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Hazel Baron and Janet Fife-Yeomans; My Mother, A Serial Killer

Hazel Baron and Janet Fife-Yeomans, My Mother, A Serial Killer HarperCollins Australia Publishers, 239 pp., ISBN: 9781460754528, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Hazel Baron, the daughter of convicted murderer Dulcie Bodsworth, collaborated with journalist Janet Fife-Yeomans to tell her story in My Mother, A Serial Killer…

The Bridge Street Affray: an incident that changed policing in New South Wales

Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February 1894, p9 This morning on 2SER Breakfast, Dr Rachel Franks talked to Tess Connery about the 'murderous' Bridge Street Affray in 1894.  Listen to Rachel and Tess on 2SER here.  In the very early morning of Friday 2…

Leigh Straw, Lillian Armfield

Leigh Straw, Lillian Armfield: How Australia’s First Female Detective Took on Tilly Devine and the Razor Gangs and Changed the Face of the Force Hachette Australia, 306 pp., ISBN: 9780733638107, p/bk, AUS$32.99 Leigh Straw, the author of The Worst Woman in Sydney: The…

Meredith Lake, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History

Meredith Lake, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History NewSouth Publishers, 2018, 439 pp. ISBN: 9781742235714, p/bk, AUS$39.99 Meredith Lake’s latest book, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History (2018), is extraordinary. Lake’s authority as an historian, her skills as a writer and…

Jamelle Wells, The Court Reporter 

Jamelle Wells, The Court Reporter  HarperCollins Australia (ABC Books), 309 pp., ISBN: 9780733337888, p/bk, AUS$32.99  The Court Reporter (2018), described by the publishers as “a tough and fearless journalist’s memoir that looks at the cases that have shocked, moved and never left us”, is equal parts personal reflection…

Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver, Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy

Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy Sydney University Press, 153 pp, ISBN: 9781743324615, p/bk, RRP AUS$40.00 Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy (2017), from Sydney University Press, is…

The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy

Edited by Rebecca Hawcroft, The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy,  NewSouth Publishing, 2017, 352 pp., ISBN: 9781742235561, p/bk, AUS$49.99 Rebecca Hawcroft, a cultural heritage consultant, has brought together some of Australia’s most important commentators on culture and design for The Other…

John Newton, The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian Native Foods

John Newton, The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian Native Foods NewSouth, 304 pp., ISBN: 9781742234373, p/bk, AUS$29.99 The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian Native Foods (2016), from NewSouth Books, is John Newton’s vehicle for a 50,000-year…

Terry Smyth, Denny Day: The Life and Times of Australia’s Greatest Lawman

Terry Smyth, Denny Day: The Life and Times of Australia’s Greatest Lawman Ebury Press, 2016, 352 pp., ISBN: 9780857986825, p/bk, AUS$34.99 Award-winning writer Terry Smyth has taken on the extraordinary, and regularly overlooked, story of Edward Denny Day in Denny Day: The…