'In October 1999, in his 84th year, Morris West died at his desk, as Charles Dickens had, as Robert B. Parker would. His final work, published posthumously in 2000, was The Last Confession, his account of Dominican friar and cosmologist Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for heresy by the Inquisition in 1600 and whose career and example had long fascinated West.' (Introduction)
'Since the late 1980s, the work of John Kinsella has been protean and prodigious. At times a pastoral poet (some say anti-pastoral), such as with The Silo (1995), at others an experimental one. as in Syzgy (1993), Kinsella is best known these days as an eco-poet, a term to which his work has given an almost definitional focus.' (Introduction)
'Gareth Evans is one of the most formidable figures in external affairs since HR Evatt. The former foreign minister’s memoir, Incorrigible Optimist, is a vividly articulated account of life in and after politics, passionately argued and richly anecdotal at the same time.' (Introduction)
'The sacking of Troy, Henry VIII and his wives, and the life and trial of Joan of Arc are among the brassy blockbusters of history. What draws novelists, filmmakers, playwrights and other myth-makers back to these stories when they have been told thousands of times before?' (Introduction)
