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, …

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 …