I wonder if it says more about me than many that I can better describe the key landmarks on the battlefields of Gettsyburg and Antietam than I can Gallipoli. It was with that realisation and the then soon-to-be-aired Gallipoli on Channel 9 that I read Prof Peter Stanley’s excellent book – Quinn’s Post, Anzac, Gallipoli. And
Counterfactual history is a genre based on the question ‘what if?’. It’s one of my favourite types of fiction, combining creativity based on historical events. Some prominent authors include Australian John Birmingham, with his series Axis of Time, and American Harry Turtledove (though I’ve passed his series on aliens invading the world). Invariably, the parallel
Where to start in reviewing this 520-page tome? WHAT a book. This book is not just a biography on Canadian media / technology owner and magnate, Ted Rogers, although that’s what I bought it for. It is much, much more than a biography, providing detailed insights into the personality and drive of Rogers, whose name
This review coincides with the first anniversary of the passing of Major Richard Winters. Major Winters died in January 2011, aged 92. I was given this book for Christmas and finished it on New Year’s Day. Beyond Band of Brothers was first published in the US in 2006, only a few years after the TV miniseries
There are cricket books, and then there are cricket books. Such are the mysteries of life, that sometimes you read a cricket book and put it down, never to really remember it. Others, the really good ones, make you think. I could happily wax lyrical about this book, but then I’d rather you go and
As someone who reads widely across history, and has an interest in military history, I approached this book not knowing much about the subject. By the end of the book, I felt incredibly sad, I felt angry, and I felt relieved knowing that it would very unlikely anyone I knew would have to go through
Back to the Studio is a series of interview-based chapters on Australian radio and TV sporting commentators, by Peter Meares. Not a hard read, it’s good for getting for a trip where you can meander in and out, or just have it lying round the house, to have there for a chapter here, a chapter
Sometimes TV series made from the stories of books don’t work. Sometimes a book which you think will be a rip-roaring yarn will surprise you. Sometimes you get to the end of a book and go ‘that goodness that is over’. Normally, I’m a fair, if not enthusiastic reviewer – that’s because I actually like
To be honest, I bought this book on Kindle out of curiosity to learn, if I could, what the fuss was about with Paul Henry – the enfant terrible of New Zealand media. I then went and firstly read the final few chapters which deal with his time on TVNZ and the issues that led
Robert Leckie’s tome on the United States Marines’ battles in the Pacific is intense as it is detailed – nearly 600 pages – and covered in a way that I found at times shocking, but also captivating. This book looks at the battles the Marines fought, often in great detail, from their landings on Guadalcanal