Hal G.P. Colebatch 
The lady means business
Gina Rinehart: The Untold Story of the Richest Woman in the World By Adele Ferguson PanMacmillan, $34.99, pp 490 ISBN 9781742610979 This massive but unauthorised biography of Gina Rinehart —… Read more
Fight to the death
Not Dead Yet: Labor’s Post-Left Future By Mark Latham Black Inc Books, $19.95, pp 99 ISBN 9781863955973 This book, by former Labor leader Mark Latham, is schizophrenic. Although not very… Read more
The will to survive
Pacific 360: Australia’s Battle for Survival in World War II By Roland Perry Hachette, $50, pp 512 ISBN 9780733627040 Here is another great door-stopper of a book on Australia’s role… Read more
Flag of our fathers?
This massive book begins by informing us, with questionable grammar and accuracy, that ‘Like most Australians the saga of the Eureka Stockade is in the very marrow of my bones… Read more
A leg at each corner
It would be wrong to say the Australian Light Horse campaign in the Middle East against the Turks in the first world war has been ignored, but it is a… Read more
Inside the First Fleet
Captain Arthur Phillip, Australia’s first governor, has always had a respected place in Australian history, but has remained something of a cardboard figure in the popular imagination. In this powerful… Read more
Not one of us
He is the darling of the urban sophisticates, a passionate advocate of green causes, ambivalent about media regulation and he won’t allow anyone to mention Tony Abbott’s name – at… Read more
Australian Books: A world without irony
Come the Revolution: A memoir By Alex Mitchell NewSouth Books, $39.95, pp 544, ISBN 9781742233079 This is the story of Alex Mitchell, an Australian journalist who spent what many would… Read more
Australian Books: The heroes of Timor
The Men Who Came Out Of The Ground By Paul Cleary Hachette Australia, $24.99, pp 400 ISBN 9780733628184 Given that it is one of the world’s greatest epics of heroism,… Read more
Australian Books: Cold War fallout
Dismissal combines in one man’s fate two of Australia’s greatest political convulsions: the Petrov affair and the subsequent inquiry into Soviet espionage in Australia, and the dismissal of the Whitlam… Read more
Australian Books: Sins of omission
An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark By Mark McKenna The Miegunyah Press, $55, pp 800 ISBN 9780522856170 This book is puzzling. Why has the author, a research… Read more
Australian Books: No regime change here
The Fable of All Our Lives confirms Peter Kocan’s position as the most powerful and original novelist writing in Australia today. The Fable of All Our Lives By Peter Kocan… Read more
At war with clichés
Cruiser: The Life and Loss of HMAS Perth and Her Crew by Mike Carlton William Heinemann Australia, $55, pp. 705, ISBN 9781741668391 Early in 1942 the Australian light cruiser HMAS… Read more
Latest blogs
- Andrew Feldman denies calling Tory activists ‘swivel-eyed loons’ Fraser Nelson
- The swivel-eyed loons in the Conservative party are revolting. And they are right to revolt. Alex Massie
- Top Tory calls party activists ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’ James Forsyth
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Hammond on manoeuvres? The other Tory MPs who fancy a crack at the leadership Isabel Hardman
- Some anti-fascists are very fascistic Douglas Murray
- What Gove should know about Singapore schools Clarissa Tan
