All of a sudden there is a flow of books in that rare literary genre—the Australian political novel. Flow. Well, a few. My bedside table includes Sulari Gentill’s, A Few Right Thinking Men, Nicholas Hasluck’s, Dismissal, John M. Green’s, Born to Run, Anna Funder’s, All That I Am and added just last night, Elliot Perlman’s, The Street Sweeper. I still can’t talk about political novels without thinking of Dal Stivens’ classic, Jimmy Brockett and the gutsy energy of his rogue entrepreneur and the political corruption of Sydney (what changes?) in the early decades of the 20th century. There is the […]

I’m re-reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John le Carre) at the moment to prepare for the new film starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley. It’s a wonderful perspective on the the British secret service, far more realistic than Spooks on TV, which I like as well. Le Carre went off the rails a bit in later years I reckon, but his early Smiley books are fabulous. Book Club last month was Rites of Passage by William Golding. I hated it. Dreadful book. All of the characters were appalling, the story went nowhere and not much happened, the language sodden and […]