The Guardian's World Tour of Literature is heading to Australia. Basically the newspaper runs it as a means of introducing a country's literature to its readers by requesting suggestions about the best books to read.
I made a suggestion a few years back with my list of 10 "Essential Modern Australian Novels", and kimbofo also put forward her proposal for "Favourite Novels about Australia" about the same time. There are only a couple of overlaps between those two lists. Failing those two there is always Jane Gleeson-White's list of 50 Australian classics. That compilation is more emcompassing as it includes poems, short stories, non-fiction and biographies, rather than the straight list of novels that Kim and I came up with. In any event, go have a look at the Guardian site and enter your suggestions.
I'm interested to see the final results even if they may be skewed somewhat to more recent Australian works. By the way, the original article features a photo taken in Melbourne of an old W-class tram. And it looks like the shot was taken from the middle of Swanston Street - looking south towards the Shrine - with cars in it. How old? Probably twenty years. You'd think they'd try to find something a little more up-to-date. But maybe that's an indication of the suggestions they are looking for. And the first suggestion: "I think joining world literature to Australia is a very good idea." Oh dear. You can just tell what the tone of the conversation is going to be like.
