Almanac Book Reviews: ‘The Eye of the Dragonfly,: My Life Seeing the World Through Sport’ – Tracey Lee Holmes

 

 

 

The Eye of the Dragonfly: My Life Seeing the World Through Sport
by Tracey Lee Holmes
Simon & Schuster, Sydney, 2025
ISBN 9781761428685
RRP $36.99

 

Reviewed by Roy Hay

 

Tracey Lee Holmes is one of the best sports journalists and this book reflects her stellar career with its highlights and low lights and the depth of her understanding of sport and its presentation across multiple media. She has been a trailblazer for women in an overwhelmingly male world. She has a deep sense of the relative value of whatever subject she is tackling, though even she may slightly underestimate the impact of the Matildas on Australian society and the ways in which it has been analysed and presented. Fiona Crawford’s The Matilda Effect remains the best place for that.

 

Tracey Holmes and her partner Stan Grant have been responsible for some of the most incisive coverage of a bewildering range of issues from war zones to boardrooms and sports fields in multiple countries. She has been a mentor to a generation of aspiring young journalists drawing on her own experience to guide them through the difficult early years in this cutthroat profession where the scoop means survival, at least temporarily.

 

There is a refreshing absence of jargon, and the writing is taut and to the point like all good journalism as you might expect in the hands of an experienced writer who gives credit to her own editorial team. The book is a good model for anyone attempting to tackle an autobiography, especially one in which sport is the main theme.

 

More stories by Roy Hay can be read Here.

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

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