Nick McKenzie and Ben Schneiders, Building Bad

 

- Seasoned journalists from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Nick McKenzie and Ben Schneiders, have written an important and powerful expose of the criminal-led union the CFMEU (Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union). 

- They take us inside the corruption that permeates the CFMEU on all levels. The key players are the violent lowlifes John Setka and Mick Gatto and their links with outlaw bikie gangs and underworld figures. They extracted millions of dollars from building companies by denying them Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBAs) unless they complied with their demands.  

- For years the journalists have been covering in detail in the newspapers and TV's Sixty Minutes what was happening. But in this book they dig deep and summarise, clarify and link all elements of the picture. I particularly relished their exposure of the pathetic Victorian Labor Party under Jacinta Allen and how she failed dismally as a Minister and Premier by allowing Setka and Gatto and their mates to carry on enriching themselves and the union at taxpayers' expense. 

- I underlined heaps of sentences and paragraphs as I read the book. Here are a few examples:

At least a dozen construction companies and their owners had been targeted by fire bombings.

The barrister [Geoffrey Watson] described the union's transformation under Setka's leadership from 'champion of the working class' to an organisation 'that turned to looking after gangsters, standover men, bikies, heroin traffickers, and even killers'. 

During the Setka era [2012-2024] the CFMEU was forcing contractors to employ patched bikies, meth abusers, violent standover men, killers, boxers and cage fighters. 

The Setka-led Victorian branch of the CFMEU was no longer a trade union, it was a crime syndicate....it had strayed a long way from its mission of holding greedy bosses to account and protecting the pay and conditions of blue-collar workers. Instead, the union had turned to helping select greedy bosses and their gangland mates drop their snouts into a taxpayer dollar-filled trough. 

In her final address to Victoria, Allan all but ignored the scandal that had cost her the premiership. 

- The book's final para before the Postscript is this however: 

When the new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll held his own press conference, however, he didn't prevaricate. The first promise made by Victoria's 50th premier was to call a royal commission into the construction industry.

Bonnie Garmus, Peck & Peck

- The bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry (2022), Bonnie Garmus, has written an exhilarating, wonderfully comic story of an old quarterly poetry journal in the US. It's been owned and managed by the Peck family since the early 1900's and is currently suffering from appallingly bad management. Since its inception the journal has been managed by sets of twins, hence 'Peck & Peck'.  

- A young man named Batter Gray, about to graduate from high school, wants to be a poet. He's always been fascinated by poetry. His name 'Batter' came from a family dog who died just before the boy's birth. 

- His twin brother also died during childbirth. Interesting, given the vital role twins play in this story. 

- After studying a variety of subjects at College in LA, including accounting, he ends up in New York. He comes across a fancy building called ‘Peck & Peck’, sees they do poetry, and applies for an advertised editorial position. He gets the job and finds out it's hardly an editorial role. He's to run the photocopying room. His job is to copy all the manuscripts sent in by so-called poets and deliver them to the 39 editors. The great majority of the poems are rubbish and the rejection letters simply say 'NO'.

-The current man in charge is Salton Peck and he's a nasty piece of work. He's abusive and a know-all, and he knows nothing about poetry. In fact he thinks it's rubbish and pretentious and a sham. He wants to commercialise the journal by allowing ads and even some porn, and substantially increasing the price. Garmus's portrayal of him is deliciously brilliant. He's got a way with words and hates everything and everyone and doesn't hold back. 

- Batter starts to intensely dislike his boring job and decides to resign. His parents persuade him to stick at it - things will get better. So he does. He starts to make friends with some editors and even former Peck family members. He even becomes very attracted to some young women, one of them a Peck family member. 

- He also occasionally gives his opinion about some of the poems chosen to be published and some chosen to be rejected. Salton, the boss, grows to respect him, and increases his salary substantially. 

- There are various subplots in the book that add to its richness. But what stands out is the constant tension between excellence and detritus. Those distinctions affect life in profound ways. 

- Garmus has written a highly enjoyable and insightful novel. Like Lessons in Chemistry it will become another popular TV series for sure.

 

Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say.

- I've read most of Elizabeth Strout's novels over the last few decades and this new one is easily one of her best. It focuses on the intense, complicated relationships that quite ordinary people experience throughout their ordinary lives. Lives that seem comfortable but on many levels are not. 

- The key word is 'ordinary'. We're immersed in ordinary communities, watching ordinary families deal with ordinary dramas. Couples split up, marriages begin and end, people argue, new friends are made, accidents happen, and people die. Some from suicide, like the school principal. 

- The main character, Artie, is a history teacher at a local high school. He talks to his students about about wars, fascism and the Nazis. Why are there always wars? Can there ever be global peace? He felt he had to convey some optimism to the young students but he knew there could never be peace. The current political environment after Trump's reelection in 2024 is ugly and its negativity ever present. 

- He and his wife Evie seem to enjoy a good relationship, despite some tragedies upending their lives, such as the death of their young daughter, and his son Rob's disclosure that Artie is not really his father. Artie doesn’t confront Evie and tell her he knows. He buries it within himself. But he does contemplate suicide. 

- He’s starting to keep more secrets, and even to indulge in shoplifting. ‘He had somehow slipped the ties of the world that had been his for almost thirty years...It was a private thing, to be alive. He understood this now’. 

- His relationship with his son, despite the biological secret, is deep. Rob relies on his father for advice and their love is strong. 

- There are other incidents dotted throughout the novel that enrich it immensely. The book is only 200 pages long and the writing is clear and unpretentious. It's a joy to read. 

  

Emma Cline, Switzy

 

- Emma Cline is a bestselling young American author of The Girls, Daddy, and The Guest. I haven't read any of them. On the front cover Mark Haddon calls her new book 'Sublime...completely gripping...a wonder'. Daisy Johnson calls it 'Her best book yet. Completely extraordinary'. 

- My opinion? It's easily one of the most tedious novels I’ve ever read. It's a deep penetration into a shallow man, and everything about it annoys the crap out of me. Her staccato prose reflects his consciousness and vacuity. She's a writer of talent but it's wasted on this annoying lightweight of a man. The silly title, the meaningless front cover, and the absence of an author photo, says it all. 

- David Hastings, now in his early seventies, is a former Chief Financial Officer on a flight to Zurich via London, and he reflects on his long corporate life: suits, coats, shoes, flights, hotels, dinners, a Rolodex, Christmas cards, secretaries. He works for his boss called Stearns. He's constantly playing Solitaire on his phone. He’s an empty soul with minimal intellectual energy, no interest in politics, world affairs, or today's wars. He has no deep love for his family or friends, apart from one school friend Tom. In other words he’s as boring as batshit. He’s off to Switzerland for euthanasia. 

- He doesn’t reflect on how much money he’ll leave his daughter, nor his house, furniture, belongings. Not even his Will. His wife Annabel and he divorced when their only child, Rebecca, was ten. 

- At least he recognises his current irrelevance: 'Now the young people had different brains…They had seen behind the curtain..’ He's also aware of 'The smell of old people. Their decaying skin. The addled brain'. He's been diagnosed with Amyloid plaque and has, as he tells it, 'odd fake medications, tests and treatments. For executives only'. His memory is virtually gone altogether. Only habitual things remain. He's ‘now learning that everything - oh, just everything - disintegrates’. 

 - By far the most interesting character in the novel is Cody, his assistant. Cody is in his mid-thirties and looks after him in every way. I guess he's well paid but we're never told. 

- An interesting dimension to the story is his reflections on his school days, and his friend Tom. They'd go to Tom’s house for school breaks. Tom was bright. And David was attracted to him, even physically. The school bullies attacked Tom on one occasion and David stood there and did nothing. They were distant from that point. 

- At the end of the novel he and Cody fly in a private noncommercial plane to Zurich.  

- In a comfortable room, with a nurse in attendance, he swallows the barbiturate. 

- As a bored reader I thought 'thank god!' You may wonder why I lasted until the end. It wasn't because I wondered whether he'd chose life over death. It was solely because of Emma Cline's entrancing prose. 

Cory Doctorow, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI.

- Cory Doctorow is a snappy writer whose insight into all dimensions of AI companies and their scamming techniques is comprehensive. He’s always worth reading. 

- His new book is a fascinating social and economic take on how AI is influencing virtually all dimensions of business, employment and income, and not in a good way. He's probing deeply into the business side of AI corporations and who they’re screwing. He's not fooled at all by their pretentious rhetoric about how productive our future can be. 

 - He delves deeply into the appalling way tech companies like Google and Amazon treat their workers. 'Amazon's coders are now being worked like Amazon's warehouse workers and delivery drivers, among the most abused workforce in the wealthy world'. They're not even allowed to take toilet breaks. 

- He also addresses the contentious copyright issue. Most authors and artists are loudly proclaiming they are not being paid for the scraping of their content and that this is a breach of copyright law. Legally this isn't true. And 'every search engine makes a copy of every web page it can find, without taking a license or seeking permission to do so'. The substantive issue is that the huge dominant corporations all agree on paying their workers, including creative ones, as little as possible. Their wages are there for the taking. That is the principal issue we should be focused on. 'Scraping in order to make a transient copy of a work for the purposes of analysis, indexing, and so on, is legal'. 

- Doctorow is convinced that AI is a bubble, which will burst. ‘Every AI company is losing money, and the bigger the AI company is, the more money it’s losing. The biggest AI companies are losing billions per quarter…. even if one AI company survives most or all of the rest of them will fail. When that happens the AI bubble will burst. Investors will panic-sell their holdings. Companies will collapse. In other words the bubble will burst as all bubbles do, always....Remember: seven giant AI companies account for 35% of the US stock market...We're talking about a crash that will put 2008 in the shade and meet or exceed the pandemic sell-off'. The economic costs will be felt around the world for generations to come. It will be 'a prolonged, brutal, global crash'. 

- What's more 'The serious environmental costs of AI will be borne by everyone on the planet, and all the animals and plants we share it with, for hundreds of years to come’. 

- Cory Doctorow has written by far the most informed and enlightening book on AI and its consequences I've ever read. I highly recommend it. 

 

Hossein Asgari, Desolation

 

- A writer enjoying a tea in a cafe is approached by a Middle Eastern stranger who asks in Farsi to listen to his story. And so begins a fascinating tale of Amin’s large family and his life and one event in particular. 

- The oldest boy in his family was Hamid who was a brilliant maths fanatic and an atheist. He has been asked to come to Harvard for an interview, so boards a commercial flight from Tehran to Dubai in July 1988 to obtain a US visa. The plane, Iran Air Flight 655, is misidentified by the Americans and shot down over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. 

- From there we're immersed in Amin's story. He's a teenager in a small town when we meet him and is keen to meet up with his attractive female neighbour Parvaneh. They go to high school together. An affection grows and she invites him to come to their house. (DANGER! Asgari's novel explores the traditional Islamic restrictions on male/female behaviour and relationships). The classmates watch classic American movies. Amin asks her about her writing and reading. She’s read The Great Gatsby five times and loves Of Mice and Men. And movies. She also loves Marilyn Monroe and Madonna and Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan and Billy Joel and John Lennon. She's secular and modern. (MORE DANGER!) 

- The Iran/Iraq war has finally ended and Parvaneh’s family return from the countryside to Tehran. She called occasionally but he was distant. He became more religious and angry and never shaved. He verbally abused young men in the park for smoking and their hairstyles. He quit his university course in his second year and enrolled in military service. 

- His family went to Tehran for a wedding. On the first day he bumped into Parvaneh with her new boyfriend. He turned and walked away. Later he regretted that. But ‘he had seen her happy with another man and that was something he could never forgive her for’. The wedding party with its drinking and without sex segregation, and its unbearable dancing, also offended him. Walking, he accosted a young couple holding hands (‘Are you guys related’), but was beaten by them, and told ‘You fucking village people come here and dare to tell us how to live our lives, huh?’ 

- He enjoyed his harsh 3 months military training. At the beginning of his service he met Ghazi, who was three years older and had a Bachelor in History from the University of Tehran. He had interesting insights into classic books like Crime and Punishment and Don Quixote, and the importance of bookshops. They became good friends. They often met at a restaurant because Amin was fond of the waitress there. He was enthralled by the way she carried herself ‘with such effortless grace’. Her name was Ayesha and he knew he was going to marry her. He’s Shia but would be willing to convert to the more secular Sunni if necessary. But there's a mystery about her, a secret. 

- It was not from Ayesha but Ghazi that he finally learnt the truth. Ghazi, Haroun the restaurant owner, and Ayesha were planning to join al-Qaeda. The Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam was their inspiration, and Osama bin Laden had formed al-Qaeda. The mute prodigy Salman was his right hand man. They traveled to Pakistan to meet them. 

- Back in Tehran Amin tells Ayesha he wants to start his own business and do nothing else. She says ‘You’re not the man I thought you were’. And she's pregnant but that is illegal in Iran as their marriage is still not registered. He deserts her and flies to Kuala Lumpur then, after five years, to Australia. 

- At the end of the novel the writer questions Amin's story. Was he lying about his involvement and his support for al-Qaeda? Imagine if his brother had actually arrived in the US and lived peacefully with his family, but became victims of 9/11? Would that change his perspective. 'No!' shouts Amin.   

- The novel ends with Amin's memories of Salman's final two years of life after Osama's death. The 'silent evil genius' survived three attempts on his life before they finally got him. 'This very hand has shaken the hand of Salman the Mute. If I told that to the people in this garden, so carefree, so ignorant, so absorbed in their little lives, they would shit themselves'.

- 'He looks at me in silence'. 

- Hossein Asgari has written a powerful and informative novel about race, culture, religion, tradition, and passion. It's questioning and absorbing. 

James Curran, Grand Ambition: Paul Keating's Global Vision for Australia

 

 

- James Curran, a Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney, has written a detailed and utterly absorbing story of Paul Keating's time as Treasurer and Prime Minister of Australia in the 1980's and 90's. 

- I can do no better than quote in full the summary on the inside flap:

'Written with never-before-seen documents from Paul Keating's archive and drawing on many years of conversations, this book explores the ambitions for Australia that guided Keating: arguably the last prime minister with a compelling long-term vision for the country.

As Australia stands on the edge of the greatest reappraisal of its strategic circumstances, what is the relevance of Paul Keating's vision for Australia in the world today?

At the moment of his political defeat in 1996, Paul Keating stood defiant, still arguing for a vision of Australia that reached far beyond the limits of electoral politics. Three decades on, this book revisits that vision: bold, contested and somewhat unravelled by subsequent Coalition governments. It traces how Keating sought to reshape Australia's foreign policy at the end of the Cold War: anchoring the country in Asia, embedding China within a regional order, deepening ties with Indonesia and challenging long-held assumptions about dependence on great powers. For Keating, economic reform, national identity and international strategy were inseparable: part of a single, sweeping project to remake Australia.

Ambitious and provocative, this is both a portrait of a singular political mind and a reappraisal of a pivotal era. It argues that the questions Keating grappled with - about independence, security and identity - remain unresolved, and more urgent than ever in a world defined by rising tensions between the United States, China and the rest of the world.'  

- What I particularly enjoyed were Keating's thoughts on our current times. He tears AUKUS into shreds for example: '...the decision represented an appalling ignominy' that 'speaks volumes about our incapacity to absorb the region, enjoy the region, be part of the region and to celebrate the fact that we're here'. AUKUS 'was in effect a resuscitation of the Cold War policy of 'forward defence', the stance adopted by successive Coalition governments in the 1950s and 1960s and designed to keep Asian communism as far as possible from Australia's shores. AUKUS fused and made permanent the idea that China should be regarded primarily as a threat, and that Australia should rely on its traditional 'great and powerful friends'; a triumph of the Anglosphere...'  

- He also bluntly repudiates the idea that Australia should aid the defence of Taiwan. Taiwan is 'not a vital Australian interest'. 

- So Curran has written a superb book. It's a must read.

William Boyd, Cold Sunset

 

- This new novel by the excellent William Boyd is the third in his Gabriel Dax series. I very positively reviewed the second last year: here 

- Cold Sunset is just as good. In fact in a number of ways it's better. Gabriel is a very popular travel writer who gets approached every now and then by Faith Green, an MI6 secret service agent working to uncover Russian spies. It's the mid 1960's at the peak of the Cold War. The traitors Philby, Maclean and Burgess have been uncovered. And there must be more. 

- Gabriel is a handsome unmarried man in his mid-thirties. He and Faith, also single and attractive, indulge in frequent sex. And he has other attractive partners too. In fact there is far more sex in this novel than in the previous two combined. It adds a spark!

- The plot thickens considerably as the novel proceeds. Spies are uncovered and they need to be eliminated. Gabriel is sucked in and he becomes hunted. Yet he does the job. He spends time in Russia, Norway, and the Greek Islands, and his gun is always at the ready. 

- The plot gets complicated as it proceeds but it remains logical and credible. Boyd knows how to enrich the drama and colour it with glorious details on art, architecture, and literature. 

- Hopefully he is working on a fourth in the series. 

Rachel Cusk, Life of M

- This new novel by Rachel Cusk is both brilliant and sort of annoying. As a reader who loved many of her previous books I was constantly befuddled by the lack of clarity in this one. Who is the narrator - a woman or a man? Who is 'we' - one person or a couple? We are thrust into confusing and unreal worlds.   

- Cusk wrestles with the concept of 'reality' and its distortions. Of course movie scenes are fake, and acting is fake. The narrator and the actress are both constructing fictional worlds. 

- Cusk has no doubt based the character 'M' on the celebrated actress Natalie Portman. The unnamed films she refers to are Portman classics: Leon: The Professional (1994) and Black Swan (2010) for which she won an Oscar. Portman has apparently complained about how M was portrayed by Cusk, which is a little unfair as M in the novel is highly likeable, generous, grounded and approachable. 'She is unable to see selfishness as anything other than the product of stupidity'. 

- Cusk may be examining unreality but she also details the real world in numerous chapters. 'We’ describe the city and countryside they walk in (unnamed but Paris and its surrounds no doubt) and visit a museum and a bakery. They reflect on garbage collectors, bodies, tourists, the river and its bridges, the homeless and their strewn rubbish, dogs, pigeons, their parents’ house, and their domestic staff. 

- M's real world is luxurious: her mansion and its furniture, the spa, sauna and pool on top of a tall building, the principal actors room in a theatre, the fashion cocktail event which will be filmed. (Portman represents Dior in real life). M feels like an alien in this terrestrial scene. She avoids the city's famous and elaborate restaurants. 

- As the book proceeds M is seen as mature and wise. She understands stuff and can manage her career's ups and downs. 

- An excellent chapter towards the end describes M’s interview with a respected journalist. She finds him very attractive. At one point they discuss sex scenes in movies old and new. She feels lost. 

- And the final chapter is a sort of reckoning. The author visits M who tells her she doesn’t like the way the author's portrayed her. ‘Actually, it’s hurtful’, she says, and then she asks 'Are you a guy or a girl?' They are the last words in the novel. And they are quite meaningful given all her experiences of male behaviour, both good and bad, in her career. 

- So is this novel worth reading? Absolutely. 

Toby Walsh, God AI

 

 

- This new book by Australian AI expert Professor Toby Walsh is a must read. It's remarkably good, full of detail and wisdom. I've read a few books on AI and many articles over the years, but this exploration of the future of human society dominated by AI over the next five or fifty years is extraordinary. 

- Walsh has dotted his thesis with quotes over the decades from visionaries like Arthur C Clarke, Stephen Hawking, Geoffrey Hinton, Alan Turing and Albert Einstein - all confronting a possible AI’s potential and destructive inevitability. And he includes the views of today's AI leaders like Open AI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei. We are facing Boom or Doom. 

- The big question is when will artificial intelligence exceed human intelligence? Within the next five or fifty years? Most experts predict five. 'The AI revolution now promises to automate much of our cognitive work'. Sure, many jobs will disappear, but there will be plenty of shortages of jobs in critical areas, particularly the services sector. And many of us will work only four days a week. 'All in all, we might live healthier, wealthier and worthier lives'. 

- Walsh's final chapter 'Machines of Loving Grace' opts for optimism not pessimism. Although he admits he could be wrong. 'There is something unmistakably theological about the way many AI researchers speak of AI. It often sounds less like an engineering project and more like a religious movement. Baldur Bjarnason, author of The Intelligence Illusion, a critical examination of the tech industry, described it well: 'They like to think they're sensible people making sage comments, but they sound more like monks in the year 1000 talking about the Rapture. It's a bit frightening.' 

- Dario Amodei has it both ways: 'I like to think most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be....just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be'. (Only his first sentence is in bold). 

- Walsh ends his book with this piece of wisdom: 'If we train AI systems on data that reflects historical inequities and biases, we will amplify injustice on an unprecedented scale. It we allow a small number of corporations or nations to monopolise AI development, we will embed dangerous concentrations of power into the fabric of our future. The lesson I believe we should take from this is simple, and straight out of Frankenstein. Only wise choices made today will ensure that the gods we build tomorrow don't become monsters beyond our control.' 

  

Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, Yeganeh Torbati, Stolen Revolution

 - This superbly written book is a fascinating and detailed dissection of the current Iranian religious regime and the suppression of its reformers. It's thoroughly enlightening on every level.

- It focuses on the incredible stories of six principal activists and dissenters. Their stories are ones of sheer bravery and heroism. The regime is utterly brutal, murderous, and misogynistic on every level. 

- I can do no better than provide this excellent summary of the book inside the cover:

'The moving, riveting and immersive story of six Iranians who, together, lived the entire arc of modern Iranian history: the promise of the 1979 revolution, its betrayal by the Islamic mafia state and a people’s undying spirit of resistance. 

Fuelled by Iranians’ dreams of social justice and political freedom, the 1979 revolution swept aside the shah's ailing repressive monarchy. But in its place the revolution's leader Ayatollah Khomeini and his acolytes built a system that served his narrow Islamic fundamentalist faction and worsened every failing and brutality that had existed under the shah. Award-winning journalists Bozorgmeh Sharafedin and Yeganah Torbati tell the entwined stories of six Iranians, providing a powerful new lens on Iran’s recent history in all its bitter twists and stubborn hope as crises engulf the country.

MEDHI KARROUBI: a devotee of Khomeini, he rose to the heights of power on the wave of the revolution, before being casted out of its inner circle.

HILA SEDIGHI: a young activist, who gave voice through her poetry to her peers' hopes during the reform years and ultimately immortalised their shattered dreams.

AMIR MOGHADAM: an ambitious government bureaucrat, who witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth.

SAID RAHMANI: a successful global tech entrepreneur who returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country, and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself.

ROZHIN YOUSEFZADEH and KOSAR EFTEKHARI: both born in the 1990s, they escaped their gendered destinies by leaving their hometowns for Tehran, where they joined a mass movement that confronted a ferocious state apparatus: the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. Each paid an enormous price.

Through vivid and original reporting, Stolen Revolution offers a compulsively readable new story of Iran, centering ordinary Iranians' lives, whilst providing a visceral understanding of how life is actually lived under a modern authoritarian state. This is a harrowing story of power, corruption and greed - and those brave individuals who fought back.'

- Both authors are highly experienced, award-winning journalists who spent five years working on this book, interviewing hundreds of Iranians, many in fear for their lives. 

Adam Ouston, Mine

- Adam Ouston has written a thoroughly engrossing novel. Magical, deep and an absolute joy to read. 

- Ouston’s focus is on men at the extremes. His first novel Waypoints, published four years ago (which I reviewed here), explored the same theme. 

- An old man in his late seventies, a poet and retired academic, falls down a mine shaft in Northwest Tasmania. He’s severely injured, and can't see a way out. He’s desperate for water and to relieve his pain by moving. But if he sucks the drip near him will he be poisoned? But he's dying of thirst so is it worth the risk? He reflects on his life, his passions, and his deceased friend the journalist who shared his anger at the world. The old man attended his funeral service and was unimpressed by the superficiality of it, especially the comments by friends and colleagues.The tepid mundanity of it angered him. 

-  What sort of person emerges from his reflections, memories and stories? An angry, unhappy one. A man with a ‘natural tendency to understatement and rumination’. A university lecturer who loved the word ‘bullshit’. His students did too. He was interested ‘in getting to the bottom of things’. Tasmania was ‘a cartography of sighs’ and nature a ‘gnashing machine of time’. 'It could be said he'd long been in possession of an issue with authority...protesting pulp mills, dams, deforestation, and the grubby practices of governing bodies, good old-fashioned Tasmanian dissent facing off against good old-fashioned Tasmanian corruption...'

- The novel is one long sentence of 278 pages. The man's thoughts, registered in poetic and fluid prose, are winding and loose, and glide smoothly in and out of the major events in his long life. The reader can’t help but be captivated by this man and his magnificent descriptions of nature and its wild glory. 

- As for the men 'in extremis', We're immersed in the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company and its ‘secrets, half-truths and straight up lies’. Copper mining was the obsession a century ago and the mining boom continued, with its smelters and railroads. '...it was staggering what some people did and allowed to be done to something so precious, something so beautiful, so meaningful...he could not fathom the irrespressible greed...how could it be that greed was the most robust condition? not love or lust or ambition, but greed...'. 

- We're reminded of the tragic story of the research expedition deep into the Antarctic by Sir Douglas Mawson over a century ago, and the subsequent missions by ships to the icebergs to rescue ships and crews, and confront illegal whale hunters. The old man was on one of them, the Aurora. 

- The early explorers of the 16/17/18th centuries believed there must have been a  southern landmass with ‘fifty million souls’ or so. Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple was certain, and the British were determined to explore it. 

- We're taken deep into the detail of the disaster of the North Mt Lyell mine in 1912. There were dangerous tunnel collapses, fires, choking black smoke and poisonous carbon monoxide. And no alarm system, and the cage got stuck. Dozens of men, some 1000 feet underground, lost their lives despite the bravery of rescuers who did all they could. And many more suffered from illnesses related to coughing and breathing for the rest of their truncated lives. The author absolutely immerses us in this horror. 

- 'For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror' (Rilke). The novel ends with the old man thinking about 'the nature of evil, the emptiness of evil, the way it can lurk in beauty or come dressed as beauty...' And he thinks about the ship Aurora and its crew and passengers trapped in the Antarctic ice, forever. And there's a full stop at the end. And that's meaningful.

Bernard Keane, Seize the Moment

 

- Crikey's politics editor Bernard Keane, easily the best political journalist in the country, has written such a detailed and important book that everybody with half a brain should be forced to read it. 

- Bernard is often personal, as he draws on his time in the public service and later as a journalist, which often adds a human dimension to the serious and substantial public issues he dissects and critiques. 

- His focus is how Australia will fare in the next 25 years. Surprisingly, he's optimistic. Chapter 1 is a superb summary of our recent history and the necessary pathways into the future. 'The coming 25 years will be dominated by multiple challenges: technological change that may well be even faster and more profound than that of the last quarter century, a rapidly ageing population, a deepening climate crisis, an increasingly powerful and high-tech China and a US empire in retreat both from its strategic role internationally and from the democratic norms it has long promoted, if not always followed'. 

- He explores five areas Australia must focus on: decarbonisation and new green industries, a new strategic direction that moves beyond the utter rubbish of our 'shared values' with the US and AUKUS, a well funded tertiary education sector, a continued celebration of immigration and multiculturalism, and a reformed tax system that improves its fairness and is sufficient to fund the necessary government services we need.

- In his climate change chapter he clearly outlines where Australia is currently wrong. We’re killing ourselves. He also outlines in detail our renewables challenge and how increasingly central China is. 

- His final chapter delves deep into the policy development processes in governments over the years and how bogged down in fussy detail and timidity they've now become: 'How we reverted from Keating's standing on our own feet to Albanese's bending the knee...federal governments of both sides have lost the ability to undertake significant reforms and hard decisions, and the country has stagnated and been allowed to drift as a result'. And there are exorbitantly paid 'consultants' in every nook and cranny.  

- At the end Keane outlines why he thinks it's time to reform our voting system because politics doesn’t relate to young people. In fact our politicians work against them. The system should be weighted: His argument is clear and convincing: 'For argument's sake, you could multiply the vote of under-30s by 1.3 and that of 30- to -60-year-olds by 1.1)'. 

- I can't recommend this insightful treatise highly enough. 

(No index and no author photo. Typical of the cheap Allen&Unwin)

Omar Musa, Fierceland

- This novel, surprisingly, won the 2026 Miles Franklin Award, an award that focuses on novels that examine the Australian way of life. Most people, including me, were surprised by that decision, as Fierceland is only tangentially about Australia. While it's a deep dive into ugly colonialism and it’s destructive legacy, it doesn’t hold back on constantly immersing us in things Malaysian - the language, politics, towns, forests, trees, wildlife, beliefs, spirits, birds, and insects. It offers an incredibly rich tapestry of Borneo's political history and corruption. 

- It's a totally absorbing read, written in brilliant prose, thick with lush detail. Sure, it's often clogged, but it's poetic and throbbing with life. Read it slowly. Let it sink in. 

- The central focus is on two kids from a very wealthy family - the delightful and spunky Rozana, and her clever younger brother Harun. Their father, whom they love, has made a fortune from clearing forests to establish a palm-oil industry in Borneo. They're sent to Australia to attend high school and university. In later life they reflect on 'the horrors of high school in Australia' and its 'mediocre parochialism'. Both are frequently bullied at school for being Mussies and are questioned about their 'terrorism' by classmates after 9/11. They have to pretend to be real Aussies in dress and accent to be accepted. Roz, in particular, gets into weed and shoplifting.

- We follow them through the first two decades of the 2000's. Roz does well in Art and English at school (so her father buys her a Jaguar!). She eventually becomes an artist. Harun becomes a tech enthusiast who establishes his own successful company. 

- One character in the book is fascinating and breathes life into it - the distant relative 'Crazy Auntie'. She's a passionate critic of the wealthy palm oil parents and their destructive colonial operations. And the kids get persuaded by her - Roz in particular because they share a love of books and reading. 

- In 2018 the father, Abah, dies. After the funeral Crazy Auntie and other relatives indulge in rants about Old Malaysia, New Malaysia - ‘same old politics. Same kleptocracy, same ethno-nationalist fascism, same Malay Supremacy. The mainland using the Borneo states...As we watched the country crumble into corruption, mediocrity and madness…’ 

- Roz and Harun are finally awakened to reality. The final chapters of the novel see them walking through the magic forests and hearing the voices of those who've suffered from their destruction. 

- Borneo is neither a single country nor exclusively a region of Malaysia—it is the third-largest island in the world, and it is shared among three separate sovereign nations:

1. Malaysia: Occupies the northern portion of the island (East Malaysia), which consists of two states—Sabah and Sarawak—and the Federal Territory of Labuan.
2. Indonesia: Occupies the largest portion (roughly 73% of the island), known as Kalimantan, which is divided into five provinces.
3. Brunei: An independent sultanate located entirely on the northern coast of Borneo, surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

So while parts of Borneo belong to Malaysia, Borneo itself is an island shared by Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. (Gemini).

Amy Remeikis, Screw Nice.

- This book is brilliant on every level. Amy Remeikis is easily one of Australia's best political journalists and cultural commentators. She's the Chief Political Analyst at  The Australia Institute and a contributing editor for The New Daily. 

- She's angry and she's a fighter. And she's very well informed. Screw Nice (or as I'm sure she would have preferred to call it, 'Fuck Nice') is a fascinating critique of our current social and political world - a mix of philosophical, psychological, and economic. She puts the bomb under so much bullshit. 

- What I found most appealing about the book is its reach. She ranges widely and takes us to the US, the UK and Europe, as well as Australia. She's excellent on the major post-World War 2 economic and political histories - neoliberalism, stagflation, oil shocks, wealth inequality, the destruction of labour unions, media power, hate speech, anti-immigration movements, women’s appeasement and submission for financial reasons, the general decline of liberal democracies and the current ‘autocratisation’ and growing authoritarianism in the Trump era. And of course the extraordinary growth and influence of powerful billionaires. 

- She also focuses on the individuals that are central to the madness we are forced to stomach, for instance Trump, the draft dodger, sexual predator and liar; Charlie Kirk and his lies and distortions; and Netanyahu. There are plenty of others. 

- She catalogues Australia’s dismal record on a host of important issues. 

- The book is full of statistics and details which enrich it enormously.  And quotes from influential thinkers, philosophers, politicians, and activists. Being 'nice' or 'civil' or 'centrist' or 'balanced' is just being captured and accomodating. 

- Her final words are:

'I am not a nice person. 

I try to be kind and compassionate. I like to think I am empathic and reasonable. I have an open mind, and I believe in equality. But niceness? Pretending a civil society is not tolerating abuse or hatred, or punching down on those already fighting for survival? I’m done with that. And I am hopeful for the sake of decency, for upholding the society we all should be fighting for. A tolerant society - intolerant of the intolerable - one that lays claims to actual civility and not the toxic civility we allow to oppress what we know is right. And I hope that you are too. 

Not being nice may be the only way we can create safe spaces for everyone, where equality and tolerance of difference is the standard, not the fight. 

And honestly, wouldn’t that be nice?'

 

Homer, The Odyssey

 

- This translation of Homer's classic by Emily Wilson was published by Norton in 2017. Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. 

- The book is unbelievably good - written in clear, modern and rhythmic English (iambic pentameter). There have been many translations over the last few hundred years, (including a new one by Daniel Mendelson published by Penguin this year). 

- The book contains a brilliant 90 page introduction which is a must read. It outlines all the details of Odysseus's journey from Troy back home to Attica after twenty years. Wilson also includes Notes at the end that summarise each of the 24 chapters and clarify many of the references.  

- The poem was written around 8-900 BC, nearly three thousand years ago. Odysseus was a 'complicated man'. He's aristocratic, wealthy and authoritative, but also a thinker, a plotter, and highly intelligent. And he's certainly not adverse to indulging in brutal savagery to get his way. Slaughter in those days was the way to achieve peace. (In 'those days'?!)

- This summary of the poem on the front flap is excellent: 

'Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. 

This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the 'complicated' hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before.

Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson’s Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes Homer’s music; matching the number of lines in the Greek original, the poem sails along at Homer’s swift, smooth pace.'

(According to Wilson in a recent interview Christopher Nolan’s film is 'long, lightweight and profoundly disappointing').

(The book is 582 pages long and beautifully designed. And the price in Australia is only $31.99)

Lars Svendsen, Stupid Idiots

 

- Easily the most pointless book I’ve ever read. 

- All sensible people know what a ‘stupid idiot’ is. We don’t need ancient and modern philosophers to enlighten us. 

- And we all know Trump is a stupid idiot.

Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, Regime Change.

- Two very well respected journalists employed as White House correspondents by The New York Times have written a 'fly on the wall' account of the first fifteen months of Trump's 2024-2028 presidency. It's by far the best political book I've ever read - and I've read a lot of them. It's detailed and utterly absorbing. 

- It's a long 464 page immersion in the character and dynamics of Trump's regime. As readers we have a seat at every formal and informal meeting in the White House, and we're party to the debates, arguments and discussions of Trump's key players and their staff. How on earth Haberman and Swan got all these details is beyond me. There were obviously loads of leaks all the time. Their perspective is objective and descriptive and neither left wing nor right. (Though Trump has condemned the book as 'radical left'!). 

- The key players are by now well known to all of us: Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Pete Hegseth, Laura Loomer, Mike Waltz, Karoline Leavitt, J. D. Vance, Mike Johnson, Jerome Powell, Kash Patel, Jared Kushner and others. Their contributions and opinions are all covered in detail. And their frequent disagreements (the word 'fucking' is common). 

- As well the regular Trump and Netanyahu meetings are described in detail. Netanyahu's expert sucking up to Trump is fascinating. 

- Trump loves power. He continually interferes to exercise it. His normal work day is described, and the issues that have become problematic are delved into - the Epstein Files, Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve, Nvidia and AI, the aggressive use of the military in US cities, Venezuela and Maduro's capture and imprisonment, cryptocurrency, Trump's renaming of buildings and landmarks, the killing of innocent civilians by ICE agents, Trump's belief that he is the greatest President in US history, and others. 

- Covered in depth are the Iran ceasefire negotiations with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff that created the 'Board of Peace', which as we now know was worse than useless. And Netanyahu’s visit to the White House in March this year to persuade Trump to go to war. Which he did. 

- The Vance/Rubio contest for the 2028 election is also described. Trump remains 'neutral', though there's no doubt that Rubio is smarter and more than likely to get Trump's support. 

-The book is also very well written and superbly edited. An absolute must-read.