Australia: A History: How an Ancient Land Became a Great Democracyby Tony AbbottHarperCollins, 2025, 395 pages, $39.99“He who controls the past, controls the future” wrote George Orwell in his classic work Nineteen Eighty-Four. This is something Tony Abbott doubtless had in mind as he set himself to writing this history of Australia. While many former PMs have written memoirs, Abbott is the first to have shunned that form of self-justification in favour of writing, instead, what amounts to a strong defence of the country itself. His working title, as he …

Some thoughts on Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication(Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, $24.99)

“It’s a great read, funny, wry and just cynical enough but with a strain of hope throughout that reflects reality.” – Bridget Shapter

“Chalk and Cheese  is a work of brilliantly cinematic quality.” –Nigel Marsh, Smart, Stupid & Sixty

“… my current top Australian fiction read this year.” – Eamonn O’Hanlon, The Sydney Institute Review of Books, September 2025

” … quite remarkable writing about the contrasting values that dominate contemporary society … absolutely splendid writing deserving of significant recognition” – …

Some thoughts on Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen, Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication (Hybrid Publishing Melbournre, $24.99) by Bridget Shapter  

Although I think it’s highly optimistic that a podcast could insight such a rapid change in the political system, I enjoyed immersing myself in a world where that was a reality. 

Conceptually, Chalk and Cheese is really brilliant – political enemies, unified by a failing government that is letting down all sides of the nation.  Ben and Bill are great leaders of their respective movements – Ben a much stronger voice, but Bill …

Abbott delves into Down Under

________________________________________Tony Abbott Australia: A History, HarperCollins Australia, pp 395 $ 39.99ROSS FITZGERALD

   “He who controls the past, controls the future” wrote George Orwell in his classic work, 1984. This is something Tony Abbott doubtless had in mind as he set himself to writing this history of Australia: How an Ancient Land Became a Great Democracy.    While many former PMs have written memoirs, Abbott is the first to have shunned that form of self-justification in favour of writing, instead, what amounts to a strong defence of the …

An Improbable SuccessROSS FITZGERALD

Tony Abbott Australia: A History,HarperCollins Australia, 2025 pp 395, $ 39.99

“He who controls the past, controls the future” wrote George Orwell in his classic work, 1984. This is something Tony Abbott doubtless had in mind as he set himself to writing this history of Australia: How an Ancient Land Became a Great Democracy. While many former PMs have written memoirs, Abbott is the first to have shunned that form of self-justification in favour of writing, instead, what amounts to a strong defence of the country itself. His …

Ken Spillman’s review of Chalk and CheeseHAVE-A-GO NEWS No. 403, OCTOBER 2025, p 38.

NEVER judge a book by its cover. While reading Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, I thought of this saying many times. Shackled with one of the most insipid and unattractive covers I’ve seen, it’s a cracking read.

If I were not a regular viewer of SBS TV’s Insight program, I would never have sought it out. Insight delves into social issues, exploring different viewpoints in a conversational way. A March episode dealing with the health services and care provided …

What’s What and Who’s Who in my life and fictionby ROSS FITZGERALD

My latest fiction, Chalk and Cheese, co-authored with the marvellous Ian McFadyen of ‘Comedy Company’ fame, features two 80-year-old, politically influential, former radio stars, Bill Bradley and Ben Curran, who hate each other, but end up in the same nursing home.

A postmodernist academic at Sydney University, who to put it mildly isn’t among my greatest fans, recently told a retired colleague that their names were clearly derived from Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men. For those who don’t …

Chalk and Cheese: A Fabrication, by Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen (Hybrid, August 2025, pp 224, $24.99)

Eamonn O’Hanlon After suffering a stroke, veteran conservative commercial radio broadcaster Bill Bradley is admitted to an aged care facility, only to find that one of the residents is none other than his arch political and media rival. This is the left-wing radical socialist broadcaster Ben Curran, whose grandfather was a leading light of the Communist Party of Australia. 

When other residents start asking for their help about unfair government regulations and elder abuse, these two …

Chalk and Cheese: A FabricationRoss Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid, $24.99Cameron Woodhead Spectrum Saturday, September 6, 2025, p11   Comic writing partners Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen will be familiar to some from their Grafton Everest books – a lively and long-running Australian series of political satires featuring a Rabelaisian academic (with a touch of Sir Les Patterson) getting himself into absurd scrapes.

In Chalk and Cheese, they break fresh comedic ground. Two journalists with opposing political views are admitted to the same aged care home. Conservative broadcaster Bill Bradley has made a career from …

In need of something new to read? Here are 10 of the latest books

Chalk and Cheese: A FabricationRoss Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyenHybrid, $24.99

Comic writing partners Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen will be familiar to some from their Grafton Everest books – a lively and long-running Australian series of political satires featuring a Rabelaisian academic (with a touch of Sir Les Patterson) getting himself into absurd scrapes.

In Chalk and Cheese, they break fresh comedic ground. Two journalists with opposing political views are admitted to the same aged care home. Conservative broadcaster …

Elders unite in Chalk and CheesePHIL BROWN 30 AUGUST 2025

Can political adversaries ever find common ground to fight for a cause? They can and they do in Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen’s latest satirical novel.

Ian McFadyen and Ross Fitzgerald teamed up to write the novel Chalk and Cheese.

Does it take an odd couple to write about an odd couple? If that gives you Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison flashbacks (the diametrically opposed characters of film and TV fame), you get the general idea.

But the odd couple in Ross Fitzgerald and …