Cirrus@Austlit

'Albert Namatjira’s descendants have long sought to regain control of his copyright, so far to no avail. But that may be set to change, writes Rosemary Neill'

'Let’s start with this: David Stratton isn’t always right about a film. “I have known him to change his mind,’’ Russell Crowe notes in one of the dozens of star-studded interviews that add to the celebrity yet also the intimacy of this fascinating documentary on 77-year-old Stratton and the movies that made him.' (Introduction)

'Craig Silvey’s well-regarded novel Jasper Jones has frequently been compared with To Kill a Mockingbird because of its depiction of simmering racism in a small town. It’s a comparison that really isn’t fair to Silvey because it raises expectations that can hardly be fulfilled. The same goes for Rachel Perkins’s beautifully made film version: if you go to see it expecting the same impact made by Robert Mulligan’s memorable 1962 version of Harper Lee’s book, you’ll probably come away disappointed; but if you go with an open mind, you should be amply rewarded.' (Introduction)

'In the opening of Michael Sala’s second novel, a family arrives in Newcastle, NSW, in 1989 to restore a dilapidated inner-city terrace. But it is not only the restoration of the house that is at stake in this remarkable novel. The family itself is built on unstable foundations.' (Introduction)

'Caroline Baum is the only child of displaced parents. Her father arrived in London at age 10 on one of the first kindertransport from Vienna in December 1938. Her French, not Jewish, ­mother was orphaned at five by a horrifying family tragedy. Caroline was born in 1958 in London, where her parents had settled to construct a life together in neutral territory.' (Introduction)