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Archive

'Trading Posts' by Michael Johnson

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May 1985, no. 70

In the UK Bookseller, the self-named ‘organ’ of the VAT-proof Thatcherland, the gossip columnist, one Horace Bent, speculated that Simon and Schuster International were running their New York eyes over Thomson Books UK. However, Thomson, the umbrella sheltering Nelson from the noonday sun, along with pedigree icons Hamish Hamilton, Michael Joseph, and the slightly more louche Sphere and Abacus paperback lists, has chosen the dignified flippancy of Penguin over any other suitor. My source was impeccable, Penguins never lay eggs that don’t hatch, and the news is now yesterdays, unless of course you happen to be a Nelson employee crystal-gazing into the Penguin pond!

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When the Sky Fell Down: The destruction of the tribes of the Sydney region 1788–1850s by Keith Willey

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May 1985, no. 70
Maurice French reviews 'When the Sky Fell Down: The destruction of the tribes of the Sydney region 1788–1850s' by Keith Willey

Keith Willey died on 6 September 1984. He had just submitted the manuscript of what was to be his last book. A study of Australian humour in adversity titled You Might As Well Laugh Mate, it summed up the man, not least in his last days. Sardonic, self-effacing, unashamedly Australian.

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Gather Your Dreams by Magda Bozic

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May 1985, no. 70

In her book Gather Your Dreams Magda Bozic, a post-war European immigrant, demonstrates that all migrants have a ‘tale to tell’ about their experiences in coming to terms with their adopted homeland. Hers is not a horrific story of hardship or overt discrimination but an account of day-to-day incidents recalling early feelings of displacement, the gradual settling in over a period of twenty years, an eventual visit back to her place of birth and finally her return home to Australia.

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The Way It Is by Michael Sharkey

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May 1985, no. 70

On page 87 of Michael Sharkey’s The Way It Is, there is a photograph of the poet reading the National Farmer (a weekly rural newspaper), which shows what happens when you lock up the well-read in a small rural town. Armidale mightn’t Pontus or Bandusia, and you don’t have to have crossed Augustus or have been befriended by Maecenas to get there, but once you are, it certainly changes your idea of ‘the way it is’. Drought, rain, frost, journeys, and drunkenness, obsession with the weather in general, and an almanac of solar and lunar occurrences becomes the raw material of your verse – as it was for those other rural exiles in the Tang dynasty, Li Po and Tu Fu.

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Sam Byrne: Folk painter of the Silver City by Ross Moore

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May 1985, no. 70
Noel Counihan reviews 'Sam Byrne: Folk painter of the Silver City' by Ross Moore

Before I came across this attractive and instructive book, I knew very little of the art of Sam Byrne, thinking of him merely as one of a group of outback ‘primitives’ based on Broken Hill, the Silver City, of whom the best known is Pro Hart.

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'Reviewing the job of reviewing' by Hazel Edwards

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May 1985, no. 70

In Australia, few publications regularly review children’s books for the information of the general reader/buyer. ASA chairman, Ken Methold, suggests that Australian writers need to advertise their varied skills and publicise their works. I agree.

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Love and the Outer World: Selected poems by R.G. Hay

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May 1985, no. 70
Nancy Keesing reviews 'Love and the Outer World: Selected poems' by R.G. Hay

It was my good fortune to be born into a family for whom books and paintings had a central place. My parents subscribed to an excellent lending library and were adventurous readers of novels. During the Depression they could not often afford to buy a painting, but they went to art shows and Sunday visits to the Art Gallery of New South Wales were frequent in my childhood.

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Serpent’s Tooth: An autobiographical novel by Roger Milliss

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May 1985, no. 70
Darren Tofts reviews 'Serpent’s Tooth: An autobiographical novel' by Roger Milliss

Serpent’s Tooth is a massive, sprawling novel. It is panoramic in its vision of twentieth century social and political history, and meticulous in its rendering of one man’s struggle to sustain the mighty ideal his father has inspired in him.

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'Starters & Writers' by Mark Rubbo  

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May 1985, no. 70
I had thought, and still do, that the phenomenon of publishing a book in paperback only was a good thing, especially for fiction. As a bookseller, I observed the paperback achieve sales three and four times what they would have been if the book was hardback. It should be good for the author too, I thought. The lower royalty payment per book would have been more than compensated for by the higher sales and the larger audience. When I suggested this to a writer recently, he was quite adamant that paperback only editions meant that writers got a much smaller return because they missed out on PLR. ... (read more)

Memory Ireland: Insights into the contemporary Irish condition by Vincent Buckley

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May 1985, no. 70
D.J. O’Hearn reviews 'Memory Ireland: Insights into the contemporary Irish condition' by Vincent Buckley

It is often the case that a well-informed outsider can light on structures, habits of thought and patterns of behaviour which, to the people living them out, are neither perceived nor understood.

           Vincent Buckley, who describes himself as a ‘loving outsider’, has visited Ireland on numerous occasions and lived there for long periods over almost thirty years. If he is an outsider, he is certainly a well-informed one, and no-one reading this book – subtitled ‘Insights into the contemporary Irish condition’ – can doubt that it is a book of love and, by that means, penetration.

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