The Life & Times of Frank ‘Bumper’ Farrell
After briefly living behind the police station in the working-class Sydney suburb of Redfern, Francis Michael Farrell, born in 1916, was brought up in the ethnic melting pot that was Marrickville....
View ArticleHere’s another good idea
FOR reasons that are unclear, the University of Queensland Press parted company from Philip Luker over publication of his biography of “the ideas man”, Phillip Adams. Perhaps some clues can be found in...
View ArticleThe long history of Manning Clark
THE reality is that Manning Charles Hope Clark was never an objectively inclined academic scholar. Thus his magnum opus, the six-volume A History of Australia, had more in common with the vision of...
View ArticleJudge’s colourful life laid bare
AIDED by a bevy of research assistants, A.J. Brown has produced a comprehensive biography of one of Australia’s most controversial judges and public intellectuals. The subject’s co-operation in this...
View ArticleRoll up for the political circus
HAVING held the seat of Melbourne for the ALP since 1993, the minister for finance, Lindsay Tanner, retired from parliamentary politics at the 2010 federal election. Since then, Tanner, a politician of...
View ArticleUp hill and down dail for Gerry Adams to unite Ireland
AT the February 26 Irish general election this year, after controversial Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams resigned from both the Westminster and Stormont parliaments to enter politics south of the...
View ArticleComedy with shtick, Austen Tayshus style
EVERYTHING about comedian Alexander “Sandy” Gutman (aka Austen Tayshus) is a dichotomy. In life, he is a tea-totalling, erudite intellectual, the father of two daughters – a far cry from his...
View ArticleAusten Tayshus biography hits a raw nerve
THE new biography on iconic Australian comedian Austen Tayshus has one particularly tough critic: its subject. “I don’t like it,” Tayshus says, leaving a comedicly deliberate pause. “No, I do like it....
View ArticleAs memoirs go, it’s a whopper
IN the modern age, autobiography is a strange and wonderful genre. Or should we be talking memoir here? I refer to the unexpurgated recollections of H.G. Nelson (aka Greig Pickhaver), which, rather...
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