1001 Australians You Should Know
Pluto Press, $49.95 pb, 741 pp, 1864033614
They're a weird mob
Scheherazade, you have much to answer for! 1001 nights were fine for you, but by now there might well be that number of volumes offering that much advice about books, films and paintings, not to mention screen savers and blogs. So this bulky new book should be seen first, even primarily, as a marketing opportunity.
Cynical? Well, even crass mercantilism can have benefits. The value which the reader puts on them will influence the answer to that question. But why 1001? I daresay there needs to be a limit. Here, that is 694 pages of variably informative ‘content’, though I suspect imitation (or, that Australian trait, following overseas fashion) is the principal influence.
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