Cirrus@Austlit

'A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia's frontier wars

'David Marr was shocked to discover forebears who served with the brutal Native Police in the bloodiest years on the frontier. Killing for Country is the result – a soul-searching Australian history.

'This is a richly detailed saga of politics and power in the colonial world – of land seized, fortunes made and lost, and the violence let loose as squatters and their allies fought for possession of the country – a war still unresolved in today's Australia.' (Publication summary)

'Katharine Murphy chats with journalist David Marr about her new Quarterly Essay: The End of Certainty - Scott Morrison and Pandemic Politics. This conversation was recorded online during the Covid-19 crisis.' (Production summary)

'Thomas, Timothy and the ‘miserably homosexual’ Paul are rendered real in Tsiolkas’s new book. But it’s more than just an epic of sex in the ancient world.' (Introduction)

'David Marr is the rarest of breeds: one of Australia’s most unflinching, forensic reporters of political controversy, and one of its most subtle and eloquent biographers. In Marr’s hands, those things we call reportage and commentary are elevated to artful and illuminating chronicles of our time.

'Peter Corris, the ‘Godfather of Australian crime fiction’, died in his sleep on 30 August 2018. His Godfather columns have been part of the Newtown Review of Books from the beginning, and we feel his loss keenly.' 

'Most Australians despise what Pauline Hanson stands for, yet politics in this country is now orbiting around One Nation.

'In this timely Quarterly Essay, David Marr looks at Australia’s politics of fear, resentment and race. Who votes One Nation, and why? How much of this is due to inequality? How much to racism? How should the major parties respond to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim voices? What damage do Australia’s new entrepreneurs of hate inflict on the nation?

'Written with drama and wit, this is a ground-breaking look at politics and prejudice by one of Australia’s best writers.

'“This woman went to prison, danced the cha-cha on national television for a couple of years, and failed so often at the ballot box she became a running joke. But the truth is she never left us. She was always knocking on the door. Most of those defeats at the polls were close-run things. For twenty years political leaders appeased Hanson’s followers while working to keep her out of office. The first strategy tainted Australian politics. The second eventually failed. So she’s with us again – the Kabuki make-up, that mop of red hair and the voice telling us what we already know: ‘I’m fed up.’” —David Marr' (Publication summary)

'A brilliant biography for an election year . . .

'Who is Bill Shorten? How did he rise to become Labor leader? And does he have what it takes to beat Malcolm Turnbull and lead the country?

'In Faction Man, David Marr traces the hidden career of a Labor warrior. In dazzling style, he shows how a brilliant recruiter and formidable campaigner mastered first the unions and then the party. Marr presents a man willing to deal with his enemies and shift his allegiances, whose ambition to lead has been fixed since childhood.

'But does he stand for anything? Is Shorten a defender of Labor values in today's Australia or a shape-shifter, driven entirely by politics? How does the union world he comes from shape the prime minister he might be? Marr reveals a man we hardly know: a virtuoso with numbers and a strategist of skill who Labor hopes will return the party to power.' (Publication summary)

'The leading Catholic in the nation and spiritual adviser to Tony Abbott, Cardinal George Pell has played a key role in the greatest challenge to face his church for centuries: the scandal of child sex abuse by priests.

'In The Prince, David Marr investigates the man and his career: how did he rise through the ranks? What does he stand for? How does he wield his authority? How much has he shaped his church and Australia? How has he handled the scandal?

'Marr reveals a cleric at ease with power and aggressive in asserting the prerogatives of the Vatican. His account of Pell’s career focuses on his response as a man, a priest, an archbishop and prince of the church to the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic world in the last thirty years. This is the story of a cleric slow to see what was happening around him; torn by the contest between his church and its victims; and slow to realise that the Catholic Church cannot, in the end, escape secular scrutiny.

'The Prince is an arresting portrait of faith, loyalty and ambition, set against a backdrop of terrible suffering and an ancient institution in turmoil.

'“He knows children have been wrecked. He apologises again and again. He even sees that the hostility of the press he so deplores has helped the church face the scandal. What he doesn’t get is the hostility to the church. Whatever else he believes in, Pell has profound faith in the Catholic Church. He guards it with his life. Nations come and go but the church remains.” David Marr, The Prince. ' (Publisher's blurb)

'Tony Abbott is poised to become the nation's next prime minister and, more than ever, Australians are asking: what kind of man is he and how might he run the country?

'David Marr's Political Animal, with its revelation of 'the punch,' triggered intense scrutiny of Abbott's character in 2012. Now this expanded and updated edition of Marr's dramatic portrait gives the clearest picture yet of Abbott the man and politician.' (Publisher's blurb)