No comments about Is That You Ruthie.

1 comments about Robert Menzies: A Life: Volume 1: 1894-1943 (Australian Lives).

1. Robert Menzies was a conservative Australian politician who served as Prime Minister from 1939 to 1941 when he surpringly resigned. At this time the Australian Labour party won office and dominated politics for the next eight years. Menzies built up a new party to regain power which he called the Liberal Party. He also developed an ideology to appeal to the forgoten people. That is he positioned his conservative party to appeal to the middle class rather than having it to closely aligned with big business.

   Volume one of this biography concerns his early years and his career up to 1941. He was born in a country town and came from a poor family. He was able to get a university eduction and became a succesful lawyer and state politician before moving to the federal sphere. He did not serve in the first world war although his brothers did.

   The book is actually by an author who has more sympathy with the labour side of politics rather than the conservative. Never the less it is a reasonable portrait of the man and also the period. One of the better Australian political biographies.

No comments about My Dearest Brown Eyes: Letters Between Sir Donald Cleland and Dame Rachel Cleland During World War II.

1 comments about Kathleen Petyarre: Genius of Place.

1. This award winning art book is perhaps the best book I've found for explaining quickly and clearly the deep issues involved in interpreting Aboriginal art.

   The essay by Christine Nicholls deals with Petyarre's personal history and the cultural detail and Ian North's contribution focuses more on a personal viewpoint that contextualises the artist and her cultural productivity.

   Kathleen Petyarre is one of the very best contemporary practioners: her art uses current materials but is really traditional in the indigenous Australian sense.

   The book features many colour reproductions of her paintings, diagrams explaining motifs used in her work, and photographs of the artist working in her desert community and engaging at high professional levels around the globe.

No comments about A Story to Tell.

No comments about Fred: An Australian Hero.

4 comments about The Diggers of Colditz: The Classic Australian Pow Escape Story Now Completely Revised and Expanded.

1. This is a great story of what determined men can achieve with severely limited resources. Much has been written on Colditz Castle, the men who were imprisoned there and the few who escaped. I visited the castle in 1999, and what I saw confirms the stories in the book. This book is great reading for those who prefer real adventures and exploits to fiction.



2. On June 23 1943 the author, Jack Champ, was marched into the German prisoner-of-war camp designated Oflag IVC, these days better known as Colditz Castle. Colditz was Germany's seemingly escape-proof castle prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful prisoners of World War II tirelessly carried out an unending campaign to achieve the seemingly impossible - freedom. By the end of the war, twenty Australians had spent time in Colditz, and this book looks at life in the ancient castle specifically from their point of view. Colditz was a very special camp - the guards outnumbered the prisoners, and the castle was floodlit at night. Initially the Germans boasted that Colditz Castle was escape-proof, but they were wrong. By the end of the war, there had been more escapes from Colditz than any prison of comparable size during both world wars. Jack Champ was a reluctant prisoner who took part in two of the most spectacular mass escapes of the war. This book describes in vivid detail how these indomitable and resourceful Australian servicemen tried, and at times succeeded, in turning dreams of escape into reality. Colin Burgess has interviewed many of the survivors and carried out extensive research to create this gripping account of the full story - from tense days in the care of the French Underground through to the only recently resolved fight for proper compensation.



3. On June 23 1943 the author, Jack Champ, was marched into the German prisoner-of-war camp designated Oflag IVC, these days better known as Colditz Castle. Colditz was Germany's seemingly escape-proof castle prison where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful prisoners of World War II tirelessly carried out an unending campaign to achieve the seemingly impossible - freedom. By the end of the war twenty Australians had spent time in Colditz, and this book looks at life in the ancient castle specifically from their point of view. Colditz was a very special camp - the guards outnumbered the prisoners, and the castle was floodlit at night. Initially the Germans boasted that Colditz Castle was escape-proof, but they were wrong. By the end of the war there had been more escapes from Colditz than any prison of comparable size during both world wars. Jack Champ was a reluctant prisoner who took part in two of the most spectacular mass escapes of the war. This book describes in vivid detail how these indomitable and resourceful Australian servicemen tried, and at times succeeded, in turning dreams of escape into reality. Colin Burgess has interviewed many of the survivors and carried out extensive research to create this gripping account of the full story - from tense days in the care of the French Underground through to the only recently resolved fight for proper compensation.



4. Great story of what determined men can achieve with severely limited resources. Lots has been written on Colditz Castle and the men who were imprisoned there and the few who escaped.

   I visited the castle in 1999, and what I saw confirms the stories in the book.

   Great reading for those who prefer real adventures and exploints to fiction.

1 comments about The Unquiet World: The Life of Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk.

1. My response to this excellent biography/memoir about New Zealand born poet, polemicist, private printer, pagan and pretender to the Polish throne, Count Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk, by his cousin NZ poet Stephanie de Montalk, is best conveyed by excerpts from the two following reviews. Michael King, writing in The Dominion (NZ) 17 November 2001, said, 'Every once in a rare while, a subject and an author admirably suited to each other connect and the result is a book of outstanding interest and merit. Unqiet World is one such volume ...like many poets, she writes prose very well. This quality is yet another that lifts this book from the domain of biography into that of literature.' And Ruth Brown, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, 27 December 2002, observed: 'Stephanie de Montalk succeeds in bringing her implauible relative to plalusible life. His various exploits on a worldwide stage are set in a meticulously researched analysis of the context of their times, and in openly acknowledging a complex and shifting personal reslationship with her quarry, she charts the subjectivity that must go into the making of any biography.'

No comments about Laurie: Always a Winner.

No comments about Full Circle.