captainfez's reviews
1052 reviews

The interviews and profiles in this book are probably not the hardest thing in the world for Eliezer to have put together; he's written on the Australian music industry (in the 'industry' vein) for a number of years.

More thumbnail sketch than in-depth portrait, there's enough tidbits of interest salted through the work to keep the attention of the reader for the duration.

Shane Simpson's profile seems a little short compared to some of the others in the book, and it's a worry that some of the references are sourced from "unknown". More rigid editing would have worked, too.

If you've an interest in the Australian music scene, this is a worthwhile - though not essential read.

Admittedly, I came to this having seen There Will Be Blood, so I don't think that my expectations were exactly matched with what I read.

That said, Sinclair's book goes into a lot more detail about both the period covered, the oil business in general, and the clashes between workers and bosses.

The writing style is occasionally very laboured, and it reads a little like a "Become A Red And Save The World!" primer - but there is a sense of protection that one gathers for the lead characters as the novel progresses.

Sure, this could be a little more brief, but as a period epic - and that's pretty much what this is - it's a reasonable read.

Brilliant. A guidebook to Japanese spooks - more along traditional lines than Sadako, say - that's written with humour. Illustrations within perfectly capture the personalities of the monsters, and they're ranked from incredibly dangerous to wimpy-as-hell.

If you're interested in Japanese mythology and folklore, this is a worthy read, presented in a fun way.

This 1930s travelogue is, at times, a frustrating read. It's obvious that Quennell plays favourites with Japan and China - Japan wins out - but his snobbiness sometimes has a way of occluding possible insight.

By today's standards, it's quite a racist work, and one that seems unfairly dismissive of Japan. However, that could just be the inability of the author to make up his mind, or his confusion over the contradictions of the culture; there's plenty of instances where he's agog at an aspect of Japanese life.

Most of the book focuses on the Japanese constituent of his travels. China is presented as a place to escape to (albeit a crumbling refuge) when the nature of Japan becomes too much. He's particularly critical, yet his fish-out-of-water observations of a trip to Yoshiwara (a pleasure quarter) and a kabuki performance are important. Also noteworthy is his ready acceptance of a blast of opium - according to this superior European, it's not addictive - so puff away!

I suppose that I was equally interested and irritated by Quennell's journey, but a lot of that has to be chalked up to generational difference. It's an interesting tome, but perhaps not essential as far as China/Japan travelogues go.

If you have any interest in the recent history of Australian law, it's worth seeking out this collection of Chester Porter's writings. A QC who featured in some of the most prominent cases of recent years - including the Royal Commission which overturned the Chamberlain convictions, the Roger Rogerson case and the case of Andrew Kalazjich - Porter has an amazing memory for detail, and conveys his impressions of both cases and members of the judiciary with aplomb.

While there is something of a lean towards repetition in his writing - some of the cases do date from over 50 years ago, after all - the impressions of Porter are very interesting, particularly where legal reform is concerned.

If you've read and enjoyed Burroughs' 'Running With Scissors' then there's really no excuse for not reading 'A Wolf at the Table' - purely because it provides the other half of the story.

Let me clarify. While Burroughs' earlier memoir revealed what a uniquely torturous childhood he'd had, it also presented it in a very John Irving kind of way - horrible, yet camp and darkly fabulous. There were, amongst the freaky parenting and bizarre psychotherapy (wankroom, anyone?) moments of happiness there, and it served to lighten the edge of the work.

That's not the case in this memoir. It speaks pretty much exclusively of Burroughs' father - a figure who's not really mentioned at all in the earlier work. And from what's contained here, it seems that mentioning him at all is something that's required a lot of time to pass - the man is truly monstrous to his son, who merely wants to be loved.

This is a strong, brave book. Burroughs' style is a little uneven, and I found my attention occasionally wandering - but his prose is much tighter this time around, and some of the horror of the family unit will quickly bring your attention back to the page.

This is a deeply, deeply sad book to read, but it's worthwhile. It's amazing Burroughs survived at all, let alone lived to write something as confronting as this.

Lafcadio Hearn, born to Greek and Irish parents, eventually attained Japanese citizenship and took the name Koizumi Yakumo. His writings on Japan provided a window on a country that - at the time he was producing material - was still a land of mystery to foreign readers. And Kwaidan - a collection of "ghostly" tales - is perhaps his most well-known work.

Kwaidan - the source for some of the stories featured in the film of the same name - is not a collection of ghost stories in the way that you'd expect. Rather than dripping blood and zombification, the stories highlight the uncanny side of life. Nothing that happens here - scary as they might be to the characters involved - is considered to be anything other than a part of nature. It's interesting - Hearn's writing conveys far more effectively the mixture of influences on Japanese folktale and mythology than other writers I've encountered so far.

The academic side of Hearn's reinterpretation of these old tales - the roots of the stories told come from older texts - is evident but not cloying. Indeed, the part of the book I thought I'd enjoy least - his treatises on different insects - came to be my favourite part of the work. The study of butterfly haiku, and of the sex-life of ants are things that aren't soon forgotten.

This was the second collection of Lafcadio Hearn's writings that I've read, and I have to say that it's not as successful as Kwaidan.

Of course, this is probably due to the fact that Kwaidan's generally more skewed towards the storytelling side of things. In Ghostly Japan is more interested in analysing parts of the Japanese culture rather than attempting to convey some feelings of spookiness.

Spookiness isn't really in this collection of stories - like Kwaidan, it focuses more on the mysterious side of life, in an everyday day - that is, when it's not discussing the completely everyday. Interestingly, it's these that provide more interest; the writing on Buddhist proverbs and on incense prove a little more interesting than the truly ectoplasmic tales.

It's still worth a read, however; Hearn's prose is subtle and sensitive.

Based purely on how he seems to come across in interviews, I'd avoided reading any Thomas Kenneally. I had always suspected that his books would be a little too smug, too self-satisfied for me to handle.

Thankfully, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith proved me wrong.

The novel - now a curriculum staple - is a fictionalised tale of crime and punishment, but mostly is about the interaction between Caucasian and Aborigine circa Australian Federation. The titular character is a half-caste, so not at home in black or white worlds - and this frustration leads to murder and evasion.

It's a risky plan, attempting to write black history from a white perspective. Kenneally himself admits he wouldn't think himself so bold to be able to do the same today. Still, for the indelicacy of the approach, there is a real sense of the spiritual rubbing against the colonial - of the yaw and pitch of the country of the time.

This Michael Crichton bacteriological classic is short, but sweet. One of the few thrillers I've read that came with a series of scientific references appended, the tale is something of a scientific whatisit (as opposed to a whodunnit) with the survival of the earth's populous at stake.

As with most of Crichton's work, this book is complete airport fodder, but it's airport fodder that doesn't make you feel like a moron for reading it. The level of research is undoubted, though I suppose it is difficult to imagine how far-fetched some of what appears in the book (computer analysis of blood tests, saferooms, the general level of computer assistance in the experimental situation) must have seemed upon publication; it's all something that 2009's readers would consider normal.

Short and with a pace that ratchets up somewhat towards the story's end, The Andromeda Strain is taut kinda-sorta sci-fi that you won't feel ashamed to read.