Evan McHughBesprekingen

7/10

Great story a boy called Nipper who lives on the edge of Bondi Beach in 1938. This is his dairy where he must decide whether he is going to continue his education and become someone like his father who works in a bank OR if he is going to be like his brother who works miles away from Bondi on his uncle's farm. Great story in that you know that Black Sunday will eventually happen where so many people were rescued from the sea and Nipper himself became a hero by rescuing his teacher. Very funny and true to life. A bit like the "My Story" books.

I generally don't like to read collections of short stories, but this one was an exception. Mainly because of the common denominator (bushmen - and one bushwoman) and the chronological presentation which make the stories blend well together. The book gives an entertaining overview of the lives and times of well-known and lesser-known Australian bushies. An easy read.

Favourite story: A voice in the wilderness, 1937: Bernard O'Reilly (1903-1975). About the heroic rescue of two plane crash survivors near the Queensland-New South Wales border.

Least favourite story: The not so jolly swagman, 1894: Samuel Hoffmeister (18??-1894). About a possible origin of Banjo Paterson's Waltzing Matilda.

Technical note: the frequent switching between two font sizes and margins to differentiate between the main text and the many excerpts was sometimes quite irritating.

Very funny. Enjoyable light read. Makes you want to go to an Irish pub.

This book is absolutely fascinating. In a series of chapters based on each crime - starting with the escape of convicts in Tasmania in 1822, right through to the disappearance of Peter Falconio in the Northern Territory in 2001, the author has explored a series of notorious crimes - all of which took place in various locations throughout the bush and remote Australian outback.

Starting out with the escape and subsequent cannibalism of a group of convicts in Tasmania in 1822, we then learn how cattle rustling in 1870 is more successful when you are in an area so remote that it's almost totally unknown. From there to Victoria and the late 1870's - to the time and activities of one of our most famous bushrangers, Ned Kelly. In a more sobering tale, in the early 1900's racism and cruelty led to a violent spree when Jimmy Governor finally had enough and took revenge. In 1940 a mining worker disappeared and it was pure hard work that meant that the police solved that crime and a little later in the 1940's Alice Springs was very much a frontier town when it was rocked by a series of bombs. In 1968 Larry Boy proved that Aboriginal bush skills were extremely formidable as they still were when local Aboriginal people were called in to help in the search for Azaria Chamberlain in 1980. From there it's 1989 and a series of backpacker disappearances that leads to a shocking discovery in the Australian bush, with the book finishing in 2001 with the disappearance of Peter Falconio from the roadside in the middle of the Australian outback.

The great thing about each of this individual chapters is that they are told in a very non-sensational, matter of fact way, that gives the reader a real understanding of the events without the ooh aaa factor that you often get from newspaper accounts (I'm thinking in particular of the story of the death of Azaria Chamberlain here!) Anybody who is interested in some of the real crime stories of Australia over many years will find this book most instructive.

A great romp through Ireland in search of the perfect pint of Guinness. Funny and charming, McHugh, takes us around the emerald isle with witty observations about its people and their insistence that the best pint of Guinness to be had in all of Ireland lies at yet another pub.