Don Watson - Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Portrait of Paul Keating PM (10th Anniversary Edition)

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Recollections of a Bleeding Heart Anniversary edition

ePub ISBN 978 1 74275 200 6

This is much more than a paeon of praise to Keating. There is wit and remarkable candour which puts it streets ahead of most political biographies a penetrating insight into a Labor prime minister. Despite the millions of words already written about Keating, it adds much.

Mike Steketee, Weekend Australian

Watsons book is neither biography nor history nor Watsons personal journey nor a string of anecdotes, but a compound of all these things. It is the story of four tumultuous years told by an intelligent and curious insider, and no insider has ever done it better.

Les Carlyon, Bulletin

a subtle and sympathetic analysis of the many facets of the twenty-fourth prime minister; a narrative of high and low politics in the Keating years; and a compendium of the wit and wisdom of Don Watson in future, when I am asked, What was Paul Keating really like? the answer must be, Go read Don Watson.

Neal Blewett, Australian Book Review

This big book has reset the benchmark for political writing in this country, with its ability to entertain and appal at the same time

Courier-Mail

always absorbing, usually illuminating, frequently disturbing, often stimulating remarkably frank Every page is enlightened by Watsons erudition.

John Nethercote, Canberra Times

an intriguing account of a time and a place and a man vantage point that is so unusual, so close and by such an intelligent and partisan witness, as to make it unrivalled in the annals of Australian political writing.

Ramona Koval

a masterpiece simply the best account of life, politics and combat inside the highest office in the land ever written.

Michael Gordon, The Age

a beautifully told story that is sure to become an instant classic of political history.

Jos Borghino, Marie Claire

it is the portrait of Keating that is surely the books triumph it is impossible to leave Recollections of a Bleeding Heart without more affection for a politician and man who fought his own bouts of apathy and had a crack at dragging Australia out of its crippling slumber.

Peter Lalor, Daily Telegraph

This is truly one of the great works of Australian political writing.

Troy Bramston, Australian Journal of Politics and History

a sheer delight to read written by a man who would have difficulty putting together a dull sentence

Diana Simmonds, Sun Herald

enormously readable a fascinating examination of the political process and, more particularly, a clear-eyed look at the epicentre of power elegant, witty and humane

Good Reading

a reflective book, full of questions, full of pondering. It is the book of an observer, a thinker future historians will mine Watsons insights and that alone makes his contribution valuable.

Ken Spillman, West Australian

Reading Don Watsons account of those turbulent years is a little like being the Prime Ministers Office resident mouse, privy to all the meetings, the rhetoric and the invective. A remarkable, honest, frank and at times humorous account of a turbulent time in our political history.

Illawarra Mercury

a revealing and engrossing portrait of a brilliant, if perplexing man [and] a unique reflection on modern politics, government and Australia from a man who can write and who has a sense of proportion and humour.

Brisbane News

a great human political biography of the life and times of a complex prime minister. In years to come, it will be ranked with some of the great political biographies of the past 100 years a great work of political anthropology a wonderfully entertaining memoir of an historian who is activist, participant and observer

Noel Turnbull, Courier-Mail

On publication, Don Watsons Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A portrait of Paul Keating PM , won the Age Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Prizes, the Brisbane Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Associations Book of the Year. Death Sentence , his best-selling book about the decay of public language, won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year. American Journeys , a deeply personal work investigating the meaning of the United States, won the Age Non-Fiction and Book of the Year Awards in 2008 and the inaugural Indie Award for Non-Fiction and the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction. Bendable Learnings: The wisdom of modern management is his most recent title.