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
Reading tastes
Monday musings on Australian literature: War-time reading tastes, World War 2
Continuing last week's brief survey of war-time reading habits... World War 2 And then we come to the Second World War. Here's The West Australian again, this time in July 1940, less than a year after the war had started (a bit like our 1915 World War 1 report last week.) The article is headed, … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: War-time reading tastes, World War 2
Monday musings on Australian literature: War-time reading tastes, World War 1
For the longest time I've understood that during war-time people turn to lighter forms of entertainment, to musicals in film, for example, or to escapist books in their reading. However, the truth - of course - is more complex, as I discovered in Trove's digitised newspapers. I was fascinated by how often the matter was, … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: War-time reading tastes, World War 1
Monday musings on Australian literature: Literary culture in colonial Australia
National Library of Australia, from the other side of Lake Burley Griffin Bill of The Australian Legend's AWW Gen 1 Week, which has just finished, focused on the authors and the books they wrote about colonial Australia. However, what about the readers? I've been planning to write a post on literary culture in colonial Australia for … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Literary culture in colonial Australia
Monday musings on Australian literature: Changing literary tastes (2)
My last Monday Musings post was on Changing literary tastes from the 1920s to 1940s, using newspaper articles I'd found in the National Library of Australia's Trove. Today's post draws on just one article from the 1950s. I'm choosing just one because it, unusually in my experience, has a by-line - for a person worth … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Changing literary tastes (2)
Monday musings on Australian literature: Changing literary tastes (1)
Research can send you off on all sorts of tangents - particularly if don't have to be focused. What fascinating things you can find when you go with the flow (in the wonderful Trove)! It started with my recent post on Currawong Press, which, somewhat serendipitously, led to a post on books published in The Australian Women's … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Changing literary tastes (1)
Whispering Gums 