AUSTRALIAN GOSSIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23263, 4 February 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN GOSSIP

"FREE AND EASY LAND" A wealth of material for the historian, tho novelist and the retailer of amusing gossip, some of it alreadv 011 record, but most of it surviving through the years only in the tales told round camp-fires and in back-country "pubs." has been discovered in recent years by various Australian novelists. Among them, and prominent by reason of the quality of his earlier hooks, is Frank Cllunc, an Australian with a deep affection for the land of his birth, and a long acquaintance with that great continent.

Twenty years' travelling have taken Mr. Clune north from Brisbane to Cape York, round to tho towns and settlements of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and again across northern Australia to Clonetirry and along the route of Qantas Airways. His latest book, "Free and Easy Land," is a casually-written record of history, gossip, anecdote and con tem pora ry achievement, generously larded with humour of that rough and ready type so characteristic of the outback Australian.

The deeds of Australia's great explorers by land and sea, the history of the sugar industry, and the humble beginnings of one of the world's great air services, are inter-twined with accounts of the author's own travels and experiences. "Free and Easy Land," is an ideal description for this casual country, and for the book that glorifies it. "Free and Easy Land," by Frank Clune. (Angus and Robertson).