Last night a friend and I went to a book event at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart. We go to a lot of events but this really pushed me into a new direction. We listened to two literary authors:
Susan Lever who wrote a biography about the Australian poet A.D. Hope and Susan Wyndham who wrote a biography about novelist Elizabeth Harrower.
Susan Lever is an Australian literary critic, editor and biographer who taught literature at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. She told us how her book came to be, her interviews with A.D. Hope and his poetry that is quite salacious at times. She had a few anecdotes that had the audience chuckling.
A.D. Hope (1907-2000) was an Australian poet, literary critic and university professor who grew up partly in Tasmania. Known for his wit, elegant verse and outspoken criticism, he wrote about love, desire, nature and the Australian identity, often drawing on classical mythology and European literature.
Susan Wyndham is an Australian journalist, author and former literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. She wrote the biography Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower (2025). She explores the novelist’s life, friendships and mysterious withdrawal from writing.
Both authors wrote other works but I am focusing only on these two biographies.
Elizabeth Harrower (1928 – 2020) was a novelist admired for her psychologically tense fiction, particularly her exploration of difficult relationships and emotional control. Her most popular book was The Watch Tower. She stopped writing novels in 1970s, leaving a small but highly regarded body of work. She lived a solitary, independent life. She was born in Australia but lived in London a number of years before returning to Sydney in her later years. Susan talked about the interviews with her in her apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour. Those stories were fascinating.
I was really taken with these two writers and the stories they told of these two past Australian writers. I am looking ahead to a project in 2027 I can really look forward to.
While I’m enjoying the 10 books on the spinning wheel and the Penguin anniversary books I realise I have lived in Australia now since 1988. When I arrived I knew nothing about Australian writers. But having read and listened to mountainous information about Australian writers and books, mostly current ones, I really don’t know much about those writers of the past. I know more about the writers than the stories they told.
Last weekend our main radio broadcaster, the ABC, had a weekend of revealing an Australian project where listeners voted on their all time favourite Australian books. The results of the voting were revealed last weekend in a two day podcast, outlining the winners from no 100 down to 1.
I have to say, I was a bit disappointed in the books revealed. There were children’s books that grandmother’s voted on more from nostalgia than some quality though there were a few really good ones. (All of this is in my opinion of course). There were a lot of current popular authors of fiction. I’ve read a fair few of them. There were cookbooks. That surprised me and there were historic authors such as Patrick White, Christina Stead but I thought most of the books were books I could pick up in an airport. I was really hoping there would be more really strong literary fiction. Then I realised I couldn’t name many of those authors except maybe the folksy poets, ballads, humorous authors.
After listening to the two Susans last night I want to read. More authors of the past.
I thought where can I get a beginners list of Australian classics that might be on kindle.
One more reason is I am really tired of modern books with inaccurate blurbs on the book covers, stories that don’t appear to be edited well and turn out to be really waffly.
I want to read books that have been recognised in Australia, at least by a publisher that has produced some interesting works of the past. I don’t want to take random referrals from a lot of different people. Sue and Lisa have written much about Australian writers and they do an excellent job on their blogs: Whispering Gums and ANZ LitLovers Lit Blogs. I think they are serious writers describing Australian works. I don’t have that serious of a nature to go into depth about books as they do. They’ve been doing this for a long time.
I have decided to read more books next year published by Text Classics. I have looked at the entire list of older Australian books that Text Classics have reprinted. Many were out of print for quite awhile. I want to hear the stories of the Australian people of the past.
I have downloaded the list. There are 143 books listed on their web site so far. I can still do the spinning wheel, I can still randomise the ones I find. Many are in Kindle format. The library has many. Op shops often have them as these reprints are not that old. I can read them then release them into the wild.
I love the covers. They are easy to spot. They are inexpensive books. They are not blocky chunksters. I think if I can’t find the Kindle copies of them I can still read them with my magnifier and brighter light.
After I read them I want to simply write about the stories they tell. I want to talk about the people within the stories. I want to disappear more into the past of this country. I’ve had enough of America and though I love the stories out of the UK I’m happy to start this project. I hope to stick with it throughout 2027.
Of course I will also need to read my book club reads but I have to say I’ve been disappointed about the choices of those books this year. Oddly, the books I enjoyed the most were a classic book and a Tasmanian historical novel. The modern ones left me cold.
I apologise for making this so long but it is just what it turned out to be. I’d say, It is what it is, but I really don’t like that phrase so I’ll spare you.
I have popped a few Text Classic book covers for you throughout this post. I really love the covers.
I wonder what the Penguin will think about switching to another publisher
