Misfit: The Unravelling of Samantha XAmanda GoffEcho 2025, 272 pages, $34.99ROSS FITZGERALDAmanda Goff’s Misfit is an emotionally raw, utterly honest, and at times very funny book. Although this is her third memoir, it is the first written and published under her own name. It opens with Goff physically and metaphorically laid bare, describing her visceral pain: “If I peel my whole body, will I discover who I am?”

While devouring Misfit, I kept thinking of another remarkable woman, Marilyn Monroe, who starred in my favourite movie, The Misfits. Released in 1961 …

Jack Iverson was, my father often told me, the finest bowler to whom he ever kept

By Ross Fitzgerald

Oct 19, 2024

Playing against England, in the home Ashes series of 1950–51, Iverson led the Australian bowling averages with 21 wickets at 15.24 runs per wicket. Bamboozling the Poms, in one Test he got 6 for 27. A little known fact is that Jack Iverson’s highest score in all five Tests was 1 not out.

A famous old club: A History of the Brighton Cricket Club by David King

ISBN 9780646977829

RRP: $85.00 (hb)

Reviewed by Ross …

My father Bill (“Long Tom”) Fitzgerald and one of Australia’s greatest spin bowlers – the enigmatic Jack Iverson.Jack Iverson was, my father often told me, the finest bowler to whom he ever kept.

Playing against England, in the home Ashes series of 1950–51, Iverson led the Australian bowling averages with 21 wickets at 15.24 runs per wicket. Bamboozling the Poms, in one Test he got 6 for 27. A little known fact is that Jack Iverson’s. highest score in all five Tests was 1 not out.

A Famous Old Club: A History …

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN HEROES OF THE PACIFIC WAR

SISTERS IN CAPTIVITY:
SISTER BETTY JEFFREY OAM AND THE COURAGEOUS STORY OF AUSTRALIAN ARMY NURSES IN SUMATRA, 1942-1945
 

by Colin Burgess

Simon & Schuster Australia, 2023

ISBN 9781761109089

RRP $34.99
 

Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD

This fine book, Sisters in Captivity, is dedicated to “the heroic nurses who lived this story but never made it home”.
 

Most educated Australians know of Sister Vivian Bullwinkel. But until the release of this lengthy and scrupulously researched study, my guess is that, as with me, not all that many readers of The Sydney Institute Review of …

                             AUSTRALIAN BOOKS
                            Rip-roaring Satire in Iota
Pandemonium by Ross Fitzgerald and Ian McFadyen
Hybrid  $32.99, 297 pages 
Reviewed by Rocco Loiacono
   This novel is the ninth book of the satirical series concerning Grafton Everest, a rambunctious, overweight, fictional academic who, as the book’s opening paragraph states, has been appointed, ‘once again through no ability, effort or desire of his own, to the position of Secretary-General of the …

Friends, Here’s my review of Maz Compton’s Last Drinks.

Maz Compton, Last Drinks: How to Drink Less and Be Your Best, John Wiley & Sons, 2023, pp 240, ISBN 9781394184231, $32.95 
 
ROSS FITZGERALD
 
Many Australians now realise that our booze-obsessed culture is extremely destructive. The murder, mayhem, individual, societal and family destruction that alcohol abuse leaves in its wake is, if you’ll pardon the pun, sobering.
 
When he died in April this year, my friend of 61 years, Barry Humphries, was 53 years sober. As with men and women from all walks of life, whether they …

Reviewed by Ross Fitzgerald
This biography of Melbourne-born World War II secret agent Bruce Dowding is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable young Australian whose story was previously unknown to me. Secret Agent, Unsung Hero is co-authored by Dowding’s nephew, lawyer and former Western Australian ALP Premier Peter Dowding, and wide-ranging author Dr Ken Spillman. As it happens, Ken was a student of mine. Later, we were contributing co-editors of The Greatest Game, a ground-breaking collection of writing about Australian Rules football, first published in 1988.
It is lucidly written and replete with useful black-and-white illustrations, but …

By Ross Fitzgerald
A retired schoolteacher from Adelaide with a PhD from Flinders University, Peter Brune is a brilliant scholar who has previously published eight  books about Australian military history. When I was one of the judges, his 2014 Second World War history Descent into Hell was shortlisted for the 2015 Prime Minister’s Prize for Non-Fiction. As with most of his work, Suffering Redemption and Triumph has been edited by the extremely capable Neil Thomas. Unusually, Thomas also played a key role in its publication and is currently involved in its …

COLD WAR AND ITS SECRETS

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE FIVE EYES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPY NETWORK
By Richard Kerbaj.
Blink Publishing
RRP $34.99
Reviewed by Ross Fitzgerald
COLD WAR AND ITS SECRETSThe Sydney Institute Review, 29 March 2023, Issue 25THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE FIVE EYES: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPY NETWORKBy Richard Kerbaj.Blink PublishingRRP $34.99Reviewed by Ross FitzgeraldRecently released in the United Kingdom, Richard Kerbaj’s, ‘The Secret History of The Five Eyes: The untold story of the international spy network’ is a fascinating account of the Western world’s most powerful, …

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 …

         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, …