Extremely satisfying. Jane Gleeson-White's book is one of the best out there, and feels authentically broad in its taste.

Some other volumes on this subject get it ever so slightly wrong; Gleeson-White rises above them in that regard. First of all, her love of Australian history is evident - what other book recommends Christopher Brennan and John Shaw Neilsen and Lesbia Harford and Banjo?

Second, she avoids politics; indeed one cannot tell her politics at the end of the book more than one could at the beginning, and what a relief! While I enjoyed Carl Reinecke's recent [b:Books That Made Us: The Companion to the ABC TV Series|59145276|Books That Made Us The Companion to the ABC TV Series|Carl Reinecke|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1633492204l/59145276._SY75_.jpg|93269646], it was exhausting to constantly be told that every book written before the year 2000 was imperialist, racist, sexist, and so on, with little context or, god forbid, recommendation. People who read aren't fools, and Gleeson-White clearly appreciates that readers can do that legwork for themselves, can interrogate a text sensibly to separate the historical context from the core, and decide for themselves if it remains relevant. She's here to present the writers and their texts, explaining why each work is celebrated and what remains of worth. She's not insensitive to Australia's history of injustice, and chronicles works by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Eve Langley' s The Pea Pickers, Xavier Herbert's Capricornia and Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore alongside other works that engaged with this injustice contemporarily. But that's not the core point, nor should it be.

Third and finally, I think this is the only book of its type that avoids the age-old trap of immediacy. That's not a judgement on the others, including my beloved [a:Geoffrey Dutton|329598|Geoffrey Dutton|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], but there is always that final section of "books from the last 20 years" which bewilders people who discover the book a generation later. Inevitably some of the highlights are missing while some of the texts chosen have vanished so thoroughly into the abyss. Instead, this work (published in the late 2000s) stops at Tim Winton's 1991 novel Cloudstreet, that rare book that is unanimously deemed a classic, but also symbolically the end of an era, a novel that seemed so modern and all-encompassing in 1991 but also (from this vantage point) has a 20th century viewpoint to how it approaches race, gender, ability, and so on. It will be for future volumes to determine what the classics are from more recent years - and it will be for all readers to decide which of the classics herein remain, for them, stories that speak of, and to, Australia.

Joy. ( )

With this collection Gleeson-White has delightfully reminded me of how many Australian biographies I have yet to enjoy. ( )

This collection of 50 essays on prominent Australian writers is one of those books I love to revel in and savor slowly. First, some background.

In reading a review or essay, I forget where, I came across the name Patrick White as the only Australian to win the Nobel Prize (1973). Descriptions of several of his novels were intriguing, so I got The Aunt’s Story and loved it. I picked up several others of his books, most notably Voss. Reviews of both these books appear elsewhere on this site. A search of LibraryThing.com revealed a small number of members who also had these two novels. I contacted one member who lives in Australia, and began a discussion of White's works. LibraryThingers are great people, and this member sent me a copy of this book.

The essays are even and really whet my appetite for Australian Literature. I have always wanted to travel there, and now I am determined to make the trip one of these days. My TBR list now has a dozen new titles and authors which will open wider the door to this fascinating land.

Some of these authors I knew: Elizabeth Jolley, Kate Grenville, Miles Franklin, Shirley Hazzard, and, of course, Patrick White. Most of them, however, were completely unfamiliar. The preface explains the sense of place all these authors share, but I would add the sense of history is equally dominant. Anyone who has seen some of the great Australian films recently knows what I mean: Gallipoli, The Rabbit Fence, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. These films, all of which Gleeson-White mentions, clearly evoke place, but also history. 5 stars.

--Chiron, 3/30/08 ( )

Fantastic introduction to Australian literature and identity. ( )