By Julian Pepperell

Better known as a marine biologist and angling writer, the author, perhaps surprisingly, turns out to be something of an historian. Here he has done a good job of “trawling”, for want of a better word, through the reports of Australia’s explorers and early settlers for references to fishing.

By Quinton Barry

A most interesting and informative history by a retired English judge describing how the United States, almost accidentally, became a colonial power at the end of the nineteenth century.

By Allan R. Millett

A most interesting and unusual military biography. First published in 1993, the Naval Institute Press has wisely chosen to re-publish it in economical paperback format twenty-five years later.

By Jay Ludowyke

A very unusually structured book. Don’t be put off by its incessant flash-backs and flash-forwards. Once you become used to the author’s innovative technique, it actually becomes quite beguiling. The result is well worth the effort of both author and reader.

By Mark Simmons

Almost as exciting as one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, this very well researched account is the real thing. Apparently it inspired much of Fleming’s post war writing.

By Vic Verlinden and Stefan Panis

The authors are a pair of professional divers who are clearly fascinated, to the point of obsession, with historic shipwrecks. They have dived on many, particularly in the grey, cold, turbid North Sea. That has been their happy hunting ground.

By Steve R Dunn

A well and very excitingly written description of the intense and vital activity of the Royal and, later, United States navies in the “Western Approaches” to England during World War I, this important book reminds us of an important but mostly forgotten aspect of naval history. 

By Harlan K Ullman

The author, an apparently well-connected academic, commentator and former American naval officer – he commanded “Swift Boats” in Vietnam alongside former Secretary of State John Kerry – presents a depressing but very realistic analysis of America’s post-World War II military history.

By Jeremy Stöhs

Reading this book gives you some sympathy for Donald Trump and his oft voiced complaint that America’s NATO partners are not pulling their weight with respect to their own defence efforts. Indeed, they have mostly not been doing so since the end of World War II.

There is no doubt that Oswald Brett, even though he spent much of his life in the United States, was one of Australia’s most talented and best marine painters. He has lived a long life and his output has been both extensive and excellent.