Jacqueline Kent

This revised edition, originally published in 1983, tells the story of Australian radio from WWII until the age of television. Extensively illustrated, the book uses commentary from current and past members of the industry. The author is a writer, editor and broadcaster.

The Heyday of Australian Radio

Out of the Bakelite Box

In 1985 Jacqueline Kent was content with her life. She had a satisfying career as a freelance book editor, and was emerging as a writer. Living and working alone, she relished her independence. But then she met Kenneth Cook, author of the Australian classic Wake in Fright, and they fell in love. With bewildering speed Jacqueline found herself in alien territory: with a man almost twenty years older, whose life experience could not have been more different from her own. She had to come to terms with complicated finances and expectations, and to negotiate relationships with Ken’s children, four people almost her own age. But with this man of contradictions – funny and sad, headstrong and tender – she found real and sustaining companionship. Their life together was often joyful, sometimes enraging, always exciting – until one devastating evening. But, as Jacqueline discovered, even when a story is over that doesn’t mean it has come to an end.

A Year with Kenneth Cook

Beyond Words

Blazing her trail at the dawn of the twentieth century, Vida Goldstein remains Australia’s most celebrated crusader for the rights of women. Her life – as a campaigner for the suffrage in Australia, Britain and America, an advocate for peace, a fighter for social equality and a shrewd political commentator – marks her as one of Australia’s foremost women of courage and principle. Vida first came to national prominence as the first woman in the Western world to stand for a national Parliament, in Victoria, for the Senate, in 1903. As a fighter for equal rights for women, and as a champion of social justice, she quickly established a pattern of working quietly against men’s control of Australian society. Her work for the peace movement and against conscription during the heightened emotions of the First World War showed her determination to defy governments in the name of fairness and equity. Vida came to adulthood when Australia was in the process of inventing itself as a new nation, one in which women might have opportunities equal to those of men. Her work for her own sex, especially her battles for equality in politics, illuminated issues that persist to this day. Jacqueline Kent has written acclaimed biographies of Julia Gillard, pianist and social activist Hephzibah Menuhin, and pioneer book editor Beatrice Davis.

A woman for our time

Vida

Kenneth Cook

Ken Gilroy

The Killer Koala

Julia Gillard is an exceptional Australian political figure. The first woman to be deputy prime minister, and tipped by many to get the top job in the future, she is admired on both sides of politics as well as by the public. She is not loved by everybody. Her career has been marked by pitched battles with jealous rivals and powerful factions. To conservatives she is still 'red Julia'; to some on the Left she is still a politician too willing to compromise. She is widely perceived to be ambitious, and yet does she want to be prime minister? The Making of Julia Gillard tells Gillard's remarkable story, including her Adelaide childhood, her time as a fiery student activist, her battles to get into Parliament and her relationships with the important men in her political life: Simon Crean, Kim Beazley, Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd. In this immensely readable book, acclaimed biographer Jacqueline Kent draws on interviews with Gillard's friends and foes - and with Gillard herself - to reveal just how adversarial her environment has been and how she has thrived.

Jacqueline Kent

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