Following the tradition set by his father and grandfather, Australian Harry Hull is severely wounded serving in Nam. Harry returns to live with his father in the Sidney suburbs. His GI Joe dad, known for drinking beer with a straw due to a World War II injury, obtains a job for his son as a reporter with the Herald. While working there, Harry falls in love with Lucy Whitmoor. They share a seven-year affair while he observes the deterioration of his father.

When Joe dies, Harry feels alone and withdraws emotionally from everyone including Lucy. This ends their relationship as she can no longer reach him. Lucy leaves Sydney carrying Harry's child. When she returns she informs Harry she gave up their child for adoption. Harry needs to know why, but the truth may prove more devastating then he will ever want to see.

Thomas Moran leaves no rock unturned with this insightful look from within of an "emotionally blind" person that seems more like an everyman "nowhere man". By the time Harry learns the meaning of life, he is too acrimoniously human. The story line is told from Harry's Monday morning perspective as he begins to understand what he lost. WHAT HARRY SAW is well written and as deep and baring as a tale can be, but should carry a warning label that this is also as sobering as any novel has been in years. The light at the end of the tunnel is an on rushing train fueled by despair and hopelessness.

Harriet Klausner

John Kinsella is an award winning poet, a successful novelist and playwrite. He uses his "well known" status (he objects to the use of the word fame) to work proactively (by setting a good example) to better the world. I recently interviewed him for an article in my college's newspaper (the Collegian at Kenyon College in Ohio--where he just accepted the Richard L Thomas Chair of Creative writing for one semester) and he told me he is donating the royalties from this book to land rights councils which are trying to have ancestral land returned to the Indigenous people of Australia and work to grant the Indigenous people greater autonomy over their own lives. So buy a book (i haven't read it, but even if i had you'd have to judge for yourself)collaborated on by at least one amazing person (i have not met Dorthy Hewett), support poetry and a hope for a better world.

This is a review by Warriapendi book Club in Mundaring Shire, Western Australia.

Alice's story is in transcript style which does not give the full picture of her life but if it had been written differently it may have lost the feel of her personality and it did feel genuine. This book brought home to us the the really dreadful things that happened to Aboriginal people right up to the mid nineteen seventies. Two of our members can remember their local Churches placing children from missions with them for Christmas lunch each year which must have made the children feel very awkward. Queen Elizabeth was given a copy of this book during her recent visit to Busselton, we hope she has time to read it.

There are two biographies of Whiteley that came out at about the same time. I recommend both. The other was written by his sister, Frannie Hopkirk. This is the more salacious of the two, and really gets into the dissolute life which led to Whiteley's accidental(?), certainly untimely death by heroin overdose. Read both, though the tension building to the climax is better in the Hopkirk volume.

This book is a scream, a howl, and a serious showing of how perception alters reality. The kangaroo thinks she is upside down because the picture in a book tells her so. She feels miserable. When her baby "corrects" the picture, everything is right again. The pictures are a delight.... especially the pictures of "YOU" standing around where you live, not doing much of anything! The expressions on the momma kangaroo's face are worth the price of admission.

This book caught my eye at the library and, after checking it out I decided I had to have it for my own. The author is from Australia and derives her design from nature located there. It has lush illustrations and wonderful applications for wool embroidering on clothing, purses, etc. The instructions are clear and consise and there are new stitches and techniques included. Patterns for the vests, purses, tea cozies and other items are included.

Although this book is pricey, it's pretty good. Over 200 coffee-table book-size pages, with fairly detailed text and over 400 colour photographs, it is a stunningly visual and fairly exhaustive natural history of New Zealand. Contributors include the World Wide Fund for Nature, New Zealand Department of Conservation, leading scientists, and a host of other contributors. From the small Kermadec Islands in the north, to the southernmost oceanic islands, the natural history and beauty of this wonderful land is faithfully depicted. There are also interesting discussions on ecotourism and conservation, and the indigenous and European impacts on the native flora and fauna.

There is a little bit of south pacific paradise in New Zealand, a little bit of wild antarctic, a little bit of alpine seclusion, and a little bit of volcanic other-worldliness, to the place. Some of the walks are world class-as anyone who has done the Routeburn (me!), or the Milford Track, or Tongariro National Park will tell you. These areas are all described and depicted in the text.

Its cultural and natural history of course, is exquisite-New Zealand has, for example, a great abundance of exotic and endemic birdlife in particular, which evolved to fill vacant ecological niches in the absence of mammals. New Zealand was separated from the ancient Gondwana landmass very early, and mammals simply weren't around yet to evolve and compete with other wildlife. Jared Diamond in the book "The Third Chimpanzee" describes the initial polynesian visitation about 1000 years ago, as something like finding life on another planet. Huge Moa birds and the world's largest eagle (now extinct) greeted them. Moa hunting grounds and bones are still being found today.

It was the last great landmass to be found by humans, and still retains much of its ancient exotic beauty and ruggedness, faithfully depicted in this book.

J'ai lu et relu ce livre. Voici un livre prenant qui m'a donné envie de lire les autres livres d'Upfield.

The Winds of Evil is Arthur Upfield at his best. We have Detective-Inspector Napolean Bonaparte using his bush skills and his brain. We have a plot where it isn't obvious "whodunnit". And we have the benefit of Upfield's gift for describing the town, the surroundings, and the winds of evil themselves, as evidenced in the opening pages. This is definitely my favourite so far of all of the Arthur Upfield books that I've read.

This book is so funny I've really embarassed myself on public transport laughing aloud. Forget all other books about Australia, this tells you what it is really like in sharp, witty style. Buy it before you go there. definitely