March 2025, no. 473
ABR looks at lives and their legacies. Timothy J. Lynch reviews a biography of Ronald Reagan, Sheila Fitzpatrick another on Angela Merkel, and Simon Tormey surveys a memoir by Boris Johnson. We have Susan Sheridan on Joan Lindsay, Glyn Davis on great leaders, and James Walter on Robert Menzies. Our cover features You Yang Ponds by Fred Williams and Christopher Allen reviews The Diaries of Fred Williams, 1963-1970 by Patrick McCaughey. Ebony Nilsson unearths letters sent to Menzies during the Petrov Affair and Andrea Goldsmith addresses her ‘unread books’. We review works by Fredric Jameson and Colm Tóibín, about Indie porn, films The Brutalist and Babygirl, a poetry collection from Eileen Chong, fiction by Olga Tokarczuk and much more.
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Full Contents
Biography
Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021 by Angela Merkel with Beate Baumann translated from the German by Alice Tetley-Paul et al.
Biography
Joan Lindsay: The hidden life of the woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock by Brenda Niall
Politics
The Menzies Ascendency: Fortune, stability, progress 1954-1961 edited by Zachary Gorman
by James Walter
Science
Einstein in Oxford by Andrew Robinson & Einstein and the Quantum Revolutions by Alain Aspect translated from the French by Teresa Lavender Fagan
Photography
Until Justice Comes by Juno Gemes & Imagining a Real Australia by Stephen Zagala
Memoir
The Use of Photography by Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie, translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer
by Beth Kearney
History
The Titans of the Twentieth Century: How they made history and the history they made by Michael Mandelbaum
by Glyn Davis
Australian History
The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History: Second Edition edited by Wilfrid Prest
United States
The Migrant’s Jail: An American history of mass incarceration by Brianna Nofil
by Marilyn Lake
Fiction
The Empusium: A health report horror story by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Fiction
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim & Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary
Art
The Diaries of Fred Williams, 1963-1970 edited by Patrick McCaughey with John Timlin
Letters
The Letters of Emily Dickinson by Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell
Literary Studies
The Years of Theory by Fredric Jameson & Inventions of a Present by Fredric Jameson
by Paul Giles
Literary Studies
Code Name Puritan: Norman Holmes Pearson at the nexus of poetry, espionage, and American power by Greg Barnhisel
by John Hawke
Essay Collection
Essays That Changed Australia: Meanjin 1940 to today edited by Esther Anatolitis
Music
Carlo Felice Cillario: Italian maestro of the Australian Opera by Stephen Mould
Film
Australia at the Movies: The ultimate guide to modern Australian cinema 1990-2020 by David Stratton
Natural History