Monday musings on Australian literature: Warm Winter Read

For several years now, Cathy of 746 books has been running a 20 Books of Summer challenge, which many Southern Hemisphere bloggers re-frame as "of Winter". It's a great initiative, and this year has over 120 participants. You go, Cathy! However, for something closer to home that's geared to this winter, I thought I'd share … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Warm Winter Read

Monday musings on Australian literature: Untapped (The Australian Literary Heritage Project)

I have Lisa (ANZLitLovers) to thank for this Monday Musings because, commenting on my recent Margaret Barbalet post, she mentioned this Untapped project, which, embarrassingly, was unknown to me. Then, seeing our discussion, novelist Dorothy Johnston joined in, and offered to send me some information, which she did. So, I now have a copy of … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Untapped (The Australian Literary Heritage Project)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Libraries and librarians in Australian fiction

I only have myself to blame! I asked for readers to suggest topics they'd like to see in Monday Musings and two suggestions came back, one from novelist Angela Savage asking for a post on libraries and librarians in Australian fiction. Her request was inspired by her recent appointment as the CEO of Public Libraries … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Libraries and librarians in Australian fiction

Monday musings on Australian literature: the Australian Common Reader

The Australian Common Reader is, says its website, "a world-leading database of digitised reading records" which "contains thousands of records of library borrowers between 1860 and 1918." Initiated by Western Australia's Curtin University professor Tim Dolin in 2008*, it was acquired by ANU in 2013, and is managed by its Centre for Digital Humanities Research. It was officially launched … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: the Australian Common Reader

Delicious descriptions: Elizabeth Jolley on the value of libraries

Regular readers will know that in June I joined in Lisa's (ANZLitLovers) Elizabeth Jolley Week by posting two reviews, one of which was for the novella Orchard thieves. In that post I mentioned the sly humour, but I didn't really share a quote to demonstrate it. However, I knew that I could always write a … Continue reading Delicious descriptions: Elizabeth Jolley on the value of libraries

Monday musings on Australian literature: National Libraries Day (UK)

Caroline of Book Word blog has written a wonderful post about National Libraries Day in the UK, which took place just this last weekend, on Saturday, 6th February. Caroline provides three witnesses to argue for the value of libraries: Peter Balaba, Head Librarian, Nakaseke Community Library, Uganda, who talks about the outreach programs they provide in a book-poor … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: National Libraries Day (UK)