Tag: Australia

2018, book review, narrative nonfiction, true crime

25 Years of a Mysterious Australian Cold Case

Book review: The Phillip Island Murder, by Vikki Petraitis and Paul Daley (Amazon / Book Depository / ebook available directly from Clan Destine Press) Listening through back episodes of the eerie and excellent Australian true crime podcast Casefile, I came across one that featured such a perplexing story: that of the 1986 murder of 23-year-old Beth Barnard, and the simultaneous disappearance of Vivienne Cameron. These two … Continue reading 25 Years of a Mysterious Australian Cold Case

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2018, book review, investigative journalism, narrative nonfiction, science

A Cancer Con Exposes the Sick Side of “Wellness”

Book review: The Woman Who Fooled the World, by Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano Amazon The front cover of the book whispered of a back-to-basics approach to wellness, lifestyle and nutrition. Of course, Gibson had no expertise in any such area. But that didn’t matter. Her credentials were listed in the first words of the very first sentence on the back cover. Social media sensation. … Continue reading A Cancer Con Exposes the Sick Side of “Wellness”

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2018, book review, memoir, politics

A Darkly Funny, Sweet Coming-of-Age Story Between Two Countries

Book review: Miss Ex-Yugoslavia, by Sofija Stefanovic Amazon My mother said, “just imagine this situation we’re in is a massive black cloud falling from the sky, and be like a net. Allow it to pass through you.” I pictured a net through which a black cloud is squeezed, dispersing into many pieces; I imagined holding my breath as it passed, careful not to catch the … Continue reading A Darkly Funny, Sweet Coming-of-Age Story Between Two Countries

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2018, book review, narrative nonfiction

Cleaning the Pain of Others’ Lives With Lessons Learned From Her Own

Book review: The Trauma Cleaner, by Sarah Krasnostein (Amazon / Book Depository) This is how it ends, sometimes, with strangers in gloves looking at your blood and your too-many bottles of shampoo and your now-ironic Make Positive Changes postcard of Krishna and the last TV channel you flipped to on the night you died and the way the sun hits the tree outside your bedroom … Continue reading Cleaning the Pain of Others’ Lives With Lessons Learned From Her Own

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2016, history, true crime, world war II

Drowning in the past

Book review: The Drowned Man, by Brendan James Murray (Amazon / Book Depository) A chance meeting in a fish and chip shop with a veteran sailor of the WWII battle cruiser HMAS Australia was the catalyst that eventually led to this extensively, even exhaustively, researched story. Brendan James Murray encounters an elderly man who proudly tells a brief story about a gay sailor who was … Continue reading Drowning in the past

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