My Australian Reading List--How I Learned about My New Home, Compiled in 2008

"You were born here. I come for the first

time in my life: a sort of pilgrimage

to find some relic, read an earlier page

than the known text..."

From "Another's Childhood," by Gwen Harwood, as Miriam Stone

On my first extended visit to Melbourne in 1998, I hunted my partner's book shelves to read all I could about my new geography. I have never stopped my search for  Australian texts that would help me read this land, these histories. Here are a few books, some old, some new, that have given me insight and  pleasure. [Given out at my first Brunswick Library talk about home and exile.] 

Armstrong, Diane. The Voyage of their Life: The Story of the SS Derna and its Passengers, 2001.

Astley, Thea. It's Raining in Mango, 1987.

Australian Gay and Lesbian Writing: An Anthology, ed. Robert Dessaix, 1993.

Australian Short Stories,  ed. Kerryn Goldsworthy, 1983.

Bail, Murray. Eucalyptus, 1998.

Cornelius, Patricia. My Sister Jill.

De Kretser, Michelle. The Hamilton Case, 2003; The Lost Dog, 2007.

Gardner, Helen. Monkey's Grip, 1977.

Grenville, Kate. The Secret River, 2005; Searching for the Secret River, 2006.

Growing Up Asian in Australia, ed. Alice Pung, 2008.

A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Writing in Australia, ed. Michael Hurley, 1993.

Harwood, Gwen. Collected Poems (1943-1995), 2003.

Hazard, Shirley. The Great Fire, 2003.

Hewitt, Dorothy. Everything I could find. Wild Card: An Autobiography-1923-1958;Collected Poems, 1995; The Chapel Perlious, a play, 1972; Bobbin Up, 1959; The Toucher, 1992;Neap Tide, 1999. Wrote an essay on Ms. Hewitt's work for the American The Women's Review of Books. Honored to have spoken to her on the phone.

Hughes, Robert. The Fateful Shore.

Langford, Ruby. Don't Take Your Love to Town, 1988.

Miller, Alex. Journey to the Stone Country, 2002.

Modjeska, Drusilla. Stravinsky's Lunch, 1999.

Morgan, Sally. My Place, 1987.

Moorhouse, Frank. Days of Wine and Rage, 1980.

Park, Ruth. The Harp in the South, 1948Aand all else I could find of hers.

Patterson, Banjo. Collected Poems.

Prichard, Katharine Susannah. Coonardoo, 1929; N'Goola and Other Stories, 1959.

Summers, Anne. Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia, 1975.

Temple, Peter. The Broken Shore, 2005.

Tsolkas. Christos. Loaded,1994; Dead Europe, 2005.

White, Patrick. The Tree of Man, 1955. I can still hear the creaking wagon wheels of the opening paragraph.

Winton, Tim. Cloudstreet, 1991.

Wright, Alexis. Carpentaria, 2006. An epic writer, not only of Australia but of the world. Her language is the living hope of the oldest people speaking, waiting, for a moved white heart.

Wright, Judith. Collected Poems, 1994; Half a Life-Time, 1999.

And so I started my 20 year sojourn in this wide brown land.