryside to work on a textbook for schools based on stories told by lower and middle class peasants. She is also forced to perform back-breaking physical work. Jinqiu falls in love with the son of a district level commanding officer of the People’s Revolutionary Army, a love affair which cannot survive in the political climate.
The story of Jinqiu and her lover has a “Romeo and Juliet” flavour and, like the star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare’s play, their story has a tragic ending. The story also gives some insight into the suffering of the people of China during the Cultural Revolution.

THE HOUSE OF SILK – By: Anthony Horowitz

Reviewed: 19th December 2011
Publisher: Orion
RRP.: $29-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were the inventions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Watson describes the amazing detective skills of Holmes in numerous stories which have delighted generations of readers. Conan Doyle died in 1930 but now a new Sherlock Holmes story has appeared under the authorship of Anthony Horowitz.
Horowitz, best known as the writer of the very popular TV series “Foyle’s War” and “Midsomer Murders”, cleverly adopts the writing style of Conan Doyle in “The House of Silk”.
The book tells of a case which was solved by Holmes and written up by Watson over a hundred years before. However, it was considered too shocking to be published at the time since Watson feared that it might “tear apart the entire fabric of society”. Modern day readers, accustomed to “shocking” cases, will probably not be all that horrified by The House of Silk but will enjoy an intriguing detective yarn recounted in the style of Conan Doyle.

THE MAID’S TALE – By: Rose Plummer

Reviewed: 19th December 2011
Publisher: Coronet
RRP: $19-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Television series such as Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs have achieved great popularity. They purport to portray life in the houses of the rich in early 20th century England. Rose Plummer grew up in the London slum of Hoxton and, at the age of fifteen, began life as a maid in a house in the West End. The story she tells is very different from that depicted in the TV series. Servants were treated as less than human and were required to perform long hours of back-breaking work. They were not permitted to speak to the lady of the house or even to look at her! Wages amounted to a few misereable shillings a week.
While spending her last years in nursing homes, Rose told her story to writer Tom Quinn, and this true account of life below stairs is told in The Maid’s Tale. The real world of life Upstairs, Downstairs seems a far cry from that seen on TV.

JOURNEY TO HER DREAMS – By: Iris Blobel

Reviewed: 12th December 2011
Publisher: Astrea Press
RRP: Not Available
Review: Frank Nolan
Ballarat writer Iris Blobel’s first book was titled Sweet Dreams Miss England and was set in London and Dublin. She returns to the subject of dreams in her recently published second novel Journey to Her Dreams. The story is set in two small islands – Tasmania and Ireland – and involves the lives of two young women. Hollie lives with her father on a farm near Launceston while Sam lives in Dublin. A recurrent, disturbing dream inspires Hollie to visit Ireland and the two women meet in extraordinary circumstances, with momentous effect on both of their lives.
A cleverly constructed plot, believable characters and lucid writing make Journey to Her Dreams enjoyable romantic fiction reading. It is available now as an e-book, and will apppear shortly in paperback.

THE PRICE OF LIFE – By: Nigel Brennan, Nicole Bonney and Kellie Brennan

Reviewed: 5th December 2011
Publisher: Michael Joseph
RRP: $29-95
Review: Frank Nolan
In August 2008, Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan and Canadian colleague Amanda Lindhout were kidnapped in Somalia by a brutal criminal gang. They were held in atrocious conditions for 462 days while the kidnappers demanded a ransom of 1.5 million U.S. Dollars. The Australian and Canadian governments would not pay ransom and Brennan’s family spent many months desperately trying to raise money to secure his release.
The aptly titled The Price of Life tells two stories. One is that of the 462 days of detention in Somalia told by Nigel. Conditions were deplorable. Both Amanda and Nigel were brutally beaten and, following an attempted escape, kept in chains. Meanwhile in Australia, the Brennan family faced almost overwhelming difficulties as they strove to secure Nigel’s
release. This story is told by Nigel’s sister Nicole, who acted as chief negotiator, and sister-in-law Kellie who handled the frustrating financial matters.
The Price of Life is an inspiring true account of determination and family love.

THE REAL KATIE LAVENDER – By: Erica James

Reviewed: 28th November 2011
Publisher: Orion
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The ever popular Erica James comes up with another enjoyable romantic yarn in The Real Katie Lavender. A year after her mother’s death, Katie receives a letter from a solicitor with astounding news. She is told that her father was a wealthy man who had been building a trust fund for her. Katie discovers that she is a wealthy woman! She decides to find out all she can about her father and benefactor but soon wonders if it would have been better not to do so.
Like all Erica James’s novels, the plot has many twists and turns leading to a happy ending. The Real Katie Lavender is pleasant holiday reading.

THE TRADER’S WIFE – By: Anna Jacobs

Reviewed: 28th November 2011
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Prolific writer of romantic fiction, Anna Jacobs, sets her latest novel in Singapore and the Swan River settlement in Western Australia in the 1860s. Isabella Saunders is left alone and without support in Singapore when her mother dies. Fortunately, Isabella is befriended by a wealthy Singaporean businessman who engages her to teach him the English language. Isabella meets and marries a dashing young trader named Brad Deagan. They move to the Swan River Settlement and set up a trading business. Here, they face hardship and even danger as they work to become established in the young colony.
The Trader’s Wife is a charming love story which also gives an insight into the early days of European settlement in Western Australia.

GHOST WAVE – By: Chris Dixon

Reviewed: 21st November 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Cortes Bank is a dangerously shallow chain of underwater mountains in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 kilometres off the south-west coast of California. The shallowest point, known as Bishop’s Rock, comes to within a metre of the surface of the ocean. It is a favourite spot for scuba divers and fishermen. It also attracts surfers, although only the bravest will attempt to ride the massive waves which break across Bishop’s Rock.
Chris Dixon traces the history of this wild spot in Ghost Wave. Among the stories he tells is that of the botched attempt in 1969 by a syndicate of adventurers to locate a former U.S. navy ship on the submerged mountain top, from which a seafood processing plant would operate. Then, in 1985, the giant U.S. aircraft carrier Enterprise struck Bishop’s Rock causing seventeen million dollars damage to the ship.
Beautiful photos support Dixon’s descriptions of some of the great surf rides on the Cortes Bank. This is a book for true surfing enthusiasts.

THE WAVE – By: Dave Sparkes

Reviewed: 21st November 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $25-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Dave Sparkes is a surf photographer and writer whose work has appeared in publications around the world since 1984. He tells of his childhood spent on Bondi Beach and of his travels around the globe in search the best waves. He writes of surfing in Indonesia, Mexico, Tahiti, the Phillipines and, of course, Australia. Perhaps the most terrifying venue is a spot named “The Death Pit” in western central Java. The waves here are so dangerous that they are vetoed by the professional World Tour surfers.
The photographs of surfing greats, including Stephanie Gilmore, Mick Fanning, Kelly Slater and Tom Curren, in action on the world’s best surf beaches are truly astonishing. The text may be for the dedicated surfer but all of us can enjoy Sparkes’s photographs of nature’s power and beauty.

THE MASTER – By: Les Carlyon

Reviewed: 14th November 2011
Publisher: Pan McMillan
RRP: $59-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Bart Cummings has trained the winners of twelve Melbourne Cups, an achievement described by Les Carlyon as “Bradmanesque”. However, what is Bart Cummings really like?
This is the question Carlyon addresses in The Master, a memoir that is skewed towards events that Carlyon has personally witnessed. He traces Cummings’s career with focus on the great horses Cummings has trained including Light Fingers, Galilee, Let’s Elope, Saintly and So You Think.
The Master is a beautiful book. Carlyon brings a poetic quality to writing about a subject as mundane as horse racing. Superb photos and reproductions of Judith Leman’s sublime paintings of some of Cummings’s horses support the text. But what is Cummings really like? Carlyon concludes that, ultimately, he is “unknowable”. Joe Agresta Cummings’s track rider agrees. “If you think you know Bart,” he once observed, “then you don’t know Bart!”

THE LITIGATORS – By: John Grisham

Reviewed: 14th November 2011
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
RRP: $39-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Harvard Law School graduate, David Zinc, walks out of his job as one of the 600 lawyers who comprise the Chicago law firm of Rogan Rothberg. He gets a job with Finley and Figg, a “boutique” law firm which specialises in “bender-fenders, slips and falls and quickie divorces”. The firm gets way out of its depth when it takes on a pharmaceutical company marketing a suspect drug calles Krayvox. Crushed by defeat in court and hopelessly in debt, the future of Finley and Figg looks hopeless until Zinc accidentally stumbles on a tragic case which calls for legal practitoners with integrity as well cunning.
Grisham follows a formula he has perfected in his 23 books of legal fiction. A zealous young lawyer pits his skills against greedy corporate giants. Nobody describes American legal shenanigans better than Grisham who illustrates the truth of the Dickensian character Mr Bumble’s assertion that “the law is an ass!”

THE BEST OF ME – By: Nicholas Sparks

Reviewed: 7th November 2011
Publisher: Sphere
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Nicholas Sparks is the author of sixteen novels, six of which have been made into films.
His latest book, The Best of Me, is set in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina. High school sweethearts, Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole come from opposite sides of the tracks and their relationship ends when each leaves town to pursue a career. Twenty-five years later, they meet again at the funeral of an old friend. Both Amanda and Dawson have changed a lot in twenty-five years and they find that they must accept that their youth is past and can never be restored.
The plot, as in many romantic novels, includes unlikely co-incidences to bring about a satisfying, happy ending. A box of tissues is recommended when enjoying this ideal piece of holiday reading.

THAT WOMAN – By: Anne Sebba

Reviewed: 7th November 2011
Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicholson
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
Did Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George the Sixth of England, ever refer to Wallis Windsor as “that woman”? The story evolved from an article in Life magazine in 1941 and its origin is suspect. This appears to be the case with much that has been said and written about the woman for whom King Edward the Eighth of England abdicated the throne in 1936. Anne Sebba was given access to the King’s Proctor Files, held in the National Archives in Kew, and her book contains extensive reference to contemporary documents relating to Edward and Wallis. However, the book also contains much “gossippy” material which is presented as fact. Sebba concludes that no one will ever be able to explain how a “plain, middle -aged married woman” convinced a “troubled, boyish prince” to renounce the throne of England.
However, this easily-read biography of Wallis Windsor throws some light on the mystery of one of the most publicised love stories of all time.

THE ANTHOLOGY OF COLONIAL AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE FICTION – Edited By: Ken Gelder & Rachael Weaver

Reviewed: 31st October 2011
Publisher: Melbourne University Press
RRP: $39-99
Review: Frank Nolan
This anthology of adventure fiction is the fourth in a series of colonial Australian literature published by Melbourne University Press. It was preceded by anthologies of gothic fiction, crime fiction and romance fiction. The anthology comprises seventeen stories edited by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver. Subjects include the shameful slaughter of the aboriginal people, the constant battle by settlers to preserve their property, the fierce forces of nature, and the determination of young immigrants to succeed in the Australian colonies.
While most authors are male, stories by female writers such as Rosa Praed, Ellen Liston and Laura Palmer-Archer are also included.
Modern readers may find the colonial writers’ styles rather stilted and their attitudes strange by today’s standards. However, the stories clearly illustrate the variety and richness of Australian colonial adventure fiction.

I’VE BEEN THERE (AND BACK AGAIN) – By: Joy McKean

Reviewed: 24th October 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $39-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Joy McKean and Slim Dusty were married for over 50 years. Commencing in 1954, they travelled all over Australia with their popular program of country music. I’ve Been There (And Back Again) includes the lyrics of 25 of the songs composed by Slim and Joy and these are accompanied by beautiful photographs of country Australia. Nostalgic reproductions of old “Hillbilly” song books, publicity posters for the show, and photographs of some of the great personalities of country music are also included.
Part memoir, part song-book and part picture book, I’ve Been There (And Back Again) is a vivid account of the careers of two of Australian country music’s greatest performers. For lovers of the genre, the attractive hard- back edition would make a treasured Christmas present.

ABSOLUTELY – By: Joanna Lumley

Reviewed: 24th October 2011
Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicholson
RRP: $45
Review: Frank Nolan
Joanna Lumley introduces her autobiography with a warning: “I want to show you, dear reader, everything I have; like an exhibitionist or, to be frank, like a crushing bore.”
However, reading Absolutely is anything but boring! From the opening chapter which describes her childhood in India and Malaya to the closing chapter detailing her much-publicised campaign for justice for ex-Gurkhas, Lumley’s book is both informative and entertaining. She tells of her very successful career as a model, her entry into show business, her many films and plays, her early TV work and then her big break in winning the role of “Patsy” in the hilarious TV series “Absolutely Fabulous”.
The book is interspersed with numerous photos of a glitttering career. Lumley has done so many exciting things in a life which she recalls with humour and humility in this beautifully presented hard-cover book.

DEATH OF THE MANTIS – By: Michael Stanley

Reviewed: 17th October 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Possibly inspired by the remarkable success of Alexander McCall-Smith’s Number One Ladies Detective Agency books, two African writers, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, have commenced another series of detective novels set in Botswana. The third in the series is titled Death of the Mantis and features Assistant Police Superintendant David Bengu who prefers his tribal name of Kubu. In this story, Kubu is requested by an old friend to investigate the murder of a park ranger where nomadic bushmen are suspected of the crime. The case takes Kubu from his familiar patch in Gabarone into the countryside of Botswana.
Death of the Mantis is a good detective yarn with just enough red herrings to keep the reader alert. The book also indicates how the ancient life-style of the bushmen of the Kalahari is being constantly threatened by the modern world’s lust for riches. Like Alexander McCall-Smith, the authors of Death of the Mantis convey something of the beauty and mystery of southern Africa.

ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE ARES DECISION – By: Kyle Mills

Reviewed: 17th October 2011
Publisher: Orion
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The title of this book is something of a mystery. Robert Ludlum, author of 23 thrillers, died in 2001. The Ares Decision was not one of them. Hence, it seems that Kyle Mills has written this book in a way in which he thinks Ludlum may have written it!
A very nasty terrorist named Bahame has come into possession of a terrible bio-weapon and the future of the whole world is at stake. Fortunately, the U.S. President has set up a secret organisation named Covert One and its top microbiologist, Colonel John Smith, is assigned the task of eliminating Bahame and the bio-weapon. He is assisted by a very tough lady named Sarie Van Keuren, a gin-drinking biologist who is also a hot shot with the latest in weaponry. A lot of blood and guts are spilled before good triumphs over evil.
The Ares Decision certainly has excitement and furious action but it lacks the quality of the genuine old Robert Ludlum novels.

GHOST PLATOON – By: Frank Walker

Reviewed: 10th October 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
“In war, Truth is the first casualty” is a saying of obscure origin. However, history has repeatedly demonstrated its wisdom. Frank Walker’s book, Ghost Platoon, tells the story of the 2nd D&E Platoon, an Australian unit of 39 men which was based at Nui Dat, Vietnam, in 1969.
The platoon did not have an officer or even an NCO in charge when it was involved in a fierce fight against Viet Cong troops. A British ex-marine, Jim Riddle, led the Australians safely from the battle field but the Viet Cong suffered many causalities. Walker’s study of this incident reveals a strange cover-up of the truth about the 2nd D&E platoon, even to the point of its very existence being denied. Not until 2008 did the Australian Government admit that the 2nd D&E platoon did exist and that it was engaged in a series of important actions in Vietnam.
Frank Walker investigates the mystery of the “Ghost Platoon” and uncovers many unpalatable facts which authorities at the time did not want known. The book also examines the terrible effects of war time experiences on Australian soldiers in Vietnam.
Ghost Platoon is a deeply disturbing book. It tells an ugly story of an ugly war.

SLOW TRACKS – By: Jude Fitcher

Reviewed: 10th October 2011
Publisher: Affirm Press
RRP: $24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Jude Fitcher’s first book is sub-titled A Canter Through Victoria and Country Races. The author insists that the book is not about racing but, rather, about community and regional Victoria. The races merely provide a great excuse to get out and explore our state. The little -known attractions of small town Victoria, from Dederang to Manangatang and from Buchan to Wycheproof, are revealed in this delightful little book. Beautiful photographs enhance the text, capturing images as varied as “The Female Jockeys Room” at Woolamai, “The Mighty Murray at Koondrook” and “Ye Olde Stuff” at Dunkeld.
Reading Slow Tracks makes one want to follow its author’s advice to pack the picnic rug and head for the fresh air and new country experiences, to drive slowly and discover the far-flung corners of Victoria.

COLLINGWOOD A LOVE STORY – By: Paul Daley

Reviewed: 3rd October 2011
Publisher: Victory
RRP: $34-99
Review: Frank Nolan
In the late 19th century, Collingwood was a disease -ridden slum where “rats flourished and undertakers prospered”. Such is the setting for Paul Daley’s book Collingwood A Love Story. It is the story of Malcolm (Doc) Seddon, his childhood sweetheart Louie Newby, and Seddon’s Collingwood Football Club team-mate Paddy Rowan. Between 1912 and 1915, Seddon and Rowan were key players in Collingwood’s VFL team. Rowan married Louie in 1915 before the two men went to fight in the war in Europe. Before Rowan died in the Battle of the Somme, he had asked Seddon to take care of Louie and her infant son. Seddon survived the war and subsequently married Louie in 1923.
Daley paints a vivid picture of Collingwood in the early 20th century where the football club played a vitally important part in the people’s lives. Legendary characters such as Archbishop Mannix, John Wren, and great footballers such as Jock McHale and Charlie Pannam are all part of the story. However, it is Daley’s graphic account of the horror of World War 1 and its devastating effects on the people back home which makes this book a memorable read.
It is said that Victorians comprise two types of people – those who barrack for Collingwood and those who do not! However, all will love Collingwood A Love Story.

THE HOUSE OF THE WIND – By: Titania Hardie

Reviewed: 26th September 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
When tragedy strikes Madelaine Moretti’s life, she follows her Italian grandmother’s advice and travels to a beautiful part of Tuscany known as “The Valley of Serenity”. Here, she becomes fascinated with the history of the area and particularly the legend of a ruined villa known as the Casa Al Vento. The legend tells how in 1347, on the eve of St Agnes, a fierce storm destroyed the house killing all of its occupants except a grieving young girl.
Australian writer Titania Hardie cleverly intertwines two love stories, set centuries apart, in her new novel The House of the Wind. The world of San Francisco’s financial centre in 2007 is contrasted with that of “The Valley of Serenity” in the 14th century. However, the tale of lost love transcends the centuries.
Inspired in part by the romantic poetry of John Keats, The House of the Wind is an enthralling and moving novel.

THE RETRIBUTION – By: Val McDermid

Reviewed: 19th September 2011
Publisher: Little Brown
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Jacko Vance, killer of seventeen teen-age girls, murderer of a serving police officer and the man once voted the sexiest man on Britsh TV is serving a life sentence for his crimes.
After years of model behaviour, he is placed in the “Therapeutic Community Wing” of his prison from which he makes an easy escape. A highly-embarrassed Home Secretary and furious senior police officers demand that the evil escapee be caught. However, after several murders, each more brutal and horrible than the last, Vance has the entire population frightened. Perhaps most frightened are police profiler Tony Hill, Detective Inspector Carol Jordan, and Vance’s ex-wife Micky Morgan on whom the killer has sworn savage revenge.
Val McDermid is the author of twenty-five crime novels and is the creator of TV’s Inspector Morse and also the series Wire in the Blood. Her latest novel, Retribution, is a chilling tale of crime and detection. The plot is taut and swift-moving. However, some readers may find the graphic descriptions of bloody murders distressing.

BABYLON – By: Stephen Sewell

Reviewed: 13th September 2011
Publisher: Victory
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Mick is a nineteen year old English backpacker trekking to the north of Australia in search of work. On a lonely stretch of road in the outback, Mick accepts a ride in an old black Chevy driven by a man named Dan. Mick soon regrets his decision. Dan is a terrifying psychopath who leaves a trail of misery and death in his wake. Teenage holiday makers, a family whose car has run out of petrol; and a priest are among the victims. The naïve young Englishman is fascinated by Dan’s evil and it is the rapid corruption of Mick’s innocence which is perhaps the most evil act of all.
Babylon will certainly discourage English back-packers from hitch-hiking in the Australian outback. The sickening violence in the apocalyptic landscape makes depressing reading.

THE GODS OF ATLANTIS – By: David Gibbins

Reviewed: 13th September 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The legend of Atlantis, the lost city, has fascinated writers since the time of the Greek philosopher Plato. Popular writers from Conan Doyle to Clive Cussler have based works of fiction on the legendary city which is supposed to have sunk beneath the sea centuries ago.
David Gibbins has a Doctorate in Archeology from Cambridge University and is a widely experienced marine explorer. In two of his books, Atlantis and now The Gods of Atlantis, Gibbins has sent his fictional team of explorers in search of the great treasures of Atlantis.
Marine archeologist Jack Howard links expeditions authorised by the German Gestapo boss Heinrich Himmler in the 1930s to the search for great relics lost in Atlantis. The trail leads to a drowned city beneath the Black Sea where terrifying secrets are uncovered.
One enthusiastic reviewer sees Gibbins as “a cross between Indiana Jones and Dan Brown”. It is hard to take The Gods of Atlantis seriously but lovers of long, far-fetched adventure yarns may find it fascinating.

A TRICK OF THE LIGHT – By: Louise Penny

Reviewed: 6th September 2011
Publisher: Sphere
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The fictional village of Three Pines in Quebec is the setting for Canadian novelist Louise Pennny’s new book. The village houses a community of artists, one of whom, Clara Morrow, has just received her big career break. She has a solo exhibition at the Musee d’Art Contemporain in Montreal. All night celebrations of the opening of the exhibition are soured when a body is found in Clara’s garden the following morning. The body is that of Lilian Dyson, a feared art critic, known for her skills in ending many an artist’s career with a cruelly-written line.
Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide in the Surete du Quebec, finds that almost everyone at the celebrations had a motive for killing the hated critic! Numerous red herrings delay the solving of the crime because in Three Pines it is very hard to distinguish between the truth and a “trick of the light”.
Louise Penny handles a complex plot with great skill and has the reader breathlessly awaiting the final dramatic disclosure of “whodunnit”.

THE ARCHITECT OF KOKODA – By: Robyn Keinzle

Reviewed: 15th August 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $35.00
Review: Frank Nolan
Military historian Peter Fitzsimons asserts that “Bert Keinzle did more than any other single man to make the Australian victory at Kokoda possible”. Keinzle was a successful planter and gold miner in New Guinea in the 1930′s and was well known for his excellent relationship with his native workers. Keinzle walked the Kokoda “mail trail” at least four times before the war broke out and flew over the area dozens of times. During World War 2, Keinzle guided B company of the Australian 39th battalion across the trail to secure the airfield at Kokoda. In June 1942, he was put in charge of native labourers transporting supplies and evacuating the wounded along the legendary “Kokoda Trail.”
Robyn Keinzle tells the story of her father-in-law’s extraordinary life, before, during, and after World War 2, in The Architect of Kokoda. The book is an important contribution to the history of Australia’s involvement in Papua New Guinea in both war and peace.

I LOVE CATS. I LOVE DOGS – By: Catherine Ledner

Reviewed: 15th August 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $14-99 ea
Review: Frank Nolan
At first sight, these two books look like cute little picture books for kids. However, on closer inspection, the reader will find superb photographs of felines and canines taken by some of the world’s greatest animal photographers. The pictures are interspersed with apt quotations. Of cats, Leonardo da Vinci said, “The smallest feline is a masterpiece”, while Oliver Herford remarked that “A cat is a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronises human beings”. Of dogs, an anonymous sage once declared, “Dogs think they are human”, and then added, “Cats think they are God.”
Cat and dog lovers will cherish these beautiful little hardcovers and. perhaps, learn more about their cute, cuddly and clever pets.

VICTORIA – By: Elizabeth Longford

Reviewed: 8th August 2011
Publisher: Abacus
RRP: $29-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Queen Victoria reigned longer than any other English monarch and the longest of any female in history. She reigned at a time when the British Empire was at its height and immense industrial, political, trade, scientific and military progress occurred.
Elizabeth Longford’s biography of Victoria is a scholarly yet readable account of the life of a diminutive but formidable woman. When Longford began her research for the biography in 1960, there were still people alive who could recall personal memories of the latter years of Victoria’s life. However, Longford had to base her biography mainly on the voluminous records available in British archives. The sheer size of the task is demonstrated by the 630 pages of text, 20 pages of references and a 21 page index of names which comprise the paperback edition of Victoria.
This is not a book to be read quickly but, rather, one to be sampled at the reader’s leisure. The dear old Queen would be “not amused” by a hurried scanning of this detailed story of her long life.

THE LIAM JURRAH STORY – By: Bruce Hearn Mackinnon

Reviewed: 1st August 2011
Publisher: Victory Books
RRP: $24-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Shannon Liam Jurrah was born in September 1988 at Yuendumu, an aboriginal community some 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs. He was drafted by Collingwood Football Club in 2007 but played only in VFL matches before being picked by Melbourne Football Club in the 2008 pre-season draft. Since then, Jurrah has played over 50 AFL games and has astounded coaches, players and spectators with his amazing skill, lightning speed and freakish leap.
There are many aboriginal players in the AFL. However, Bruce Hearn Mackinnon, Jurrah’s biographer, points out that, as far as can be ascertained, Jurrah is the first fully initiated aboriginal from a remote tribal community ever to play football at the elite level in the 134 year history of the VFA/VFL/AFL.
Mackinnon’s book is more than a story of football. It is also a story of the cultural challenges faced by a talented aboriginal man during his incredible journey from Yuendumu to the MCG.

ALL FOR YOU – By: Sheila O’Flanagan

Reviewed: 1st August 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The popularity of Irish writer Sheila O’Flanagan is demonstrated by the fact that she now has 20 novels published. Her latest book tells the story of Lainey, a stunningly beautiful meteorologist who presents the nightly weather forecast on TV and is universally adored by her viewers. However, Lainey’s personal life is not so successful. After two broken engagements, she hopes that her latest friend, Ken, will turn out to be “Mr Right”. When Lainey most needs a friend and advisor, her mother, Dawn, turns up from the U.S.A. where she has lived for years. What starts out as a rather stormy reunion turns out well in the end and mother and daughter can happily go their separate ways.
Not a lot happens in the 500 pages of All for You but O’Flangan’s numerous fans will flock to read her latest feel-good romantic piece.

FAR TO GO – By: Alison Pick

Reviewed: 25th July 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Kindertransport was the name given to a project initiated by British Jewish leaders in which some 10,000 Jewish children were rescued from the Nazis in Europe shortly before the outbreak of World War 2. The children were placed in foster homes in England. Most survived the war but few ever saw their parents again.
Canadian writer Alison Pick’s novel Far to Go is a work of fiction based on fact. Set in Czechoslovakia, it tells the story of wealthy Jewish factory owners Pavel and Annaleise Bauer who, despite the increasing hatred and violence towards Jews, cannot bring themselves to accept that the comfortable world they enjoy is about to collapse around them. They wait too long to escape the Nazis and their desperate hope is that their six-year-old son, Pepi, will be rescued by Kindertransport.
Far to Go is a beautifully written, moving story of one family overtaken by terrible events. The novel has been long-listed for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SEVEN – By: Alexander McCall-Smith

Reviewed: 25th July 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $22-99
Review:Frank Nolan
Alexander McCall-Smith is one of Britain’s most prolific and popular writers. The latest in his popular 44 Scotland Street series is The Importance of Being Seven. The title refers to six-year-old Bertie Pollock and his horrendous mother, Irene. Bertie’s childhood is taken up with saxophone lessons, Italian conversation lessons, Yoga for Tots, and weekly visits to a psychotherapist. Even his boy scouts meeting which he dearly loves is in jeopardy because Irene has doubts about Baden-Powell. The poor kid hopes that turning seven will somehow make things better.
There are several other wacky residents of 44 Scotland Street whose stories are intertwined with that of young Bertie. The book is a compilation of daily episodes, first published in The Scotsman, in which McCall-Smith pokes gentle fun at his amusing characters.

GANGLAND SYDNEY – By: James Morton & Susanna Lobez

Reviewed: 18th July 2011
Publisher: Victory Books
RRP: $24-99
Review: Frank Nolan
During World War 2, racing in Sydney was reduced to Saturday afternoon only. When, one Saturday afternoon, Prime Minister John Curtin asked for a telephone call to be put through to discuss the war situation, he was told that there were sixty bookmakers ahead of him in the queue for connection. Such was the strength of illegal SP betting at the time! This story and hundreds of others are told in Gangland Sydney, an account of criminal activity from the earliest settlement of white people at Botany Bay in 1776 through to the present day. James Morton and Susanna Lobez combine to tell of villains of all kinds who made Sydney their base. Chapters are devoted to the colonial era, the “rip-roaring twenties”, World War Two, gang wars in the 1970s and 1980s, and the present “Kings of the Cross”. While the book mostly deals with serious crime, some relief is provided by humourous stories of how the best laid schemes of the cleverest criminals sometimes misfired.

GANGLAND MELBOURNE – By: James Morton & Susanna Lobez

Reviewed: 18th July 2011
Publisher: Victory Books
RRP: $24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
James Morton and Susanna Lobez claim in their introduction to Gangland Melbourne that “Melbourne numbers amongst the great crime cities of the world.” While Melbourne citizens may be outraged at such a claim, the book’s account of Melbourne crime paints a grim picture. The first chapter, titled”Not so Marvellous Melbourne”, includes details of some of the most gory of crimes committed in the city’s mean streets in the 19th century. A whole chapter is devoted to the crimes of “Squizzy” Taylor and “friends” in the first decades of the 20th century. “The Great Bookie Robbery” of 1976, the war for control of the Queen Victoria Market, the long-running Painters and Dockers Union war, and drug gangs’ wars of more recent times are some of the major criminal activities which are described in this somewhat disturbing snapshot of crime in Victoria’s capital city.

TWO GREEKS – By: John Charalambous

Reviewed: 11th July 2011
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
RRP: $24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Ten year old Andy Stylianou wonders if all Greeks are like his bullying father, Harry, who rules with an iron fist his quarter acre block in suburban Melbourne in the 1970s.
However, when Andy meets Mr Voreadis, an older Greek man who lives over the back fence, a whole different world begins to open up for him. Mr Voreadis introduces Andy to Greek language and literature and becomes, in some ways, the father which Harry is not. However, the harm inflicted by Harry on his wife Carol, fourteen year old daughter Angela and young Andy has long-term effects on all the members of an unhappy family.
Two Greeks is Bendigo writer John Charalambous’s third novel. It is a wonderful evocation of Melbourne suburban life in the 1970s and of an ordinary family’s long and hard struggle to rise above the cruelty of a bitter, tyrannical husband and father.

INSPECTOR SINGH INVESTIGATES: A DEADLY CAMBODIAN CRIME SPREE – By: Shamini Flint

Reviewed: 11th July 2011
Publisher: Piatkus
RRP: $22-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Shamini Flint introduced Inspector Singh of the Singapore police in 2009. The wheezy, overweight, beer-drinking, chain-smoking Inspector does not fit the desired model of a Singaporean police inspector. While his superiors cannot fault his performance in bringing criminals to justice, they frequently “lend” the vexatious Singh to authorities in other Asian countries. In the fourth novel in the series, Singh is sent to Cambodia as an ASEAN observer at the International War Crimes Tribunal in Phnom Penh. Singh hates the idea and, when an officious young Cambodian girl is assigned as his partner, his mood is dark indeed. However, when a key witness at the tribunal is murdered, Singh’s skills of detection prove invaluable.
A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree is told in a humorous manner although the terrible crimes of the Pol Pot regime form a grim background to the story.

THE EDWARDIANS – By: Vita Sackville-West

Reviewed: 27th June 2011
Publisher: Virago
RRP: $24-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The very popular TV series Downton Abbey is a fictitious tale of life both upstairs and downstairs in a stately home in Edwardian times. Vita Sackville-West’s first novel, The Edwardians, first published in 1930 and reprinted numerous times since, gives a more realistic picture of the lives of the English aristocracy. Sackville-West writes with authority since she herself was a prominent member of that aristocracy.
The Edwardians is the story of one aristocratic family and how it must strive constantly to preserve itself. The central character, Sebastian, the nineteen year old duke and heir to a vast estate, finds himself unable to escape from the weight of tradition, despite his personal loathing of the shallowness and extravagance of his life-style.
The Edwardians is an amusing portrait of a fashionable society now long gone.

ALL PASSION SPENT – By: Vita Sackville-West

Reviewed: 27th June 2011
Publisher: Virago
RRP: $24-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Vita Sackville-West’s second novel is another tale of a declining aristocatic family in Edwardian times. Recently widowed Lady Slane, at the age of eighty-eight, throws off the shackles of respectable society. After the funeral of her husband of seventy years, Lady Slane horrifies her family by refusing to live in the family mansion. She chooses instead to buy a small house in unfashionable Hampstead and to move there with only one aged servant.
The story of the dear old lady’s one year of freedom makes delightful reading.
A bonus with Virago’s latest reprint of the 1931 novel is the beautiful foreword by Joanna Lumley who demonstrates that she can write as well as act.

THEODORE BOONE THE ABDUCTION – By: John Grisham

Reviewed: 20th June 2011
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
After producing 23 crime novels, John Grisham made the surprising decision last year to write a book for children, specifically those aged between eight and twelve years. Theodore Boone:Half the Man, Twice the Lawyer, the first title, has been followed quickly by Theoore Boone: The Abduction. Both of thirteen year old Theodore’s parents are lawyers and Theodore aspires to following in their footsteps. In the small town of Strattenburg, Theo has access to the Court House and is well known to the lawyers, judges, police and other court officers. He is even allowed to sit in on cases being heard. When one of Theodore’s school friends disappears from her bed room, an abduction is feared. Theo sets out to locate the missing girl.
Theodore Boone is a very different character from Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl. It will be interesting to see how Grisham’s intended audience accepts the studious young “half-lawyer”.

AND THE BAND PLAYED ON – By: Christopher Ward

Reviewed: 13th June 2011
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
The story of the sinking of the “Titanic” has been told many times. One of the legends arising from the tragic event is that of the bandsmen of the “Titanic” who continued to play as the great ship went down.
The author of And the Band Played On, Christopher Ward, is a grandson of Mary Costin, the fiancee of “Titanic” bandsman Jock Hume. Mary was pregnant with Jock’s child when the young violinist died. Jock’s father questioned the paternity of the child and Mary was obliged to prove this in court. She also had to fight a protracted legal battle to obtain the meagre compensation granted to her which amounted to two shillings and sixpence per week and a lump sum of sixty seven pounds.
Many memorials have been dedicated to the memory of the bandsmen of the “Titanic”, including the beautiful bandstand in Ballarat’s Sturt Street. Christopher Ward tells the moving story of one of these bandsmen and his determined young fiancee.

WILLIAM AND CATHERINE – By: Andrew Morton

Reviewed: 6th June 2011
Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $45
Review: Frank Nolan
One hundred thousand copies of Andrew Morton’s William and Catherine were available in London just 72 hours after the royal wedding on April 29th 2011. Despite the rush, the final product is a beautifully produced hard-cover account of the lives of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, with particular attention to the spectacular wedding itself.
While the photos, including over 40 taken at the wedding, are superb, Morton’s text is a mixture of colorful description of important events in the lives of the royal couple and “gossippy” anecdotes. For example, was the Queen really concerned at Princess Diana’s insistence on personally attending to the needs of her young sons when there were “100′s of housemaids about”? Did William really murmur ”She’s hot!” when he saw Catherine wearing a bikini under a flimsy dress in a charity fashion parade? Did the happy couple on their wedding night “float to bed at Buckingham Palace on a sea of good will and good wishes”?
However, William and Catherine is not intended to be a history book and, despite Morton’s many lapses into the language of Mills and Boon, his readers will surely treasure this attractive memento of a grand affair.

TREASURES FROM THE ATTIC – By: Mirjam Pressler

Reviewed: 6th June 2011
Publisher: Orion
RRP: $45
Review: Frank Nolan
The story of Anne Frank is well known. She and other members of her family hid from the German SS in an attic in an office building in Amsterdam from July 1942 until August 1944 when they were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Anne and her sister Margot died in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945; just weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops. Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl was first published in 1947 and has never been out of print since.
Mirjam Pressler’s Treasures from the Attic resulted from the finding in 2001 of thousands of Frank family photographs, letters and other documents in the attic of a house in Basel, Switzerland, owned by Anne Frank’s cousin, Buddy Elias. These documents have been organised and edited and form the substance of a detailed biography of the Frank family.
Pressler has three members of the family recall their experiences from the early 1930s, through World War 2, and the years immediately following. It is a moving story and, sadly, it is all true.

CHURCHILLS – By: Mary S. Lovell

Reviewed: 23th May 2011
Publisher: Little Brown
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
Mary S. Lovell admits to using a “gossipy” approach in her biography of the Churchill family. She traces the family back to the 1st Duke of Marlborough, through several generations of his offspring, and then focuses on the most famous Churchill of all – Winston Spencer Churchill. Because so much has already been written about Churchill’s long political career, Lovell tries to reveal something of the private lives of Churchill and his wife and children. Hence, the book contains numerous anecdotes based on less well-known events in the family’s lives. While the size of the book is daunting (624 pages), Lovell’s fluid writing style makes her portraits of extraordinary men and women both informative and entertaining.

UNTIL TUESDAY – By: Louis Carlos Montalvan

Reviewed: 16th May 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Tuesday is a Golden Retriever. He is bred and trained specifically to be a “service dog.”
Tuesday is a product of East Coast Assistance Dogs, a not-for-profit organisaton in up-state New York. Each of the service dogs undergoes two years of training to become a life-changing companion for a seriously disabled person.
Luis Carlos Montalvan spent seventeen years in the United States Army. He was seriously wounded in Afghanistan and now suffers from both physical disabilities and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His constant companion, friend and helper is Tuesday. When Montalvan recently received his Masters Degree in Journalism at Columbia University, the University made the extraordinary decision to also award a Diploma to Tuesday!
Montalvan describes the amazing bonding between Tuesday and himself in Until Tuesday. This is not a sentimental “doggie” yarn. Rather, it is a moving story of how a beautiful Golden Retriever is helping a shattered man find a new quality of life.

THE BUTTERFLY CABINET – By: Bernie McGill

Reviewed: 16th May 2011
Publisher: Headline
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
In 1892, Anne Margaret Montagu, mistress of a stately house in Portstewart in the north of Ireland, was found guilty of the manslaughter of her four year old daughter. After a highly publicised trial, she was sentenced to twelve month’s imprisonment. The perceived leniency of the sentence inflamed much public anger at the time.
Bernie McGill changes names and place names in her fictionalised account of the Montagu case. She has the story told by two of the major players in the drama. In prison in Dublin, the convicted woman recorded her account of events in a diary which has been found in a butterfly cabinet discovered in the family home. Years later, Maddie McGlade, the children’s nanny at the time, now aged ninety-two, gives her recollection of events.
The Butterfly Cabinet is a beautifully constructed novel which demonstrates how different witnesses of events perceive “facts” very differently.

PAST THE SHALLOWS – By: Favel Parrett

Reviewed: 9th May 2011
Publisher: Orion
RRP: $26-99
Review: Frank Nolan
“Out past the shallows, past the sandy-bottomed bays, comes the dark water – black and cold and roaring.” This poetic opening sets the scene for the story of Tasmanian abalone diver Steve Curren and his three young sons. When their mother dies tragically in a car crash, the boys endure a harsh existence under the rule of their drunken and un-loving father. Much of the action of Past the Shallows takes place aboard a leaky old boat named the Lady Ida. The story reaches its tragic climax out past the shallows where men and boys challenge the power of the sea in a hopelessly one-sided contest.
Young writer Favel Parret tells a moving story of both cruelty and of brotherly love in her impressive debut novel.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: THE OFFICIAL ILLUSTRATED GUIDE – By: Stephanie Meyer

Reviewed: 9th May 2011
Publisher: Atom
RRP: $34-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Stephanie Meyer’s publishers describe her as a “publishing phenomenon.” Sales of the four books which comprise The Twilight Saga have exceeded four million copies in Australia alone. The Official Illustrated Guide aims to expand on the world of the saga, adding background notes on the main plots and sub-plots. The book is intended for young readers who have read all or some of the saga. Printed on glossy paper with many illustrations, this attractive hard-cover will be eagerly received by its youthful audience.

POMPEY ELLIOTT – By: Ross McMullin

Reviewed: 2nd May 2011
Publisher: Scribe
RRP: $39-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Harold Edward Elliott was born near Charlton in 1878. When his father struck it rich on the Western Australian goldfields, he moved the family to Ballarat where they took up residence at “Elsinore”, in Hotham Street. Harold was educated at Ballarat College and then studied Arts and Law at the University of Melbourne. He enlisted for service in the Boer War where he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. In World War 1,he commanded the 7^th Battalion of the 2^nd Brigade of the A.I.F. at Gallipoli and later at Suez. Promoted to Brigadier General, Elliott led the 15^th Brigade at Fromelles, the battle of PolygonWood and Villers-Bretonneux. The nick-name “Pompey” came from a Carlton footballer with that name.
After the War, Elliott was elected Senator for Victoria. Sadly, he died by his own hand in 1931, aged 52.
Ross McMullin’s biography of Pompey Elliott is a remarkably detailed account of the life of a great soldier who always regarded himself as Ballarat man.

MY ANIMATED LIFE – By: Yoram Gross

Reviewed: 2nd May 2011
Publisher: Brandl and Schlesinger
RRP: $29-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Yoram Gross was born of Jewish parents in Kracow,Poland,in 1926. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, they declared that Kracow was to be Judenfrei (Free of Jews).  Yoram’s blue eyes and blond hair helped him to avoid the ever-present danger of being arrested and sent to a concentration camp. He managed to survive the war and migrated to Israel where he achieved success as a maker of animated films. In 1968, Yoram moved to Australia and went on to make classic animated films such as Dot and the Kangaroo, Blinky Bill and Skippy. He was awarded the Order of Australia for his contribution to the Australian film industry.
In My Animated Life, Yoram tells his story with humility and good humour. Most of the book describes his early years in Poland and, hopefully, a fuller account of his work in film and television will follow.  

WOLFRAM – By: Giles Milton

Reviewed: 25th April 2011
Publisher: Sceptre
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
Born in 1924, Wolfram Aichele grew up in the town of Pforzheim in the Black Forest area of south-west Germany. His great ambition in life was to be a painter and sculptor.
However, when World War 2 broke out, Wolfram was conscripted into a labour battalion and served in atrocious conditions on the Eastern Front. He was later transferred to an infantry division in Normandy where he was taken prisoner by the Americans. He spent the rest of the war in a P.O.W. camp in Texas, U.S.A. After the war, Wolfram resumed his studies in art and became a professional painter and sculptor. His work is now to be found in churches and galleries in Germany.
Wolfram’s story is told by his father-in-law, the English writer Giles Milton. There are no heroic deeds described in this book. Rather, it tells the story of one German boy sent unwillingly to war. Giles Milton’s book is also a reminder that civilians on all sides were among the victims of Hitler’s war.

THE MAN WHO BROKE INTO AUSCHWITZ – By: Denis Avey

Reviewed: 25th April 2011
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
Every man and woman who served in war would have a story to tell. Many stories would describe incredible events. However, few stories would be as incredible as that told by Denis Avey. In fact, Avey, now 93 years old, has spent much of his life trying to convince people of the truth of an event he describes in his book The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz.
In 1944, Avey was a British prisoner of war in E715 POW camp which was situated close to the German concentration camp known as Auschwitz 111. The British POWs were forced to labour on roadworks alongside Jewish inmates of Auschwitz. Here, the British saw first-hand the unbelievable cruelty inflicted on the Jews by their captors. Avey changed places with a Dutch Jew known only as Hans and spent two nights in Auschwitz. The motive he cites
for this dangerous act is that he wanted to see as much as he could of the obscenity around him because he knew that in time there would be a reckoning.
In January 2010, Denis Avey received the British Hero of the Holocaust award. His
account of what he calls his “ludicrous” act during World War 2 is both shocking and inspiring.

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD – By: E.L. Doctorow

Reviewed: 18th April 2011
Publisher: Little Brown
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
In his introduction to All the Time in the World, American writer E.L.Doctorow makes an interesting distinction between a novel and a short story. He states that the act of writing a novel is in the nature of an exploration:”You write to find out what you’re writing.” By contrast, a short story, “comes to the writer as a situation, with the characters and setting atached to it.”
Doctorow was grew up in the Bronx, New York, and several of the stories in his collection are set there. “Heist” tells of the puzzling theft from a church of an eight foot hollow brass crucifix which is found next day on the roof of a synagogue. ”Assimilation” is the story of a young waiter who is paid $3000 to marry an Eastern European girl so that she can get a green card. “Wakefield” is a fascinating story of a businessman who leaves his wife and children and hides out in his own backyard!
Doctorow is an acute observer of modern society and a master storyteller. All the Time in
the World is a beautiful collection of his work.

THE PARIS WIFE – By: Paula McLain

Reviewed: 18th April 2011
Publisher: Virago
RRP: $28-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Ernest Hemingway is one of the great figures in American literature. Paula Mcain’s new novel, The Paris Wife, is a fictitious account of Hemingway’s first marriage. The story is told through the eyes of Hadley Richardson who, at the age of 28, meets the dashing 21 year-old Hemingway. They marry shortly after and, in 1921, move to Paris where they become part of a hard-drinking  community of expatriate intellectuals. The early years of the marriage were later described by Hemingway as “when we were poor and happy.” However, when Hadley becomes pregnant with their first and only child, this is considered an impediment to the raucous life-style of the group. Hadley’s losing on a train a valise containing three years of Hemingway’s writing causes lingering resentment. Finally, when Hemingway takes up with a chic young socialite named Pauline Pfeiffer, the marriage is doomed. The couple are divorced in 1927.
The Paris Wife depicts Hadley as a likeable but vulnerable woman while Hemingway is seen as a self-opiniated bully who is detemined to allow nothing to intrude upon his career.
McLain’s tale of the first of Hemingway’s four marriages paints a fascinating picture of colorful characters and the times in which they lived.

NOTEBOOKS – By: Betty Churcher

Reviewed: 11th April 2011
Publisher: Melbourne University Press
RRP: $44-99
Review: Frank Nolan
When Betty Churcher started primary school in Brisbane in 1936, she discovered that, while her classmates could out-run, out-jump and out-spell her, none could out-draw her.
Her natural talent for drawing has been a wonderful asset throughout her career as painter, teacher, gallery director and T.V. Presenter. When, in 2003, her eyesight began to fail, it was her ability to draw which helped her to commit to memory pictures which she most wanted to hold in her mind’s eye should she lose her eyesight. She made one last trip to London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Rome to visit great galleries, view her favourite paintings, and make drawings and notes to help her remember them. Notebooks is a record of that trip.
Great paintings by artists including Rembrandt,Titian, Cezanne, Gaugin, Velazquez and Goya are reproduced, together with Churcher’s drawings and notes. Churcher writes with clarity and humility as she leads the reader to discover intimate details of the paintings and experience their exquisite beauty.

THE DOG WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD – By: Alexander McCall-Smith

Reviewed: 4th April 2011
Publisher: Abacus
RRP: $22-95
Review: Frank Nolan
John le Carre’s novel The Spy who Came in from the Cold was rated by Time magazine as one of the 100 best novels of the 20^th century. Despite its similar title, Alexander McCall Smith’s second book in his “Corduroy Mansions” series will never reach the status of le Carre’s novel. However, McCall -Smith’s legions of readers will welcome another wry look at the absurdities of modern British life.
“Corduroy Mansions” is an old building in Pimlico which has been converted into flats. The flats are inhabited by an assortment of odd people. They include William who has a Pimlico terrier named Freddie de la Hay. Wiliam unwisely agrees to lend Freddie to MI6 to help in an important espionage mission. Another resident is James whose love affair with Caroline is doomed by James’s view that kissing is unhygienic. Dee runs a vitamin shop and markets a product which increases one’s ability to solve the most difficult Sudukos. Barbara, a publisher, is vainly pushing a book called A Biography of a Yeti.
The Dog Who Came in from the Cold was originally written as a serial for the London Daily Telegraph. While it lacks a central plot, the separate stories of the funny residents of “Corduroy Mansions” provide great light reading.

TO ALGERIA WITH LOVE – By: Suzanne Ruta

Publisher: Virago
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
In 1960, young Jewish New Yorker Louise Berlin is awarded a Fullbright scholarship to study in France. She meets and is infatuated by Wally, an Algerian who works in France to support a wife and family in his war-torn homeland.The affair is short-lived but has serious consequences for both parties.
Forty years later, married with children back home in New York, Louise reflects on her youthful indiscretions and attempts in vain to make amends for their consequences.
To Algeria with Love is primilarly an often-told story of love and loss. However, with its background of war and racial tensions between France and Algeria, Suzanne Ruta’s first novel is a rewarding read.

MYSTERY – By: Jonathan Kellerman

Publisher: Headline
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Paediatric psychologist Jonathan Kellerman wrote his first novel When the Bough Breaks back in 1985. Since then, his central characters Dr Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis have appeared in a further 25 books of crime detection. The latest book, Mystery, derives its name from the victim of a murder who is so badly disfigured that her identity cannot be ascertained. Help comes from an unlikely source when an ex-criminal turns to Delaware for help in counselling her young son. The sub-plot in which Delaware deals sympathetically with a very troubled young child reflects the author’s knowledge and skill in the field of paediatric psychology.
Kellerman has just about perfected the art of writing intelligent detective yarns and his numerous fans will not be disappointed with number 26 in the Alex Delaware series.

THE SATURDAY BIG TENT WEDDING PARTY – By: Alexander McCall-Smith

Publisher: Little Brown
RRP: $34-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Distinguished medical bioethicist Alexander McCall-Smith wrote The Nunber 1 Ladies Detective Agency back in 1999. The story of the “traditionally-built” Mma Ramotswe, founder of the agency, and her flighty assistant, Mma Makutsi, was an instant success. Another eleven stories have followed, including the latest, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party.
Set in Gaborone, Botswana, the No1 Ladies Detective Agency Stories tell of commonsense solutions of minor mysteries. Neglectful husbands, spiteful neighbours, petty thieves and dodgy political candidates are brought to justice in the latest story of a most unusual detective agency.
Readers can find relief from depressing, gory detective yarns in the simple stories of the lovable folk of the No1 Detective Ladies Detective Agency. The beautiful hardcover edition of The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party is a gem.

MISTAKEN – By: Neil Jordan

Publisher: John Murray
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Neil Jordan is perhaps best known as the winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the movie The Crying Game. However, Jordan has also written four novels, the latest of which is Mistaken, a story of two Irish boys who bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. Kevin Thunder, the narrator of the tale, grows up on the poorer north side of Dublin in the 1960s while his double, Gerald Spain, grows up in a stately house on the affluent south side of the River Liffey. The boys meet up as children and their lives intertwine thereafter. They find amusement in exploiting their amazing resemblance, a dangerous practice which they continue into adult life with disastrous consequences.
Jordan cleverly exposes layer after layer of the strange truth surrounding the boys. Hence, the reader is kept in suspense until the final pages of this beautifully constructed novel.

LIFE’S LITTLE DETOURS – By: Regina Brett

Publisher: Orion
RRP: $24-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Sub-titled 50 Lessons to Find and Hold Onto Happiness, American writer Regina Brett’s little book consists of fifty essays based on her own personal experiences. She writes of her difficult childhood, her experiences as a single mother, and her long battle with cancer. Brett originally wrote of these things in her extraordinarily popular columns published in many American daily newspapers.
There is something for everybody in this thought-provoking, common-sense little book.

PROMISES, PROMISES – By: Erica James

Publisher: Orion
RRP: $24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
The three main characters in Erica James’s wry comedy of contemporary manners make promises to themselves. Maggie Storm promises to stand up against her husband, whom she secretly calls “Mr Droopy”, his ferocious mother and her mother-in-laws’ evil dog. Ella Moore promise to no longer allow her head to rule her heart. Ethan Edwards promises that there will be no more women in his life. When the paths of these three characters cross, all take the opportunity to try to fulfil their “promise, promises”.
An amusing romantic comedy and a shrewd comment on modern life, Promises, Promises makes pleasant light reading.

THE PLANTATION – By: Di Morrissey

Publisher: Macmillan
RRP: $29-95
Review: Frank Nolan
When Brisbane -based Julie Reagan learns that her great-aunt Betty had written a book about headhunters in Borneo, she decides to travel to a plantation in Malaysia which her ancestors have worked since the early 20th century. Here Julie learns more about the adventurous Betty whom her grandmother referred to as “the horrendous one”. A fascinating story emerges of the days of British rule in Malaya, followed by the Japanese invasion in World War 2, and the political and social instability of the post-war years.
The ever popular Di Morissey does not disappoint in her eighteenth novel which combines a romantic love story with insights into the history of modern-day Malaysia.

HALF WAY TO HOLLYWOOD – By: Michael Palin

Publisher: Orion
RRP: $29-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Despite his busy life style as actor, writer, TV presenter and family man, Michael Palin has found time to keep a detailed diary of his daily activities. In 2006, the first volume of the diaries was published under the title The Python Years 1969-1979. Now, a second volume, titled Half Way to Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988, follows. The diaries cover a period in Palin’s life when “the prospect of international stardom shimmered on the horizon”. However, he admits that by 1988 his chances of a Hollywood career were over. This honest assessment of a period when his career slumped is typical of the frank and honest nature of Palin’s record of both his business and personal life. Palin comments that his diaries “reveal a man who still doesn’t really know what he wants to do, or what he is particularly qualified to do.”
Perhaps Palin finds that keeping a diary is valuable therapy. However, while the 671
pages of Half Way To Hollywood contain much amusing and sometimes moving material, only the most avid Palin fan will want to read every entry.

THE SENTRY – By: Robert Crais

Publisher: Orion
RRP: $25-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Crime novels frequently have unusual partners working together to solve crimes. American writer Robert Crais has created unusual partners in Joe Pike and Elvis Cole. The Sentry is the third book in which the clever, wise-cracking Cole and the cold, silent Pike take up the fight against crime. Joe Pike witnesses two people being beaten up in a sandwich shop.
Naturally, Joe intervenes and the villains flee, one nursing a broken arm. The incident leads Pike and Cole into a deadly conflict with local mobsters, the Mexican Mafia and Bolivian drug cartels. Corrupt FBI agents further complicate things and Pike and Cole really have their hands full!
A former script-writer of the great TV series Hill Street Blues, Robert Crais really knows how to construct a thriller. From its gruesome first chapter to the final shootout, The Sentry will enthrall fans of Crais’s odd couple of PIs.

THE WORLD’S GREATEST IDEA – By: John Farndon

Publisher: Icon books
RRP: $ 24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
John Farndon admits that the notion of a book about ”the world’s greatest idea” is absurd. How do you define terms such as “greatest” which will mean so many different things to different people? However, the notion so fascinated Farndon that he conducted a straw poll of a panel of experts, mostly  academics, all of whom had their own reasons for their choice. A list of fifty great ideas resulted and these were posted on a web site where visitors were invited to vote for the idea they thought was greatest.
The 50 ideas included “the wheel”, “vaccination”, “sewerage”, “quantum theory”, “contraception”and “coffee and tea”. The results of the voting are listed  from those receiving the least votes to those receiving the most. “Marriage” received the least votes ! Read  this fascinating book, based on an “absurd notion”, to learn which great idea was voted “the greatest”.

THE STONEHENGE LEGACY – By: Sam Christer

Publisher: Sphere
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Stonehenge is a pre-historic monument located in the English county of Wiltshire. It is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. As has been the case with other mysterious ancient monuments such as the pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge has been the source of numerous fanciful theories about its history and its purpose.
Sam Christer really lets his head go in his far-fetched novel The Stonehenge Legacy.
Shortly after his father’s suicide, Cambridge historian Gideon Chase discovers that his father was the leader of a cult  devoted to unlocking the secret of the stones. When the cult chooses the daughter of the Vice-President of the United States as the victim of its next human sacrifice, law enforcement bodies from two continents rush to the rescue with results resembling the silliest exploits of the Keystone Cops. In the tradition of Indiana Jones, the heroic Gideon fights off evil opponents as he strives to save the helpless heroine of this nonsensical tale.

UTOPIAN MAN – By: Lisa Lang

Publisher: Allen and Unwin
RRP: $24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Cole’s Book Arcade was a Melbourne institution from its opening in 1873 until its closure in 1929. Lisa Lang’s novel Utopian Man is a work of fiction but is based on the life of E.W.Cole, founder of the great book arcade. Cole was an astute business man who realised that there was more money to be made in selling cordial to thirsty gold miners than in digging for gold. He opened a book stall in Melbourne’s Eastern Market in 1865 and then opened his amazing book arcade in Bourke Street with a stock of over a million books. Cole’s eccentric advertising proved highly successful and the business thrived selling and also publishing books and pamphlets. Cole’s Funny Picture Book, partially written by Cole himself, sold an incredible 630,000 copies.
Cole was an idealist and the title of Lang’s book reflects his yearning for a Utopian society. He is depicted as an enigmatic and complex human being in a delightful mixture of fact and fiction. Utopian Man was the worthy winner of The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 2009.

EDGE – By: Jeffrey Deaver

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The narrator of Edge, known simply as Corte, works for an anonymous American government agency dedicated to intelligence and a highly specialised brand of citizen protection. Corte is fascinated by board games and he brings his skill in getting an “edge” on his opponent in these games to the deadly game of protecting citizens at risk from very dangerous professional criminals. Corte is assigned as “shepherd” of the family of a Washington police officer who are targetted by a deadly assassin with the unlikely name of Loving.
Edge is an above average thriller which describes the contest between Corte and Loving which must end in the death of one of the contestants. There are many red herrings to confuse the reader as the tale builds to an exciting and upredictable climax. Jeffrey Deaver’s account of two clever minds each striving to gain an”edge” is ideal for holiday reading.

HANDLING EDNA: THE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY – By: Barry Humphries

Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
Dame Edna Everage was unable to attend the launch of Barry Humphries’ story of Handling Edna because, at the time, the Dame was in Washington advising the Obamas on doing up the White House. Such is the esteem in which the former house-wife from Humoresque Street Moonee Ponds is now held! Australia’s most famous woman began her rise to fame in a church hall in Puckle Street in the mid 1950s. Edna was playing role of Mary Magdalene in a Passion Play. Humphries crossed the Yarra River one fateful day, travelled by tram to Moonee Ponds, saw the first act of the play and, as Edna would say, the rest is history.
Humphries tells of his almost inexplicable relationship with Dame Edna in a story in which the triumphs of Edna’s career seem to run parallel with the flops of Humphries’s own career. There are many mysteries in this strange relationship spanning over fifty years and those of us who have come to love our own super megastar will relish every wise word of Handling Edna.

EIGHT STEPS TO HAPPINESS – By: Anthony M. Grant and Alison Leigh

Publisher: Victory
RRP: $34-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Eight Steps to Happiness is published to coincide with the screening of the ABC’s three part television documentary of the same name. The authors assert that it is possible to improve our levels of happiness. They set out a simple, science-based eight step program which research has shown to be truly effective in achieving this objective.
The program begins with an assessment of personal goals and values. It then describes exercises which readers can complete in the process of improving their levels of happiness.  The steps include writing one’s own eulogy, performing random acts of kindness, letting go of resentment, and developing social connections to help to sustain gains made.
The TV series showed the program in action with volunteers. However, the eight steps to happiness can be followed with the guidance of this easily read self-help book alone.

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE – By: Gideon Haigh

Publisher: Victory
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Prolific writer of books on cricket, Gideon Haigh, poses the question,”Does any game worry more than cricket?” His latest book Sphere of Influence certainly does identify lots of serious worries about the present state of the game. In a collection of 63 articles written for various media around the world over the past two years, Haigh worries over the survival of what was once a”calm and pastoral game”. He argues that there is not even consensus on what cricket actually is because there are now four games – Test Cricket, One Day Internationals, Twenty-Twenty  Cricket, and First Class Cricket. An even greater problem, in Haigh’s view, is that India has come to rule world cricket and that clubs owned by billionaires and Bollywood stars have shoved international cricket aside. More recently, the scandal of “spot-fixing” has blighted the once noble game.
Haigh is a serious writer and Sphere of Influence is a serious book. It needs to be taken in small doses but cricket lovers will find it fascinating.

CAPTURED – By:  Neil Cross

Publisher: Simon and Schuster
RRP: $32-99
Review: Frank Nolan
The cover photo of Neil Cross’s Captured showing a man’s hand holding a crowbar gives a fair indication of what is contained in the novel. Middle-aged artist Kenny Drummond is informed that he has an inoperable brain tumour and has only a few weeks to live. Kenny’s reaction to this devastating news is to draw up a list of people he has in some way let down during his life and to attempt to put things right. He quickly and satisfactorily deals with three of the four names on his list. However, in his search for the fourth person,  Kenny’s personality suddenly changes. From being a man seeking forgiveness from those he may have wronged, he becomes a monster, intent on revenge.
Captured is a disappointing novel which changes from presenting a sensitive picture of a dying man to describing acts of inexplicable sadism in graphic detail.

DON’T BLINK – By: James Patterson and Howard Roughan

Publisher: Century
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Don’t Blink is yet another of the numerous novels written by James Patterson “in collaboration with” other lesser known writers. As usual, there are many short chapters, 108 in fact, in the 263 pages of text. Hence, Don’t Blink can be read in short bursts without much chance of losing track of the action. Of action there is plenty! From the blood-curdling Prologue, which graphically describes the horrific murder of a Mafia boss, to the concluding chapters where the wounded hero Nick Davies is being smothered with a hospital pillow, there is non-stop action. However, Don’t Stop has a plot which makes little demand on the reader’s intelligence and contains excessive and often gratuitous violence.

INDEPENDENT COMPANY – By:  Bernard Callinan

Publisher: Heinnemann
RRP: Not Available
Review: Frank Nolan
Paul Cleary’s recently published book The Men Who Came Out of the Ground is not the first account of Australia’s first commando campaign which took place in Timor in 1942. Captain Bernard Callinan was the Second in Command of the 2/2 Independent Company of the A.I.F. which was sent to Portuguese Timor in late 1941 to help defend its airfields. When Timor and what was known as the Malayan Corridor yielded to the Japanese, the 327 troops of Independent Company found themselves cut off in the mountains without any radio link and with no hope of evacuation. They refused to surrender and were the only Allied Force between New Guinea and India to defy the enemy. Outnumbered at times by one hundred to one, Independent Company carried out what Callinan called “a goood old guerilla war” during 1942.  Forty Australians were killed, many more were wounded and all suffered from disease.  It was estimated that over 1500 Japanese soldiers died.
Callinan gives a first-hand account of Australia’s first commando campaign. He wrote it while serving in New Guinea where he was sent when 2/2 Company was finally withdrawn from Timor in late 1942. The text was written on both sides of Red Shield paper and sent to Callinan’s wife in Melbourne who deciphered and typed it up. After the war, famous author Neville Shute recommended to Heinneman Publishers that, while Callinan’s writing had “a certain roughness to it, it should be published as it is”. While Cleary’s book is a scholarly account, Callinan simply describes the campaign through the eyes of one who actually took a leading role in it.
On returning to Australia, Callinan became an eminent engineer, served on the boards of several major companies and was Vice-chancellor of La Trobe University. He also became Chairman of the Melbourne Cricket Club and was knighted by the Queen in 1971.  His book Independent Company is essential reading for those interested in Australia’s military history.

THE MEN WHO CAME OUT OF THE GROUND – By: Paul Cleary

Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $35
Review : Frank Nolan
In 1942, more than 22,000 ill-equipped young Australian soldiers were sent to islands in the Asia-Pacific region to withstand Japan’s imminent onslaught. Most of these men were taken prisoner or killed. Over a third of them died as prisoners of war. Only one unit, known as the 2/2 Independent Company, stationed in Portuguese Timor, remained an integrated fighting force. This force of some 400 men waged a successful guerilla war against the Japanese throughout 1942, despite being outnumbered at times by more than ten to one.
Paul Cleary tells the story of Independent Company in his book The Men Who Came Out of the Ground. The title refers to the Australians’ ability to appear suddenly, mount an attack and then disappear into the bush. Their success in such operations was due in no small measure to the help they received from the Timorese people, many of them young boys. Cleary has interviewed some of the few remaining survivors of Independent Company, and has researched both Australian and Japanese war records. His book is a well-researched story of an extraordinary unit of men and boys who played a unique role in the Second World War.

THE FINGER: A HANDBOOK – By: Angus Trumble

Publisher: Melbourne University Press
RRP: $44-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Two of Angus Trumble’s books have resulted from what he calls a collision between the world of art museums, in which he has made his career, and the medical profession. A Brief History of the Smile began its life as a lecture to a group of dentists. His latest book, The Finger: A Handbook, comes from a talk he gave to a conference of orthopedic surgeons.
While something as obvious and familiar as the human finger seems an extraordinary subject for a hard cover book of 300 pages, Trumble manages to produce a readable and enjoyable discussion. There are quite serious chapters on the Anatomy of the Finger, the Finger in Art, the Finger in Communication, and even the Finger and the Economy. However, chapters on Gloves and Nail Polish seem rather flippant. There are no less than 216 illustrations and an amazing 41 pages of notes supporting the text.
The Finger: A Handbook is a clever and unusual book. However, it will not appeal to everyone.   

THE SURGEON OF CROWTHORNE – By: Simon Winchester

Publisher: Penguin
RRP: $22-95
Review: Frank Nolan
First published in 1998, The Surgeon of Crowthorne was one of Simon Winchester’s most successful books. The main theme of the book is the long process of developing the first edition of the great Oxford English Dictionary. Could there be a more dull subject for a novel? However, the ingenious Winchester focusses on the story of one man who responded to a call made in 1857 by the Philological Society in London for volunteers to assist in collecting raw material for the proposed Great English Dictionary. The man was Dr William Chester Minor, an American surgeon who had served in the Union Army in the American Civil War.
In 1872, Minor was convicted of the murder of a man in London. He was deemed to be of unsound mind and was sentenced to spend his life in an Asylum for the Criminally Insane, known as Crowthorne. Minor was one of the most prolific contributors to the dictionary over some twenty years. The truth about his life did not become known until 1896 when the editor of the dictionary, Dr James Murray, visited Minor at his home, Crowthorne, and was astonished to find it an Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
Winchester tells this amazing tale in clear and simple prose. The Surgeon of Crowthorne is a truly unforgettable book.

ATLANTIC – By:  Simon Winchester

Publisher: Harper Press
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
It seems odd that someone would want to write a biography of an ocean. However, Simon Winchester has written on unusual subjects before. The Surgeon of Crowthorne dealt with the production of the great Oxford English Dictionary while The Map That Changed the World focussed on the birth of modern geology. Winchester considers that it is reasonable to tell the Atlantic Ocean’s story as a biography because the ocean is a living thing. He traces the Atlantic’s physical history and adds the story of the humans who, over the centuries, have crossed and re-crossed it, fought on it, plundered it and despoiled it.
Atlantic is sub-titled A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories. Winchester tells of the great explorers who mapped it, the cruel slavers who transported eleven million Africans across it, the inventors who developed ways of sending messages over it, and the intrepid fishermen who exploited it. These and numerous other stories are told in a wonderful mixture of science and history.
This is not a dull text book but an exciting encyclopedia of a multitude of happenings on the mighty ocean written by a master of creative fiction. Atlantic is a book not to be missed.

THE CHANGI BROWNLOW – By: Roland Perry

Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $35
Review: Frank Nolan
As the annual award of the Brownlow Medal for the Fairest and Best Player in the AFL approaches, Roland Perry’s new book tells of a very different Brownlow Medal.  On the 24th January 1943, a crowd of 10,000 prisoners of war in Singapore’s Changi Prison saw Sgt Peter Chitty awarded the “Changi Brownlow Medal” for the Fairest and Best player in the Changi Australian Rules Football Competition.
Following the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942, over 15,000 Australians were held in appalling conditions in Changi Prison.  The inspiration for an Aussie Rules competition came from “Chicken” Smallhorn who, as a Fitzroy player, had won the Brownlow in 1933.  The competition, with six clubs, ran for five months before the Japanese ordered its closure.
The Changi Brownlow is more than just a football story. Perry traces Australia’s part in the war against the Japanese, with particular focus on the inhumane treatment of POWs who were forced to work as slave labourers on the Burma-Thai railway.
Peter Chitty was awarded the British Empire Medal for his selfless deeds on the Thai Railway.  He died in 1996 and, in 2004, his “Changi Brownlow” was donated by the Chitty family to the Australian War Memorial.

THE LOST CITY OF Z - By: David Grann

Publisher: Pocket Books
RRP: $24-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett could be described as the last of the dashing late Victorian English explorers. Between 1907 and 1925, Fawcett led seven expeditions into the unexplored jungles of South America. In his last expedition in 1925, he led a small party into the Mato Grosso region of Brazil in search of a legendary lost civilisation which he had named “The City of Z”. The expedition disappeared and the fate of its members remains unknown.
American journalist David Grann gained access to Fawcett’s personal documents in researching his book The Lost City of Z. In 2005, Grann mounted his own expedition to follow Fawcett’s route but, like many before him, failed to solve the mystery.
The Lost City of Z is an entralling account of Fawcett’s expeditions into some of the world’s most inhospitable regions. A film, based on the book and starring Brad Pitt as Fawcett, is due for release later this year.

RED LOTUS – By: Pai Kit Fai

Publisher: Hachette
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Pai Kit Fai is a pseudonym used by 80 year old Sydney writer Geoff Pike. During his remarkable life, Pike married the granddaughter of one of Hong Kong’s most prominent families.  He reveals his deep knowledge of life in rural areas of Southern China in the early 20^th century in his novel Red Lotus. The stories of three generations of Chinese women and the cruel, unjust  treatment they receive in a patriarchial society are told in remarkable detail.  Cruel practices, including binding the feet of young girls, still existed at the time despite attempts by authorities to eliminate them.  Each of the three women, Pau-Ling, Li-Xia and Sui-Sing, display heroic strength as they rebel against the strictures of society with tragic results.
Red Lotus is both a story of courageous women and also a fascinating account of the lives, customs and beliefs of people in a part of the world where major economic and cultural changes are still occurring.

NINE LIVES – By: Adam Ramanauskas with Gemma Quayle

Publisher: Viking
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
The sub-title of this book, Football, Cancer and Getting on With Life, gives a true indication of its subject matter. It details the football career of Essendon player Adam Ramanauskas. It also tells of Ramanauskas’s battle with cancer and of how he has got on with life after serious illnesses.
Rasmanauskas was drafted to Essendon in 1998 and played his first senior AFL game in May 1999. He was the youngest member of Essendon’s Premiership Team of 2000. In 2003, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. He underwent surgery three times and returned to football after each operation. He retired in 2008, married his childhood sweetheart, and is now the proud father of a baby boy.
Coach Kevin Sheedy states that “Having Adam on the field after his battle with cancer was the greatest football story I’ve ever witnessed – because it goes way beyond footy.” The story is beautifully told in Nine Lives.

THE GRAND HOTEL – By: Gregory Day

Publisher: Vintage Books
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Artist Noel Day finds solace in the pristine beauty of Victoria’s Otway Ranges. He has inherited the old family home which stands on the site of the former Grand Hotel in the fictional coastal town of Mangowak. Financed by Kooka, the town’s historian, Noel re-opens the Grand as a country pub like no other. Strange, assorted characters move in as residents, while house rules for the drinkers aim at discouraging the yuppies and week-enders who, the publican believes, are destroying the quiet beauty of the coast. Amid the shenanigans, a mystical element is introduced when Kooka’s dreams reveal the truth about the old hotel.
The story of the Grand Hotel’s short, spectacular existence is amusing and also thought-provoking as it mocks some of the absurdities of modern society.

FROM HERE TO THERE – By: Jon Faine and Jack Faine

Publisher: ABC Books
RRP: $39-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Jon Faine is well known for his morning program on 774 ABC Radio. In June 2008, he and his nineteen year old son, Jack, “went for a drive”. But what a drive! Over six months, they drove 39,231 kilometres in a Toyota Prado, which they named “Ping”, from Melbourne to London. The trip involved driving from Melbourne to Darwin, boarding a ship to Timor, island hopping through Indonesia and beyond, and steering a sometimes irregular course across China, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Eastern Europe before finally reaching London.
The Faines describe their epic journey in From Here to There. The book includes an amusing account of the many difficulties they met along the way. There were numerous hassles with officialdom at border crossings. They drove in freezing temperatures in China and in scorching heat across deserts. They frequently became lost and were often amazed at the kindness and generosity of people they met. They were never afraid, except of bad drivers whom they met everywhere! Nothing in their car broke down except the CD player which jammed.
Jon’s witty, lucid prose and Jack’s colorful photos combine in a delightful travel book about a father and son who simply” went for a drive”.

HAWKE THE PRIME MINISTER – By: Blanche D’Alpuget

Publisher: Melbourne University Press
RRP: $59-95
Review: Frank Nolan
In Robert J. Hawke: A Biography, published in 1982, Blanche D’Alpuget addressed the question, “What is Hawke really like?” In her new book, Hawke The Prime Minister, D’Alpuget attempts to answer the question,“What sort of leader was Hawke?” Her verdict is fore-shadowed when she declares in a preface that her book “appears at a time when Hawke’s brilliant career is over but the long tail of its comet still shines.” Further on in the text, she quotes an unidentified public servant who declared “He (Hawke) bestrides us like a colossus”
D’Alpuget relies mainly on material provided by senior public servants, members of the PM’s personal staff and published texts in her account of Hawke’s Prime Ministership. She points out that Hawke himself did not see the manuscript until it was nearly finished.
As well as outlining his important political achievements, the book also deals with personal matters including Hawke’s deep depression following his daughter’s drug addiction. The collapse of Hawke’s first marriage and his subsequent marriage to the book’s author are also frankly discusssed.
Much more remains to be written of Robert J.Hawke. Paul Keating has hinted that his version of the Hawke era may be forthcoming. Also, official documents of the period have yet to be released. D’Alpulget’s biography is hardly objective but it does provide an interesting story of a fascinating period in Australian politics.

PRIVATE – By: James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Publisher: Century
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
Private is a multi-national detective agency owned by war hero Jack Morgan. The fact that the money to set up the business came from a Cayman Islands bank account opened by Jack’s father, who is serving a life sentence for extortion, does not worry the clever, fearless and seemingly indestuctible Jack Morgan. He deals easily with politicians, police, crime bosses and all sorts of nasty people as he simultaneously investigates numerous serious crimes. His best friend’s wife is murdered, serial murders of young girls have occurred, football games are being fixed by an out-of-town mob and the local mob is threatening Jack’s twin brother.
Here is a book which allows for plenty of breaks without the loss of the thread of the simple integrated plots. Answer the phone, walk the dog, have a coffee, put the kids to bed and suspend disbelief as you read more of the 124 brief “chapters” of Private.

SOLAR – By: Ian McEwan

Publisher: Allen and Unwin
RRP: $32-95
Review: Frank Nolan
The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as ”the use of humour, irony and exaggeration as a form of mockery or criticism”.
Ian McEwan’s new novel Solar takes a satirical look at humanity’s approach to the serious problem of global warming.
McEwan’s hero, or rather anti-hero, is David Beard, a bald, short, fat, clever physicist. His work on an obscure topic titled the “Beard-Einstein Conflation” wins Beard a Nobel Prize. He revels in the heroic status and financial sinecures the Award brings. As Head of the National Centre for Renewable Energy, he leads an obscenely expensive project to culminate in a grand display in a remote corner of New Mexico where “the future of the world will be assured.”
Unfortunately for Beard it is here that the sins of his personal and professional life catch up with him and a ticket to Brazil to avoid extradition is his best option!
Ian McEwan’s amusing and sometimes frightening depiction of human fraility indicates that the future of the world is certainly not assured by men like David Beard.

THE SINGAPORE SCHOOL OF VILLAINY – By: Shamini Flint

Publisher: Piatkus
RRP: $22-99
Review: Frank Nolan
Following his success in bringing criminals to justice in Malaysia and Bali, the rotund Singaporean Inspector Singh operates on his home ground in The Singapore School of Villainy. His superiors need the vexatious but very smart detective to solve the politically sensitive case of the murder of an expatriate partner in an international law firm. The top brass want the case solved quickly and they want the process to look like something out of a cop drama.
The persistent, rude and often terrifying Inspector Singh uncovers many other dirty deeds as he investigates the case. His methods are not those seen in a cop drama but they work.
The case uncovers layer upon layer of secrets and lies, prompting Singh to liken it to a kueb lapis, a favourite dish made by Mrs Singh!
The third book in the Inspector Singh series is an amusing tale of clever detective work and also a wry commentary on life in modern day Singapore.

PEARL OF CHINA – By: Anchee Min

Publisher: Bloomsbury
RRP: $25
Review: Frank Nolan
As a teenager in China in 1971, Anchee Min was ordered to denounce the American writer Pearl Buck, a winner of both Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes for literature.  Min was told that one of Buck’s most successful books, The Good Earth, was so “toxic” that it was dangerous even to translate it. Min did not actually read the “toxic” book until 1996, after she had made her name as a writer in the U.S.A.  She was so moved by the way that Buck wrote about Chinese peasants with admiration, affection and humanity that she was inspired to write her latest novel, Pearl of China.
Min creates a fictional Chinese girl named Willow who relates the story of her life-long friendship with Pearl Buck, the daughter of zealous Christian missionaries in China.  Their friendship spans  several decades during which China undergoes deep political and social turmoil.  Although Pearl is forced to leave China permanently in 1933, the two women remain in contact as their lives take very different courses.
Pearl of China is fiction loosely based on fact. Min’s story of a remarkable friendship between two women from very different cultures is a moving one.

LOVE AT THE RAILWAY HOTEL – By: Sue Hurley

Publisher: Ginninderra Press
RRP: $25
Review: Frank Nolan
Celestial Creek is a fictitious town in north-western Victoria.  It has  a population of 6,302 and boasts of being “Tidiest Town Runner-up” in 1976. It also boasts a Big Koala which was built in the mistaken belief that a large concrete marsupial would somehow turn everybody’s fortunes around. And, of course, there is a Railway Hotel.
Love at the Railway Hotel tells the story of Lisa McLeod, daughter of the Railway Hotel’s publican. Growing up in Celestial Creek is not easy for young Lisa, particularly when her mother suddenly leaves town in scandalous circumstances. Hurt and bewildered, Lisa takes the first opportunity to move to the city where life is different, but perhaps not better, than the one she knew in Celestial Creek. The story of a young girl’s getting of wisdom back in the 1970s is tenderly told in Sue Hurley’s well-written first novel.