Conspiracies, mysterious deaths and as surprise guest: 14 new books to read this month
Learned Behaviours
Zeynab Gamieldien
Ultimo, $34.99
When Zaid Saban begins at Brookbank Boys High in western Sydney, he feels lost. He soon finds a friend in Hass Abdallah and their lives intertwine. But then those lives diverge: Zaid becomes a lawyer, Hass is charged with murder and takes his own life in jail. Years later, his sister Amira visits Zaid, asking for help with a diary she has found; she's puzzled by things Hass wrote. When his past resurfaces, Zaid knows he has not transcended it and his desire for certainty only leads to unwanted questioning and more uncertainty.
The Visitor
Rebecca Starford
Allen & Unwin, $32.99
This is the second novel from Rebecca Starford, co-founder with Hannah Kent, of the online literary journal Kill Your Darlings. The first was The Imitator, an acclaimed historical spy drama. The Visitor begins with an elderly couple deserting the Brisbane house they've lived in for 50 years. Why haven't they told Laura, their writer daughter, who's been living in Britain for ages? When the couple die in strange circumstances in the outback, Laura and her family return to Queensland to do up that family home. But why is Laura behaving so oddly, and what does a mysterious photograph reveal about events?
Conspiracy Nation
Ariel Bogle & Cam Wilson
Ultimo, $36.99
As the two authors who have long investigated the intersections of technology, culture, politics and the law write, 'It can come as a shock to a lot of Australians to find that their friends, families and workmates … now understand their lives through the prism of plots, cabals and Manichean fights between good versus evil'. Conspiratorial thinking and misinformation abound in Australia, particularly since COVID-19, and Bogle and Wilson explore the origins of a host of conspiracy theories, including those surrounding the Port Arthur massacre, COVID lockdowns and 'the 28″, an alleged cabal of paedophile politicians.
Yilkari
Nicholas Rothwell & Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson
Text, $34.99
It's fair to say that Nicholas Rothwell, winner of two prime minister's literary awards, writes books that are hard to categorise − an appealing thing these days when marketing forces hold such sway in publishing. Yes, he has written two novels, but both contained elements of autobiography, particularly his first, Heaven and Earth. Now he has joined forces with his Indigenous wife, former politician and now painter Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson, to write their 'suite' of the Western Desert. The arrival of a surprise guest, someone met 15 years earlier in Berlin, prompts a fascinating journey of awakening and spiritual discovery.
U Want It Darker
Murray Middleton
Picador, $34.99
Murray Middleton made his mark as a short-story writer – he won The Age award and then the Vogel – spent eight years on his first novel, the magnificent No Church in the Wild, and returns just over a year later with a collection of inventive stories that spotlight the angst and joys of the creative life. As our review will say: 'The dramatic situations are characterised by a collision of two irreconcilable desires: the impulse to create art with the spiritual toll and untenable economic realities. These are the lands of the crestfallen bohemian.'
The Last Days of Zane Grey
Vicki Hastrich
Allen & Unwin, $34.99
I knew of Zane Grey only as the legendary, huge-selling and prolific author of Westerns, notably Riders of the Purple Sage, whose work was frequently adapted by Hollywood, but there was more to him than that. Like Hemingway, he loved big-game fishing, and that passion brought him to Australia (with only 166 pieces of luggage) in search of creative inspiration and the chance to snag a giant shark in the sea off Bermagui. He made a film, White Death, and also managed a love affair with the alluring poet Lola Gornall. Vicki Hastrich, author of the acclaimed memoir Night Fishing, tells a fascinating story beautifully.
The Sea In The Metro
Jayne Tuttle
Hardie Grant, $34.99
Helen Garner described the writing in Jayne Tuttle's two memoirs about her life as an actor and more in Paris as 'joltingly alive, beautiful and terrifying'. The Sea in the Metro completes her trilogy, with Tuttle reassessing her life there and the intricacies of her relationship with her musician husband, M, giving birth to 'the Chunk', writing ads, meeting up again with her friend Sophie, in whose building she had the accident that nearly killed her, and the remarkable 'Balkans Doctor' with his 'bioregulatory medicine'. There is a great immediacy and candour here.
My Father Bryce
Adam Courtenay
Hachette, $34.99
Never let the facts get in the way of a story. It's a saying that epitomises the life of the late Bryce Courtenay, who burst onto the bestseller lists with The Power of One in 1989 and was a fixture there with his regular offerings of stonking great novels such as Jessica and Tommo & Hawk. Adam Courtenay reveals that his father was a wonderful dad to his three sons, but one whose loose relationship with the truth of his own life – 'Dad facts' – and addiction to success, fame, and being the best, challenged their connection.
Annie Magdalene
Barbara Hanrahan
Pink Shorts Press, $32.99
Barbara Hanrahan was known as a printmaker and painter, and then as a writer of novels that were unashamedly domestic and feminist. As The Australian Dictionary of Biograph y puts it, Hanrahan saw these creative forms as complementary: 'printmaking was instinctive and writing was intellectual'. First published 40 years ago, Annie Magdalene is the story of a woman looking back on her life. The prose is simple and direct, the sentiments profound. As Hanrahan writes, 'You must never talk loud to the bees, you must talk softly'.
The Leap
Paul Daley
Summit, $34.99
Paul Daley has followed his acclaimed Jesustown with a sort of Wake in Fright for the 2020s. Traumatised British diplomat Benedict Fotheringham-Gaskill is parachuted into The Leap, an outback town far from anywhere, to plead for the lives of two women accused of killing the daughter of local bigwig Cecil Sloper. Daley's novel exposes the years of appalling treatment of the Indigenous population and the worst of outback life. But there are saving graces for Benedict, and thrills for the reader right to the end.
Arboresence
Rhett Davis
Hachette, $32.99
Rhett Davis won an influential Victorian Premier's Literary Award in 2020 for an unpublished manuscript and when it was published, Hovering was described as 'immediately striking on both a conceptual and a formal level'. There were distinctly strange elements to it that continue in his second novel, in which a dissatisfied couple, Bren and Caelyn, find themselves drifting apart as Caelyn is attracted to the idea of the eponymous title – people turning themselves into trees. As our review says, Davis uses 'his distinctive creativity to interrogate, mock but ultimately affirm humanity'.
Nazis in Australia
Graham Blewitt & Mark Aarons
Schwartz, $39.99
August 11
This comprehensive book examines the history of the special investigations unit charged with finding the '841 alleged war criminals' who had escaped Europe to Australia after World War II. It was set up in 1987 and resulted in three prosecutions, none of which led to a conviction, and significant effort towards other potential charges. Here, essays examine the unit from various perspectives, including those of prosecution, defence and historians, and consider its legacy. As former deputy director Graham Blewitt writes, 'for a brief period in our legal history, we stood up and did the right thing'.
A Fair Day's Work
Sean Scalmer
MUP, $34.99
August 13
As the Albanese government prepares for its summit on productivity, the question to be asked is whether working Australians will come under pressure to give up some of the gains they have made since the advent of the eight-hour working day in the second half of the 19th century. Work-life balance remains crucial to all Australians and Sean Scalmer's assessment of the long quest for a 'fair day's work' rightly asks the timely question of whether productivity is increasingly associated 'with more time at work, not with more efficient performance of duties'.
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Fathering
Alistair Thomson et al
MUP, $39.99
August 13
The five authors of this extensive book say fathers and fathering 'are central to pressing concerns in contemporary Australia', concerns that include poor contribution to child care and domestic work; parental leave and family-friendly work; domestic violence, and the changes to the family structure. They look at individual fathers as case studies and also provide a historical survey of how the idea of being a father and the actuality of it has changed over the past century. A perfect gift for Father's Day?
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Sydney Morning Herald
16 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Looking for something to read? Here are 10 new books to try
This week's books range from an incongruously sunny haunted-house thriller and some high-ocatane espionage to a celebration of the joys of reading and the history of the dingo species. Happy reading! FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Notes on Infinity Austin Taylor Michael Joseph, $34.99 Notes on Infinity reminded me of the recent reports of scientific fraud by cancer researcher Professor Mark Smyth. It's science fiction, yes, but it also dives into the cutthroat world of contemporary biomedical research with great perspicacity and psychological insight. Jack and Zoe are gifted scientists who meet in a chemistry lab at MIT. A shared passion for their field predates any romance, and when their research into ageing suggests a treatment to increase human longevity might be viable and just around the corner, research grants and venture capital pour in. Within a few years, they've formed a company that could revolutionise not just the way we live, but how long we live for. But is their venture all it claims to be? As the pair fall genuinely in love, difficult truths – and worse, deceptions – will emerge from the trail of their ambition. Scandal and disaster lie in wait. Taylor has an absorbing writing style, and this sharply crafted campus romance swings effortlessly into the high-pressure environment of scientific research. It also introduces a change of perspective midway, complicating motivations and anchoring the book's inevitable sweep into genuine tragedy. Gothic fiction is supposed to be one of the shadowy arts. Drear and darkness. Fog and fen. Brooding gloom of one kind or another. Sunny days? Not so much, although Rebecca Starford's The Visitor goes to great lengths to invert the usual genre conventions and let the sunshine in. In this haunted house story, expat Laura returns from the UK to Brisbane, following her parents' sudden and mysterious demise in the Queensland outback. Laura must organise their affairs and sell her childhood home, and her 14-year-old daughter Tilly tags along for the ride – only to become increasingly concerned at her mother's strange behaviour. Bizarre events make Tilly wonder if the house might be truly haunted although, with a nosey neighbour in the mix, it's possible a more sinister human plot is afoot. And what of Laura's parents? Were they attempting to escape from the house when they met their deaths? As the characters confront the uncanny, buried trauma comes to light, promised shadows appear, and the novel's disorientations settle into a more classic, if sunlit, gothic tale. Some small fraction of espionage fiction is written by spooks and former spooks. Stella Rimington – the former director general of MI5 – turned to novel-writing in her retirement and Jack Beaumont, as a former French intelligence operative himself, has the same kind of cred. Liar's Game continues the globetrotting action series begun in The Frenchman. This time, French spy Alec de Payns is tasked with safely escorting a North Korean defector, who claims to have knowledge of a cyberattack which could destroy the global economy. When the defector dies in his arms before sharing crucial intel, the failure attracts the ire of his superiors, and it isn't long before another mission unravels. Suddenly, Alec is hung out to dry. He finds himself alone, hunted across South-East Asia and forced to rely on tradecraft to stay ahead of both the law and the lawless, on a solo mission to protect his family from retribution, and root out a sinister conspiracy that wants him dead. It's another fast-paced, high-octane contemporary spy novel from Beaumont, sure to please existing fans of the series and attract new ones into the fold. Eden Mark Brandi Hachette, $32.99 Ex-con Tom Blackburn has been inside for nine years, serving time for accessory to murder. Upon his release, his already narrow chances at rebuilding a life dwindle through further misfortune. He winds up sleeping rough and, following a tip, heads to the Melbourne General Cemetery to find somewhere among the graves. There, he encounters the overseer of the grounds, Cyril, and lucks onto a job as a casual caretaker, with a roof over his head to boot. But the past isn't done with Tom. A journalist is piqued by the mystery of how he came to be involved in the crime that sent him to jail, with questions that bring danger and trauma to the surface. Meanwhile, Cyril offers him a Faustian bargain that could turn what at first, seemed to be a source of sanctuary into a hellish position indeed. Melbourne – and particularly, its famed cemetery – are vividly depicted in Mark Brandi's Eden, and the novel explores gritty social and ethical problems with more intelligence and conscience than most crime fiction. Climbing in Heels Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas Corvus, $34.99 The hottest talent agency in 1980s Hollywood is about to get a shake-up. Three young secretaries are on the rise – fast-talking Valley Girl Beanie Rosen; posh and well-connected English beauty Mercedes Baxter; and Ella Gaddy, a blueblood from Kentucky – and they're determined to stake a claim in what remains solidly Mad Men territory. They'll execute a hostile takeover… or resort to tricks that make the Hollywood swamp so slimy, if that's what it takes. The tale of ambitious women in the pre-#Me Too Hollywood landscape could have been fascinating. Unfortunately, the book droops languidly in the middle, there's rather a lot of not-very-well-written sex in it, and the author seems to become sidetracked by the hedonism and corruption (and big hair) of '80s Hollywood, without advancing the plot. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has come up with a promising idea for a female friends and avengers narrative – the protagonists become almost the Charlie's Angels of Hollywood talent agents – but it's let down in the execution. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation Curated by Jennie Orchard Scribe, $35 'Good luck hides inside bad luck.' Novelist Nguyen Phan Que Mai knows this Vietnamese proverb to be true. When creditors came to claim her family's possessions, the only things they didn't seize were her books. During the dark time that followed, reading became her refuge. In these essays, writers reflect on the books that captured their imaginations when they were young and how they try to instil a passion for reading in the next generation. For Tristan Bancks, a storyteller for page and screen, life changed forever at the age of seven when he and some friends found Where Did I Come From? on the bookshelf. It was, they thought, 'the funniest, weirdest, most mind-boggling book on the planet.' He showed it to more friends and in this way reading became a communal and subversive pursuit. Helping kids fall under the spell of books has never been more urgent. Recent reports show reading for pleasure among children has slumped in Australia. This inspiring collection testifies to the life-changing power of books in a child's life. Plain Life. On thinking, feeling and deciding Antonia Pont NewSouth, $34.99 The word 'plain' is so wonderfully at odds with our flashy, extreme, hungry times. To live a plain life, says Antonia Pont, is to decide that your life is intrinsically 'enough'. This is not a form of low expectations or political acquiescence. If anything, it is a refusal of neoliberalism and the penetration of marketplace values into every aspect of life. As such a stance suggests, Plain Life is not a self-help book offering easily digestible rules for living. Pont's elliptical, playful, philosophical style requires readers slow down and observe the workings of their own minds, be curious about the fears they've suppressed and dare to feel them, and become aware of how they collude in their own misery. Drawing on her practice as a yoga teacher, she urges us to stay in the middle of our experience, the place where we can 'take a tiny holiday from a fixed perspective' and find a vast freedom in that. While this is not a straightforward read, the demands of Plain Life are well worth the effort. The Eagle & the Crow JM Field UQP, $24.99 This is not a book that lends itself to synopsis. In fact, it actively resists the reductive nature of such an enterprise. JM Field, a Gamilaraay man, is primarily speaking to his own people about their kinship system and how it endures in practice and in the 'libraries' held in the heads of Aunties. The system remains robust, he says because 'the architects of it, our old people, created a way of relating, and therefore organising, that colonisation could not break.' While general readers cannot expect to fathom the intricate mathematical nature of this kinship system because they are not of it and have not imbibed it through community, we are left with a better understanding of the complexity and vitality of Indigenous relations and the limits of our own world view. Field combines pithy, poetic statements with a series of essays that contrast Western approaches to knowledge as distinct disciplines 'ripped from context' and Indigenous knowledge in which kinship systems allow for 'participation in something much larger than ourselves.' As you'd expect, there are some dramatic rescue stories in this collection of tales from surf lifesavers. But it's the community, camaraderie and competition surf clubs provide that dominate these yarns. A recurring theme from club elders, many of whom remember the days of the old reel and line, is the thrill of surf-boat races, particularly the George Bass Surf Boat Marathon covering 200 kilometres along the NSW's south coast. A lifesaver from Darwin was 65 when she was asked to join a crew for the event. As she observes with laconic understatement, it was a challenge given the 'dubious ocean conditions' but 'it turned out okay'. This kind of grit is typical of these stories, along with a larrikin spirit and sense of humour. Many people, says John Baker, national president of Surf Lifesaving Australia, think 'we're just a mob of fit people hanging around the beach, wearing funny red and yellow caps', when they are, in fact, a well-trained emergency service dealing with all sorts of trauma. One of the many dissonances of the dingo story is that while Australians were happy to demonise this canine for preying on livestock, we were still ready to believe that Lindy Chamberlain, rather than a dingo, killed her baby. The dingo became an official outlaw after the passing of The Native Dogs Destruction Act in 1875, and it was said that it would be a blessing when this 'untameable brute' was made extinct. When Mark Twain came to Australia 20 years later, he saw a very different creature – 'shapely, graceful, a little wolfish but with a most friendly eye and sociable disposition.' Long before the arrival of Europeans, the dingo had a close relationship with Aboriginal people and had been incorporated into their Dreaming as a spiritual icon. In this history of the dingo, Roland Breckwoldt charts our evolving understanding of this now-threatened native animal.
The Age
16 hours ago
- The Age
Looking for something to read? Here are 10 new books to try
This week's books range from an incongruously sunny haunted-house thriller and some high-ocatane espionage to a celebration of the joys of reading and the history of the dingo species. Happy reading! FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK Notes on Infinity Austin Taylor Michael Joseph, $34.99 Notes on Infinity reminded me of the recent reports of scientific fraud by cancer researcher Professor Mark Smyth. It's science fiction, yes, but it also dives into the cutthroat world of contemporary biomedical research with great perspicacity and psychological insight. Jack and Zoe are gifted scientists who meet in a chemistry lab at MIT. A shared passion for their field predates any romance, and when their research into ageing suggests a treatment to increase human longevity might be viable and just around the corner, research grants and venture capital pour in. Within a few years, they've formed a company that could revolutionise not just the way we live, but how long we live for. But is their venture all it claims to be? As the pair fall genuinely in love, difficult truths – and worse, deceptions – will emerge from the trail of their ambition. Scandal and disaster lie in wait. Taylor has an absorbing writing style, and this sharply crafted campus romance swings effortlessly into the high-pressure environment of scientific research. It also introduces a change of perspective midway, complicating motivations and anchoring the book's inevitable sweep into genuine tragedy. Gothic fiction is supposed to be one of the shadowy arts. Drear and darkness. Fog and fen. Brooding gloom of one kind or another. Sunny days? Not so much, although Rebecca Starford's The Visitor goes to great lengths to invert the usual genre conventions and let the sunshine in. In this haunted house story, expat Laura returns from the UK to Brisbane, following her parents' sudden and mysterious demise in the Queensland outback. Laura must organise their affairs and sell her childhood home, and her 14-year-old daughter Tilly tags along for the ride – only to become increasingly concerned at her mother's strange behaviour. Bizarre events make Tilly wonder if the house might be truly haunted although, with a nosey neighbour in the mix, it's possible a more sinister human plot is afoot. And what of Laura's parents? Were they attempting to escape from the house when they met their deaths? As the characters confront the uncanny, buried trauma comes to light, promised shadows appear, and the novel's disorientations settle into a more classic, if sunlit, gothic tale. Some small fraction of espionage fiction is written by spooks and former spooks. Stella Rimington – the former director general of MI5 – turned to novel-writing in her retirement and Jack Beaumont, as a former French intelligence operative himself, has the same kind of cred. Liar's Game continues the globetrotting action series begun in The Frenchman. This time, French spy Alec de Payns is tasked with safely escorting a North Korean defector, who claims to have knowledge of a cyberattack which could destroy the global economy. When the defector dies in his arms before sharing crucial intel, the failure attracts the ire of his superiors, and it isn't long before another mission unravels. Suddenly, Alec is hung out to dry. He finds himself alone, hunted across South-East Asia and forced to rely on tradecraft to stay ahead of both the law and the lawless, on a solo mission to protect his family from retribution, and root out a sinister conspiracy that wants him dead. It's another fast-paced, high-octane contemporary spy novel from Beaumont, sure to please existing fans of the series and attract new ones into the fold. Eden Mark Brandi Hachette, $32.99 Ex-con Tom Blackburn has been inside for nine years, serving time for accessory to murder. Upon his release, his already narrow chances at rebuilding a life dwindle through further misfortune. He winds up sleeping rough and, following a tip, heads to the Melbourne General Cemetery to find somewhere among the graves. There, he encounters the overseer of the grounds, Cyril, and lucks onto a job as a casual caretaker, with a roof over his head to boot. But the past isn't done with Tom. A journalist is piqued by the mystery of how he came to be involved in the crime that sent him to jail, with questions that bring danger and trauma to the surface. Meanwhile, Cyril offers him a Faustian bargain that could turn what at first, seemed to be a source of sanctuary into a hellish position indeed. Melbourne – and particularly, its famed cemetery – are vividly depicted in Mark Brandi's Eden, and the novel explores gritty social and ethical problems with more intelligence and conscience than most crime fiction. Climbing in Heels Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas Corvus, $34.99 The hottest talent agency in 1980s Hollywood is about to get a shake-up. Three young secretaries are on the rise – fast-talking Valley Girl Beanie Rosen; posh and well-connected English beauty Mercedes Baxter; and Ella Gaddy, a blueblood from Kentucky – and they're determined to stake a claim in what remains solidly Mad Men territory. They'll execute a hostile takeover… or resort to tricks that make the Hollywood swamp so slimy, if that's what it takes. The tale of ambitious women in the pre-#Me Too Hollywood landscape could have been fascinating. Unfortunately, the book droops languidly in the middle, there's rather a lot of not-very-well-written sex in it, and the author seems to become sidetracked by the hedonism and corruption (and big hair) of '80s Hollywood, without advancing the plot. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas has come up with a promising idea for a female friends and avengers narrative – the protagonists become almost the Charlie's Angels of Hollywood talent agents – but it's let down in the execution. NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK The Gifts of Reading for the Next Generation Curated by Jennie Orchard Scribe, $35 'Good luck hides inside bad luck.' Novelist Nguyen Phan Que Mai knows this Vietnamese proverb to be true. When creditors came to claim her family's possessions, the only things they didn't seize were her books. During the dark time that followed, reading became her refuge. In these essays, writers reflect on the books that captured their imaginations when they were young and how they try to instil a passion for reading in the next generation. For Tristan Bancks, a storyteller for page and screen, life changed forever at the age of seven when he and some friends found Where Did I Come From? on the bookshelf. It was, they thought, 'the funniest, weirdest, most mind-boggling book on the planet.' He showed it to more friends and in this way reading became a communal and subversive pursuit. Helping kids fall under the spell of books has never been more urgent. Recent reports show reading for pleasure among children has slumped in Australia. This inspiring collection testifies to the life-changing power of books in a child's life. Plain Life. On thinking, feeling and deciding Antonia Pont NewSouth, $34.99 The word 'plain' is so wonderfully at odds with our flashy, extreme, hungry times. To live a plain life, says Antonia Pont, is to decide that your life is intrinsically 'enough'. This is not a form of low expectations or political acquiescence. If anything, it is a refusal of neoliberalism and the penetration of marketplace values into every aspect of life. As such a stance suggests, Plain Life is not a self-help book offering easily digestible rules for living. Pont's elliptical, playful, philosophical style requires readers slow down and observe the workings of their own minds, be curious about the fears they've suppressed and dare to feel them, and become aware of how they collude in their own misery. Drawing on her practice as a yoga teacher, she urges us to stay in the middle of our experience, the place where we can 'take a tiny holiday from a fixed perspective' and find a vast freedom in that. While this is not a straightforward read, the demands of Plain Life are well worth the effort. The Eagle & the Crow JM Field UQP, $24.99 This is not a book that lends itself to synopsis. In fact, it actively resists the reductive nature of such an enterprise. JM Field, a Gamilaraay man, is primarily speaking to his own people about their kinship system and how it endures in practice and in the 'libraries' held in the heads of Aunties. The system remains robust, he says because 'the architects of it, our old people, created a way of relating, and therefore organising, that colonisation could not break.' While general readers cannot expect to fathom the intricate mathematical nature of this kinship system because they are not of it and have not imbibed it through community, we are left with a better understanding of the complexity and vitality of Indigenous relations and the limits of our own world view. Field combines pithy, poetic statements with a series of essays that contrast Western approaches to knowledge as distinct disciplines 'ripped from context' and Indigenous knowledge in which kinship systems allow for 'participation in something much larger than ourselves.' As you'd expect, there are some dramatic rescue stories in this collection of tales from surf lifesavers. But it's the community, camaraderie and competition surf clubs provide that dominate these yarns. A recurring theme from club elders, many of whom remember the days of the old reel and line, is the thrill of surf-boat races, particularly the George Bass Surf Boat Marathon covering 200 kilometres along the NSW's south coast. A lifesaver from Darwin was 65 when she was asked to join a crew for the event. As she observes with laconic understatement, it was a challenge given the 'dubious ocean conditions' but 'it turned out okay'. This kind of grit is typical of these stories, along with a larrikin spirit and sense of humour. Many people, says John Baker, national president of Surf Lifesaving Australia, think 'we're just a mob of fit people hanging around the beach, wearing funny red and yellow caps', when they are, in fact, a well-trained emergency service dealing with all sorts of trauma. One of the many dissonances of the dingo story is that while Australians were happy to demonise this canine for preying on livestock, we were still ready to believe that Lindy Chamberlain, rather than a dingo, killed her baby. The dingo became an official outlaw after the passing of The Native Dogs Destruction Act in 1875, and it was said that it would be a blessing when this 'untameable brute' was made extinct. When Mark Twain came to Australia 20 years later, he saw a very different creature – 'shapely, graceful, a little wolfish but with a most friendly eye and sociable disposition.' Long before the arrival of Europeans, the dingo had a close relationship with Aboriginal people and had been incorporated into their Dreaming as a spiritual icon. In this history of the dingo, Roland Breckwoldt charts our evolving understanding of this now-threatened native animal.
Canberra Times
20 hours ago
- Canberra Times
Bye Bye Baby: Australian music pioneer Col Joye dies
Test your skills with interactive crosswords, sudoku & trivia. Fresh daily! Your digital replica of Today's Paper. Ready to read from 5am! Be the first to know when news breaks. As it happens Get news, reviews and expert insights every Thursday from CarExpert, ACM's exclusive motoring partner. Get real, Australia! Let the ACM network's editors and journalists bring you news and views from all over. Get the very best journalism from The Canberra Times by signing up to our special reports. As it happens Your essential national news digest: all the big issues on Wednesday and great reading every Saturday. Sharp. Close to the ground. Digging deep. Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs, politics and more. Every Saturday and Tuesday, explore destinations deals, tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe. Get the latest property and development news here. We've selected the best reading for your weekend. Join our weekly poll for Canberra Times readers. Your exclusive preview of David Pope's latest cartoon. Going out or staying in? Find out what's on. Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. Don't miss updates on news about the Public Service. As it happens Today's top stories curated by our news team. Also includes evening update. More from Entertainment Further details of Joye's passing on Tuesday are still to be publicly released. "He will be sadly missed." "Our deepest condolences go to Col's family. "At a time when the local industry was dominated by US and UK artists, he proved that Australians would embrace local artists and local music," CEO Annabelle Herd said in a statement. The Australian Recording Industry Association paid tribute to Joye, saying he made a remarkable contribution to the local music scene for more than six decades. Normie Rowe (right), with rock legends Brian Cadd and Col Joye, has paid tribute to his idol. (Julian Smith/AAP PHOTOS) "Col was in my psyche right throughout my entire life. I watched him and I thought, 'if I'm going to be a singer, that's the sort of singer I want to be'." Australian singer and songwriter Normie Rowe told the ABC on Wednesday that Joye was one of his idols. The families spent years warring in local and international courts over the profits for the highly-lucrative musical, with Jacobsen declaring bankruptcy in 2011 amid claims he'd been cheated out of the rights to the multimillion-dollar production. Ructions over the roles of Amber and Michael escalated, with a lawsuit over Jacobsen's handling of the Dirty Dancing stage musical and the collapse in 2009 of Arena Management, a Jacobsen company headed by Michael. The float was a debacle, raising only $8 million, and the company was placed in administration less than a year after its launch. It began when the second generation joined the firm - Joye's daughter Amber joined in 1997 and Kevin Jacobsen's son Michael in 2002, when Joye and Jacobsen decided to create Jacobsen Entertainment and float it on the stock exchange. A family feud pulled the Jacobsen Group to pieces in March 2012. In 2001, the ABC series Long Way to the Top noted his star power and honoured his career. However, he made a full recovery and decided to retire from performing. In 1990, Joye fell from a tree, suffering head injuries which left him in a coma. Joye was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1988, the first entertainer to be honoured. In 1983, Joye was awarded the Order of Australia for his work as an entertainer and his philanthropic work. Col and his brother Kevin later formed the management company Jacobsen Group, which also handled publishing and recording for famous clients like The Bee Gees. After Beatlemania hit Australia, Joye had to wait until 1973 for his next number one single, which was Heaven Is My Woman's Love. The artists later visited injured soldiers in hospital after the battle. Joye also toured Vietnam with singer Little Pattie to entertain Australian troops, most famously on August 18, 1966, at Nui Dat when the Battle of Long Tan began nearby. Col Joye and the Joyboys were the first Australian rock band to reach the American Billboard chart in 1959, touring the US with Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs in the mid-1960s and early 70s. Billy Thorpe and Col Joye were at the vanguard of Australia's rock industry. (Dean Lewins/AAP PHOTOS) On the advice of a clairvoyant, he changed his name to Col Joye and became a regular on the music show Bandstand for 14 years. The Jacobsen brothers released two singles in 1959 - Stagger Lee and Bye Bye Baby - with the latter reaching number one in the charts, establishing Joye as a major star. Joye was born Colin Jacobsen on April 13, 1939, in Sydney and left school at 14 to work as a salesman for a jeweller and start a band with his brothers Kevin and Keith. All other regional websites in your area The digital version of Today's Paper All articles from our website & app Login or signup to continue reading Subscribe now for unlimited access. Musician, entertainer and entrepreneur Col Joye has died aged 89, after a career that earned him dozens of gold and platinum records, studded with successive number one hits. Col Joye's musical and business career endured many highs and lows over almost 70 years. Photo: Matthias Engesser/AAP PHOTOS Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper. 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