What will we do without religion?
John Carroll
The Saviour Syndrome: Searching for Hope and Meaning in an Age of Unbelief
Sutherland House: Toronto
pp 264, $ 29.99
reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
The Saviour Syndromeposes a crucial question, especially for people searching for hope in their lives: “What can replace religion?”

Another, related question might be: “Who do we look up to now?”
These questions are relevant to those who believe that the message of Jesus is obsolete or eclipsed. The author, John Carroll, maintains that humans are, by their nature, “saviour-seeking”. As he puts it, a saviour …

One does tire of celebrity reprobates. A fast way to attract attention and build a “profile” in our lazy society is to write about one’s appalling behaviour towards others. Its acceptability enables a form of confession and avoidance, and, if properly promoted and garnished with a veneer of bohemianism, it is more like confession and appointment to the firmament of New Idea idolatry. Attention, advertisement, writers’ festivals, prizes, perhaps even honours, await. The best way of avoiding the consequences of victimising others is to become a victim yourself. The people on the …

Deep dive into complex legacies of RAMSI
Helpem Fren: Australia and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands 2003-2017
By Michael Wesley
Melbourne University Press 
310pp, Pb, $40.00
reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
Australia is currently confronting our most serious challenges in the Pacific for seventy years.
In 2023 Prime minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong began expanding Australia’s strategic and economic presence in one of our closest neighbours, Solomon Islands 
Australia’s current initiatives in Solomon Islands are happening as, after a 30-year absence, America recently opened a permanent embassy in Honiara, in an attempt to counter …

         ROSS FITZGERALD
 

THE YOUNG MENZIES
Success, Failure, Resilience 1894–1942
edited by Zachary Gorman.
Melbourne University Press, 2022
224 pages, $49.95
    After a brilliant career at the Melbourne bar in the 1920s and a period as Victoria’s Attorney-General, Sir Robert Gordon Menzies eventually became the most towering federal parliamentarian ever seen in Australian politics. But up to now, few books, even including Allan Martin’s magisterial two-volume biography, published in 1993 and 1999 respectively, have dealt in any length or clarity with Menzies childhood, personality, and early adulthood.
The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, …

My Last Drink
Edited by Ross Fitzgerald & Neal Price, Connor Court, $29.95
Reviewed by Steven Carroll
A common thread running through these 32 confessions of recovering alcoholics is that they had to reach rock bottom before taking decisive action in rehab and/or AA. Interestingly, their memories of their last drinks vary from the vivid to the vague.
For Ross Fitzgerald it’s crystal clear – he had his last drink in the Melbourne pub where, as a schoolboy, he’d had his first. For Gail, who hid her drinking from most people (including her young …

              Semut wins the 2022 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Australian History
The prize for Australian history went to Semut : The untold story of a secret Australian operation in WWII Borneo, by Christine Helliwell, who has worked and at times lived among the Borneo’s indigenous Dayak peoples for more than 40 years. In his review for The Australian’s Book pages, critic Ross Fitzgerald described the book as “brilliant.”
“Some Dayaks previously had never encountered Europeans, while most Allied soldiers previously had never met indigenous people,” Fitzgerald …

WHEN ONE DRINK IS ONE TOO MANY

The Sydney Institute Review of Books, Summer Reading, December 2022.

My Last Drink: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics
Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price (eds)
Connor Court Publishing, Queensland, 2022
ISBN:9781922815224, RRP: $29.95
My Last Drink is also available from Amazon and Booktopia
Reviewed by Alan Gregory

This is a grim, but often highly entertaining, read as 32 recovering alcoholics tell the story of how they survived alcoholism. All contributors to My Last Drink accept the dictum that once an alcoholic always an alcoholic. This is despite the fact that many of the authors have …

ROSS FITZGERALD
My favourite book for 2022 is Grainne Cleary’s Why Do Birds Do That? (Allen & Unwin). If readers wonder why birds in Australia behave as they do, and what are their peculiar habits, the answers are to be found in this beautifully produced paperback.
As a wildlife ecologist who promotes citizen involvement, Cleary argues that the ability of certain species, “including some that are threatened, to thrive in our gardens means that gardens help to support and maintain their needs”. Hence it is incumbent on Australians to make our gardens more …

Louis Nowra, Sydney: A Biography
NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, ISBN: 9781742235927
pp 498, $39.99.
Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
  As is the case with one of my favourite Australian writers and playwrights, Louis Nowra, Sydney is also my adopted city.
Although from 1977 to the 1990s I worked in Brisbane, like Nowra, I was born and educated in Melbourne. I too have fallen in love with the beguiling city of Sydney.
Born in December 1950, Nowra has for many years resided on the border between Kings Cross and Woolloomooloo, and is married to his third wife, the …

My Last Drink, 32 Stories of Recovering Alcoholics
Edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price
Connor Court, 2022, 189 pages, $29.95
Reviewed by Matthew White
One does tire of celebrity reprobates. A fast way to attract attention and build a ‘profile’ in our lazy society is to write about one’s appalling behaviour towards others. Its acceptability enables a form of confession and avoidance, and, if properly promoted and garnished with a veneer of bohemianism, it is more like confession and appointment to the firmament of New Ideaidolatry. Attention, advertisement, writers’ festivals, prizes, perhaps even honours, …

AUSTRALIAN BOOKS

MY LAST DRINK
Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono
Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price (eds)
My Last Drink: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics
Connor Court, 2022, 190 pages, $29.95
In a recent interview with Piers Morgan, Dr Jordan Peterson remarked: “It’s really something to see, constantly, how many people are dying for lack of an encouraging word. And how easy it is to provide that if you’re careful.” My Last Drink –an anthology of highly personal and inspiring stories, edited by Ross Fitzgerald and Neal Price – demonstrates how important an encouraging word can be in …