Feminist Book review

In today’s book review, I’m doing a combined review of two Australian feminist books that were published in 2008. The Great Feminist Denial, by Monica Dux and Zora Simic, and The F word – how we learned to swear by Feminism, by Jane Caro and Catherine Fox. First a disclosure of my biases. I got [...]

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Book Review – The Unthinkable

Today’s book review is The Unthinkable – Who survies when disaster strikes – and why by Amanda Ripley.
When I was in year 5 at school, I shocked my teacher by writing in a book review that I liked a book which involved an earthquake (Ballet shoes for Anna) because ”I like books about disasters”. I like [...]

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Book Review: HIH – The Inside Story of Australia’s Biggest Corporate Collapse

I’m just back from a week’s holiday up in far north Queensland, so I’ve got a few books to review.
First cab off the rank is HIH – The Inside Story of Australia’s Biggest Corporate Collapse, by Mark Westfield, who is the journalist who kept the pressure on HIH for most of its last two years, [...]

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Book Review: The Secret River

Today, on Australia Day, it seems appropriate to write about The Secret River, by Kate Grenville.
Australia Day commemorates the day in 1788 when the First Fleet landed in Sydney Cove with a cargo of convicts from Britain. The first recorded time that Europeans settled in Australia. Many Aboriginal people call it Invasion Day, and hold [...]

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Book Review: Immigrants – Your country needs them

Today’s book review is Immigrants – Your Country needs them, by Philippe Legrain. Legrain is a British journalist (but with a complex heritage involving Estonia, the US and France) who started writing this book just after the July 2005 terrorist attacks on London.
The book’s introduction is titled “It’s time for fresh thinking about immigration”, and it [...]

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Book Review: Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Today’s book review is Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I first came across the concept of Flow in my previous job, where it was presented to us as a concept that will help you manage people better – that you should try and manage people so that they were in a [...]

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Book Review: Strategy and the Fat Smoker

Today’s book review is Strategy and the Fat Smoker, by David Maister. First, a disclosure. In a first for me, I got this book as an advance copy for review on my blog. And given that David Maister has been one of my favourite business writers for a while (since I read his book Managing [...]

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Book Review: the Death and Life of Great American Cities

Today’s review is The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. This is a book I never would have read without my blogging habit. When she died last year, several of my favourite bloggers wrote about her.
The book is an indictment of pretty much everything about American cities (particularly New York) in [...]

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A great leader

An alcoholic, manic-depressive, plagued with self doubt, he spent all but three years of his working life working for the unions before being elected to parliament.  Alternatively, the man regarded by many as Australia’s greatest leader – wartime Prime Minister John Curtin.
After watching the miniseries Curtin six months ago, I realised how little I knew [...]

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Six Favourite Toddler Books

Unrelaxed Dad has created a new meme. It’s about time I wrote a new post, but I’m too tired to be creative tonight, and besides, it’s about time I blogged about children’s books. Basically the meme is to choose six books that you read to a toddler that both of you enjoy. A crucial caveat [...]

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