Random thoughts and observations
I finished Jessica by Bryce Courtenay in one day of holiday reading. It’s a powerful novel by the master storyteller set mostly in rural New South Wales from the years leading up to the First World War through to the Great Depression. Although gripping, the end left me disenchanted and after some belated sleep I [...]
Reading Stewart Cockburn’s biography of Sir Thomas Playford dispelled a couple of myths. I falsely believed that Playford created the gerrymander which helped keep him in power for a Commonwealth record 26 years, and that he was responsible for merging the conservatives with the Country Party. Both of these circumstances occurred shortly before Playford began [...]
Mr American by George MacDonald Fraser is a pleasant wander through 585 pages. Not in the same league as the Flashman series, the story meanders, tackles social issues, skirts around social issues, entertains and frustrates, but generally leaves the reader feeling good. The main character is Mark Franklin, an American who sets tongues wagging in [...]
I’ve just finished reading a great yarn by Greg de Moore on Tom Wills: His Spectacular Rise and Tragic Fall. Thomas Wentworth Wills (1835 – 1880) is described in the book’s subtitle as a “charmer, scoundrel and visionary sportsman”. He was certainly all of those things; a fascinating man, a sporting hero laid to waste [...]
Two interesting reports caught my eye tonight: one that Jesus played cricket and the other that William Shakespeare was a Catholic. Neither comes as a shock. There have long been rumors that Bill was a Mick, but author Joseph Pearce has apparently found new evidence. Jesus would have been a great opening batsman and handy [...]
