Reader Survey

Last month it was autobiography’s turn, when David McCooey examined recent Australian memoirs (La Trobe University Essay, ABR, May 2006). Now it is biography’s turn: the genre will be the subject of the 2006 Australian Book Review/La Trobe University Annual Lecture, titled ‘Matters of Life and Death: The Return of Biography’. Our distinguished lecturer is Professor Ian Donaldson, Director of the ANU’s Humanities Research Centre, head of the latter’s new Biography Institute, and Consultant Editor for The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. He is a general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (due for publication in twenty-five volumes in 2007), and is completing a life of Jonson for OUP.

All we can say is that ABR readers are not short of a word, and thank goodness for that. The response to our reader survey has been exceptional and most heartening. To date, about four hundred people have filled out the survey. We’re still analysing the results, but ‘Advances’ can report that overall our readers have a deep affinity with ABR – or at least with the idea of ABR – and are thus keen for us to improve the magazine and to maximise its potential. Readers’ annotations, whether critical or positive, have been overwhelmingly helpful and constructive. Already we are adding new features to the magazine in response to your suggestions. Many of you, for instance, cited Film as an area of neglect: next month we launch our film column. Much work remains to be done as we continue assimilating the results. Since the surveys are still coming in, we’ll delay announcing the prize-winners until the September issue.