It's a slow week in "The Age": Peter Craven outlines a way of getting into Ulysses which I must follow some time. I've read Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and an Irish mate of mine always gives me heaps over not having read The Big One. I keep thinking a long train journey would be the place for it. Must make one some day.
For the first time this year I haven't been able to identify a single Australian book under review in the weekend "Age". A sorry state of affairs. I would have thought there was something out there.
Short notices are given to: How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare... by Paul Jennings, "It takes a while to get going, but Hedley Hopkins ends up being a fun and instructive adventure story"; The Long Hot Summer by Mary Moody: "Many people question Moody's motivation for writing about her personal life...[but] Moody, a former journalist, writes fluidly and with much passion"; Island 100 edited by
David Owen "a hefty double issue to which past editors and others with a close association with the magazine have been invited to contribute"; The Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel by Rachel Antony and Joel Henry: "there are a lot of ideas for livening up your weekend or making new friends"; Oscar's Half Birthday by Bob Graham: "Graham's book is a gentle, detailed and affectionate portrait of the way many people live their lives and how they take great pleasure in simle events, despite the lack of a ski-lift pass or an SUV"; Federation Square by Andrew Brown-May and Norman Day: "This well-conceived and well-written book about the long history and eventual realisation of the Square taps into the complex emotions behind this public space, making it an unexpectedly moving document". Fiona Capp, the reviewer also states that the square is "something wondrous and strange, a place of warmth, light and colour that we have been able to embrace whole heartedly." Well, not
this little black duck. It looks like a Christmas present left out in the rain to me; a European edifice that looks totally out of place in an Australian environment. Where's the shade? And where's the sense of community that doesn't require a trendy wine bar? Don't get me started.
On the eve of her arrival in Australia to accept last year's Miles Franklin Award for The Great Fire, "The Weekend Australian" carries a profile of Shirley Hazzard. The book also won the US National Book Award and has been shortlisted for the Impac Prize, the winner of which will be announced during the week. After that, forget it. No Australian stuff anywhere.
