I loved this book! I started reading Pepe & Poppy while on vacation and didn't put it down until I finished. I laughed and cried. I just wished it had been longer, I can't wait for Joe's next book. I am giving this book as gifts to friends and family this year!

This book was a wonderful read. Parts had me laughing out loud, quickly followed by genuinely moving scenes just a few pages later. I read Pepe and Poppy in a single flight because I just couldn't put it down. Ever try eating AND reading when scrunched between two other passengers? It may be awhile before I find another book that will inspire me to try it again.

Kudos to Joe Novella for a great, heartwarming book!

I read this book while on holiday. It was very funny and an enjoyable read. I am an only child and I wish I had a family as large and fun as the one portrayed in this novel.
I laughed until I cried & I cried until I laughed! For Joe's first endeavor it was a great book. Interesting characters, enjoyable story line, fresh & inviting.
I'm looking forward to a sequel or at the very least another entertaining book from an outstanding writer!!!

Maloney's 'hero' Murray Whelan is a superb addition to the landscape of political satire in this country. His stories are also well-written with none of the clunky contrivances that less-skilled authors display.

Highly recommended.

The mystery part of this novel isn't the greatest. But the sideshow is a real whopper. The story is told by Murray Whelan, gofer and fixer for Charlene Wills. Charlene and her colostomy bag are Minister for Industry of the reigning Labor Party. Her advisor, Angelo Agnelli, is Murray's boss who sends him to the Pacific Pastoral meat works to check out possible political implications in the freezing death of foreman Ekrem Bayraktar. Things spiral downwards from there with the entry of an industrial super mogul, the questionable shop steward Herb Gardiner, not to mention Ayisha Celik, that Turkish honey pot.

The author not only has a way with words. He also has an incredible sense of humor. He takes the Australian political scene apart in a roaring satire without letup or ending. His description of the Italian and Turkish minorities is memorable.

This book makes you laugh all the way to the end.

Murray Whelan is a low ranking political go-fer for the Australian Labor Party who can create chaos from the simplest chore. He redeems himself with a self-effacing humor that both entertains and endears. If you do not cry tears of laughter at his description of insulating his attic, something is seriously wrong with your funny bone.

Murray is asked to investigate the death by freezing of a Turkish immigrant meat packing plant worker. Everyone agrees it was an unfortunate industrial accident. Murray's investigation is for the sole purpose of determining if there is any potential for political fallout on the issue of worker safety.

Soon someone is trying to kill him. Is it right wing Turkish militants? Is it industrialists in high places? Is it the janitor at the plant? Is it the mis-tattooed constituent who wants redress from the government?

Reading Shane Maloney's take on Australia in the late'80's will satisfy your yen for mystery (the whodunnit is subtle), double you over with laughter and (especially for "Yanks" like me)create an unforgettable image of Australian society!

I am not writing this review because I have read this book. I am
writing it because this book is so hard to find. If this book was so important to John F. Kennedy, why is it not available so those interested in the late President can read it to? Should this book not be reissued for other generations to read? It is just a thought from someone who wants to know more about JFK.

I loved this book. Of the many books on the period which I have read, this is probably my favorite. Melbourne is a fascinating character, and the author gives a masterful account of his life. For a period which can be dry if not properly set forth, I found this book to be a real page turner. Lord Cecil gives a thoroughly interesting account of Melbourne's early life, and in particular his stormy relationship with his wife Lady Caroline. She emerges, as is well documented, as bordering upon lunacy. Her antics are well documented and amusing, although I couldn't help feel a sense of frustration that Melbourne was entirely too tolerant of her behaviour. While Melbourne appears to be somewhat wishy-washy, his amiable nature is precisely the key ingedient for his rise to Prime Minister: everyone liked him. Lord Cecil's insight into the evolution of Melbourne's character is fascinating, and reveals something of a tragic figure. Indeed, the later part of Melbourne's life, is sad. Much of the later part of the work is devoted to Melbourne's close relationship with the young Queen Victoria, and upon her marriage, Melbourne's life become tragically empty. The end of the book gives an account of the loneliness of Melbourne's later years, and it reveals Melbourne as more susceptible to bouts of melancholy. But that is the truth of the matter, and it does not detract from the enjoyment of Lord Cecil's work. Finally, it is interesting to note that this book was cited by President John F. Kennedy as his favorite book. Some have attributed this to the accounts of the behavior of the ruling aristocracy in Britain during the whig era, wherein they ruled during the week and ran to the country for parties and relations. I found these desciptions of the book by some of JFK's contemporaries to be inaccurate. While such events are described generally, as they should be to properly account for the period, the focus of Lord Cecil's work is upon the character and evolution of Melbourne himself. This results i! n a comprehensive and altogether enjoyable account of the period. I highly recommend this book.

I found this book very useful for researchers in this field. it has rich information about cluster computing.

Shane Molondy is one of Australia's newer and more succesful crime writers. This book is set in the dying days of the Victorian Labour government in the early 90's before it was voted out of office in a landslide. The hero Murray Whelan works as a staffer to a Labour Cabinet minister and faces the problems of a dying government.

In addition to these problems he is divorced and his son goes missing. A short time later the son of a rich transport magnate is murdered and Whelan becomes a suspect.

The book is hysterically funny a sort of Australian Carl Hiaasen.
It also conveys a feel for both the political world and the inner suburbs of Melbourne. One of the more enjoyable crime novels to come out in some time.

If you're interested in the history of public parks, 19th century landscape design, the social history of public spaces, or Australian cities, this should be in your collection.

The public gardens that (nearly) surround Melbourne's CBD form a collection of landscapes that would be unimaginable in most cities. Like Adelaide, some cities have more extensive greenbelts but few have such large areas that can, fairly, be described as 'gardens'. In fewer still were these developed from the start as public places.

CIVILISING THE CITY traces the history of these gardens in two main sections. The first describes collective influences - designers and other individuals as well as local political, cultural and social trends. The second, based around a fabulous collection of historical photos, provides a history of each garden starting in the first decade after the Victorian gold rush (1851), continuing through Melbourne's boom years of the 1880s and the era of Federation (1901) when it was the capital of Australia, and the inter-wars period.

Pleasant and popular though these gardens are, and although they feature a few inspired spaces, you wouldn't look to any of them as masterpieces of landscape architecture. However, when you consider them as contemporaries of Olmsted's Central Park in NYC - a sort of alternative parallel universe of landscapes - it makes a fascinating study in how subtleties of culture, climate and individuals are reflected in design.

Whitehead has produced a readable and engaging narrative that is also an authoritative and informative history based on primary sources. Although it featured on the best seller list for several weeks in The Age (Melbourne), the book is out of print.

If you're interested in other aspects of Australian garden or landscape history, Whitehead also edited PLANTING THE NATION, a similarly readable collection of essays on landscapes around the period of Australian Federation published by the Australian Garden History Society (2001). The recent encyclopedic OXFORD COMPANION TO AUSTRALIAN GARDENS is also worth a look.

Louis Nowra's "Cosi" is a beautiful example of how art can transform the lives and souls of human beings. Set in a mental institution, Melbourne, 1971, the play is about a young university drop out, Lewis, who is hired to put on a play at a mental institution. But when one of the patients convinces him to put on, instead, Mozart's opera "Cosi Fan Tutte", their wild journey begins.

Nowra makes the patients' mental disorders big enough to make it suitable for the stage and to reveal a great charge of humanity, honesty, passion that result in a hilarious well structured comedy, with characters and situations that are hard to forget.

Nowra also uses a burnt theatre as a metaphor for the Vietnam War and this is also a major issue that is dealt with in the play.

"Cosi" is a very interesting piece of theatre, that left me very satisfied.

This book is very fertile ground. Fertile ground for thought
& wondering of the mysteries of life. Why we think the way
we do. Why we do the things we do. And then contemplating
the impact of our actions. We can also think about the way
others think of our actions.
Leila Marcial, RN
proud mum of a US Soldier - Spec4 Rafael Marcial

"The First Electric Road" is a short history of the electric tramway which ran between Doncaster and Box Hill between 1889 and 1895. (Doncaster and Box Hill are now part of suburban Melbourne, Australia). This was the first electric tramway in the southern hemisphere. The book is well written and researched. It is liberally illustrated with photograpghs and contains several maps. The book is an essential item for anyone who is interested in the tramways of the greatest tramway city in the English speaking world. The book is available from the author at 730 Hawthorn Road, East Brighton, Victoria, Australia