'In her expansive biography of the New York–based Shirley Hazzard, published two years ago, Brigitta Olubas revealed that the writer corresponded for many years with the Sydney novelist Elizabeth Harrower. Harrower had never met Hazzard when they began writing to each other, but she had become friendly with Kit Hazzard, her difficult mother, in the 1960s and gradually found herself taking responsibility for her care in Sydney while Shirley stayed on in New York and Europe. The slightly shocking revelation that the relatively successful international writer had imposed her daughterly duties on the struggling local novelist reinforces a sense that Hazzard was rather haughty and self-centred.' (Introduction)
'Iain McCalman begins John Büsst: Bohemian Artist and Saviour of Reef and Rainforest, his account of another man’s heroic environmental activism, by inserting himself artfully into his introductory narrative. Here, he is the historian who missed something when he was writing The Reef, his acclaimed “passionate history” of the Great Barrier Reef, a decade ago.' (Introduction)
