A Bloody Good Rant: My passions, memories and demons

Following a lifetime observing Australia and its people, Tom Keneally turns inwards to reflect on what has been important to him.

'When I was born in 1935 I grew up, despite depression and World War II, with a primitive sense of being fortunate . . . The Utopian strain was very strong . . . if we weren't to be a better society, if we were simply serfs designed to support a system of privilege, what was the bloody point?'

Tom Keneally has been observing, reflecting on and writing about Australia and the human condition for well over fifty years. In this deeply personal, passionately drawn and richly tuned collection he draws on a lifetime of engagement with the great issues of our recent history and his own moments of discovery and understanding.

He writes with unbounded joy of being a grandparent, and with intimacy and insight about the prospect of death and the meaning of faith. He is outraged about the treatment of Indigenous Australians and refugees, and argues fiercely against market economics and the cowardice of climate change deniers. And, he introduces us to some of the people, both great and small, who have dappled his life.

Beautifully written, erudite and at times slyly funny, A Bloody Good Rant is an invitation to share the deep humanity of truly great Australian.

Praise for Australians:

'No doubt about it, Australians is a corker.' - Cassandra Pybus, Weekend Australian

'. . . the story of Australia and the Australians could be in no better hands than Keneally's.' - West Australian

'Keneally evokes these distant lives with concrete detail and vivid sympathy . . . his people inhabit the same world we do - we meet them without the hesitation of reaching across voids of space and time. - Sydney Morning Herald

'[Australians] will appeal to the general reader and the avid historian alike, and this is only the first volume. This reader can't wait for the second.' - Bookseller + Publisher