Aedeen Cremin, ARR.News

The town of Yass has had many lives. Today it is a market town, but also a dormitory suburb for Canberra’s younger public servants and a place of retirement for farmers and pastoralists who have handed their land on to the next generation. As a result, it is a pleasing mix of both young and old ... As the title suggests, this book describes the growth of Yass and charts some of its several aspects, from a frontier town surrounded by bushrangers to the gateway to the Murray River and the great grazing lands of western New South Wales and Victoria.

After reviewing "Black, White + Colour - A biography of Mervyn Bishop, Australia's first indigenous professional photographer", Aedeen Cremin was able to speak with the author, former journalist Tim Dobbyn, about his book and its celebrated subject, a long-time family friend.

You may not know Mervyn Bishop’s name, but you certainly know his work. He took the ultra-famous photo of Vincent Lingiari and Gough Whitlam at Wattie Creek, NT, in that defining moment when the Prime Minister of Australia poured earth into the right hand of the representative of the Gurindji people ... The biography starts with a road trip to Mervyn’s birthplace of Brewarrina ... It is absolutely charming and we get to know and - to an extent - understand Mervyn’s life and achievements.

In 1903, the island of Bali was visited by W.O.J. Nieuwekamp (WOJ, 1874-1950), a self-taught artist and journalist, who recognised the astonishing virtuosity of local artists, be they weaver, carvers, painters or builders. His travelling companion was the archaeologist/ethnographer Franz Heger (1853-1931), who was later to found the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna.

Paul Simons is a genuine phenomenon. He is a charming, unassuming person, who is also a captain of industry ... this account of his life shows that when an opportunity presented itself, he had the courage and self-assurance to take it and do whatever he had to do.

This wonderful book introduces a man who was a true hero. He defeated the dragon of anthrax, found a pot of gold, married a beautiful maiden, encountered a demon and died at the peak of his powers. Anthrax is a ferocious beast: in the 1880s it could kill 500 sheep in one day ... The story is brilliantly told in Peter Symes's biography of Gunn.

Susannah Begbie grew up in Eden Monaro, practises as a rural doctor, and has written a prize-winning debut novel, The Deed, set in the Riverina. Australian Rural & Regional News contributor, Aedeen Cremin, strongly recommends The Deed, which she concludes is "ultimately a morality tale - a highly enjoyable one" and was able to quiz Susannah about her work, her characters and some plot choices.

A black comedy that becomes a feel-good novel? Hard to believe, but this book manages it and does so with style and charm. At first sight the characters are cartoonish ... Why would we want to read about them? Well, it’s worth doing because the first quick sketch is filled out with a sure hand, adding relief, light and shade and very soon the reader can identify with at least some of the characters. It’s still a cartoon, but now a cartoon for a lovely tapestry set in a fertile landscape.

Having read Pip Fioretti's Bone Lands in a sitting and finding it an "extraordinary work", Australian Rural & Regional News contributor, Dr Aedeen Cremin was keen to find out more about this "cracker of a book", its origins and its author.

This is a cracker of a book. I literally could not put it down and read it at a sitting. From the very first page we are plunged into the mind of the main character—we can hardly call him a ‘hero’, though he has performed heroic deeds. A former army officer, badly wounded and literally scarred by his time in the second ‘Boer War’ (1899-1902), Gus Hawkins is by 1911 a policeman, a mounted trooper, stationed in the far west of NSW on the Darling River between Bourke and Wilcannia.