4 books ABOUT BOOKS
Compendium BOOKS THAT SAVED MY LIFE by Michael McGirr, Text
A compendium of 40 texts chosen by Melbourne author and teacher McGirr. He begins by slaying the high-grading student who, when he asked what he thought of exam text To Kill A Mocking Bird, said “I never read it, I used the summary on Google.” This is a book about why that student should have read it … why he should still read it. Actually, this fine book is for all of us – even those who think they read everything. Amidst Toni Morrison (Beloved) and Margaret Attwood (HagSeed), there are gems like Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find.
Memoir STORYTIME by Jane Sullivan, Ventura Press
Author Sullivan grew up in London where she discovers her fledgling libraries, stately sidecars to her parents’ well-stocked shelves. In this revisiting of an “odd baker’s dozen: mostly English children’s classics, an occasional more obscure title, and once popular characters in girls’ comics”; she surprises herself as she discovers some were not as she remembers. “Will you come with me?” … Through the Looking Glass and on Dawn Treader … On the way meet famous authors and their beloved children’s books, including Rosalie Ham and Graeme Simsion.
Real life SYRIA’S SECRET LIBRARY by Mike Thomson, Hachette
BBC Foreign Correspondent Thomson has reported from some of the most troubled places in the world. It was while reporting from Syria he came across a hidden underground library. Overhead gunfire echoed on the shelled streets, while below was “a haven of peace and tranquillity.” Vast rows of books lined almost every wall. “People had risked their lives to save books from the devastation of war. Because to them, the secret library was a symbol of hope – of their determination to lead a meaningful existence and rebuild their fractured society.” Extraordinary read.
Biography TALK OF TREASURE By Jane Carswell, Transit Lounge
Joyous journey with author Carswell from reading boys’ adventure stories at her grandparents’ Dunedin house, to a year teaching English in China, where she kept a diary of the teeming street life on rice paper. That would translate to award-winning Under the Huang Jiao Tree:
Two Journeys in China. In this inviting description of the nagging doubts she had about her manuscript, we are drawn into an intimate introduction to family and friends – son Simon accompanies her on a silent retreat to Ballarat, daughter Janie suggests cuts on the book she is losing confidence in, rejection after rejection.