First Tuesday Book Club
Encyclopedia
First Tuesday Book Club is an Australian television show that discusses books ostensibly in the style of a domestic book club. Hosted by journalist Jennifer Byrne
, it uses the panel format made popular in The Glass House
with two regular members–book reviewer Jason Steger
and author/blogger Marieke Hardy
– and two guest members. The show first aired on the ABC
on 1 August 2006 and is scheduled as a month
ly program.
, gardener Peter Cundall
, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward
, feminist Germaine Greer
, author Di Morrissey
, enfant-terrible John Safran
, musician and broadcaster Lindsay 'The Doctor' Mc Dougall
, politician Malcolm Turnbull
, retired NSW Premier Bob Carr
, comedian Judith Lucy
, retired Australian General (and author) Peter Cosgrove
, and actor/writer/director Richard E Grant.
Jennifer Byrne
-Early life:Byrne attended St Margaret's School, Melbourne as a boarding student, and began her career in journalism at age 16 as a cadet at Melbourne's The Age newspaper. At age 23 she became the paper's San Francisco correspondent, and later a feature writer....
, it uses the panel format made popular in The Glass House
The Glass House (TV series)
The Glass House was a half-hour Australian comedy talk show which screened on the ABC from 2001 to 2006.It was hosted by stand-up comedian Wil Anderson, and co-hosted by fellow television and radio comedians Corinne Grant and Dave Hughes...
with two regular members–book reviewer Jason Steger
Jason Steger
Jason Steger is a British-born Australian journalist, working in both print and film media. He is currently the literary editor of the Melbourne broadsheet The Age and one of three regular commentators on ABC TV's First Tuesday Book Club....
and author/blogger Marieke Hardy
Marieke Hardy
Marieke Josephine Hardy is an Australian writer, broadcaster, television producer and former television actress.-Early life and family:...
– and two guest members. The show first aired on the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
on 1 August 2006 and is scheduled as a month
Month
A month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which was first used and invented in Mesopotamia, as a natural period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates. The traditional concept arose with the cycle of moon phases; such months are synodic months and last approximately...
ly program.
2006
- American PsychoAmerican PsychoAmerican Psycho is a psychological thriller and satirical novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by the protagonist, serial killer and Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman. The book's graphic violence and sexual content generated a great deal of...
by Bret Easton EllisBret Easton EllisBret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
– August 2006 - The Ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger McDonaldRoger McDonaldRoger McDonald is the author of seven novels, two works of non-fiction, and a number of other works....
– August 2006 - The Shadow of the WindThe Shadow of the WindThe Shadow of the Wind is a 2001 novel by Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and a worldwide bestseller. The book was translated into English in 2004 by Lucia Graves and sold over a million copies in the UK after already achieving success on mainland Europe, topping the Spanish bestseller lists for...
by Carlos Ruiz ZafónCarlos Ruiz ZafónCarlos Ruiz Zafón is a Spanish novelist who has lived in Los Angeles since 1993, where he spent a few years writing scripts whilst developing his career as a writer....
– September 2006 - LongitudeLongitudeLongitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
by Dava SobelDava SobelDava Sobel is a writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. She graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and Binghamton University...
– September 2006 - The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt KidThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt KidThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a 2006 memoir by best-selling travel writer Bill Bryson. The book delves into Bryson's past and telling of his youth growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, during the 1950s and early 1960s...
by Bill BrysonBill BrysonWilliam McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
– October 2006 - The Rachel PapersThe Rachel PapersThe Rachel Papers is a 1989 British film based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis. It stars Dexter Fletcher and Ione Skye as the two main characters, and a number of famous names in supporting roles such as Jonathan Pryce, Bill Paterson, James Spader, Jared Harris, Claire Skinner, and...
by Martin AmisMartin AmisMartin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...
– October 2006 - The Mission SongThe Mission SongThe Mission Song is a thriller/espionage novel by John le Carré, published in October 2006. Set against the background of the chaotic East Congo, the story involves the planning of a Western-backed coup in the province of Kivu, told from the worm's-eye view of the hapless interpreter...
by John le CarréJohn le CarréDavid John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
– November 2006 - The Transit of Venus by Shirley HazzardShirley HazzardShirley Hazzard is an Australian author of fiction and nonfiction. She was born in Australia, but holds citizenship in Great Britain and the United States...
– November 2006 - The Unknown TerroristThe Unknown TerroristThe Unknown Terrorist is the 2006 fourth novel by the Australian novelist Richard Flanagan.It was described by the New York Times' Michiko Kakatani as "an armature for a brilliant meditation upon the post-9/11 world".-External links:*...
by Richard FlanaganRichard FlanaganRichard Flanagan is a novelist from Tasmania, Australia.-Early life:Flanagan was born in Longford, Tasmania, in 1961, the fifth of six children. He is descended from Irish convicts transported to Van Diemen's Land in the 1840s. His father is a survivor of the Burma Death Railway. One of his three...
– December 2006 - The God DelusionThe God DelusionThe God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
by Richard DawkinsRichard DawkinsClinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
– December 2006
2007
- Mister PipMister PipMister Pip is a novel by Lloyd Jones, a New Zealand author. It is named after a character in, and shaped by the plot of, Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations....
by Lloyd JonesLloyd Jones (New Zealand author)Lloyd Jones is a New Zealand author who currently resides in Wellington. His novel Mister Pip won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker.-Early life and education:...
– March 2007 - The Solid MandalaThe Solid MandalaThe Solid Mandala, the seventh published novel by Australian author Patrick White, Nobel Prize winner of 1973, first published in 1966. It details the story of two brothers, Waldo and Arthur Brown, with a focus upon the facets of their symbiotic relationship...
by Patrick WhitePatrick WhitePatrick Victor Martindale White , an Australian author, is widely regarded as an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative...
– March 2007 - In The Company of The Courtesan by Sarah DunantSarah DunantSarah Dunant is the author of many international bestsellers, most recently Sacred Hearts, the completion of her Italian historical trilogy....
– April 2007 - The Secret RiverThe Secret RiverThe Secret River, written by Kate Grenville in 2005, is a historical fiction about an early 19th century Englishman transported to Australia for theft. The story explores what may have happened when Europeans colonised land already inhabited by Aboriginal people. The book is also one of careful...
by Kate GrenvilleKate GrenvilleKate Grenville is one of Australia's best-known authors. She's published nine novels, a collection of short stories, and four books about the writing process....
– April 2007 - The RoadThe RoadThe Road is a 2006 novel by the American author Cormac McCarthy.The Road may also refer to:* The Road , a 2001 Kazakhstani film* The Road , a 2009 film adaptation of the McCarthy novel...
by Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
– May 2007 - Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt VonnegutKurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
– May 2007 - The Raw Shark TextsThe Raw Shark TextsThe Raw Shark Texts is the debut novel by author Steven Hall, released in 2007. The book was released by Canongate Books in the US and the UK and published by HarperCollins in Canada...
by Steven HallSteven HallSteven Hall is a British author. He has written one novel, produced a number of plays, music videos, concrete prose/conceptual art pieces, and short stories....
– June 2007 - Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
by Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
– June 2007 - The Post-Birthday World by Lionel ShriverLionel Shriver-Early life and education:Lionel Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957 in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a deeply religious family . At age 15, she changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given, and as a tomboy felt that a...
– July 2007 - Le Grand MeaulnesLe Grand MeaulnesLe Grand Meaulnes is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as Meaulnes searches for his lost love. Impulsive, reckless and heroic, Meaulnes embodies the romantic ideal, the...
by Alain FournierAlain FournierAlain Fournier was a computer graphics researcher.- Biography :Alain Fournier was born on November 5, 1943 in Lyon, France. He was married twice, first to Beverly Bickle and later to Adrienne Drobnies, with whom he had one daughter, Ariel.Fournier's early training was in chemistry, culminating in...
– July 2007 - A Thousand Splendid SunsA Thousand Splendid SunsA Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. The book focuses on the tumultuous lives of two Afghan women and how their lives cross each other, spanning from the 1960s to 2003...
by Khaled HosseiniKhaled HosseiniKhaled Hosseini , is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician of ethnic Tajik origin. He is a citizen of the United States where he has lived since he was fifteen years old. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide....
– August 2007 - The Dancer UpstairsThe Dancer UpstairsThe Dancer Upstairs is a 1995 novel by Nicholas Shakespeare. It is based on the Maoist insurgency of the 1980s in Peru, and tells the story of Agustin Rejas, a police Lieutenant , hunting a terrorist based on Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path. In 2002 it was given a film adaptation under...
by Nicholas ShakespeareNicholas ShakespeareNicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a British journalist and writer. Born to a diplomat, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school then Winchester College and Cambridge and worked as a journalist for BBC television and...
– August 2007 - The Broken ShoreThe Broken ShoreThe Broken Shore is a Duncan Lawrie Dagger award winning novel by Australian author Peter Temple.-Plot Summary:The novel's central character is Joe Cashin, a Melbourne homicide detective. Following serious physical injuries he is posted to his hometown where he begins the process of rebuilding...
by Peter TemplePeter TemplePeter Temple is an Australian crime fiction writer.Formerly a journalist and journalism lecturer, Temple turned to fiction writing in the 1990s. His Jack Irish novels are set in Melbourne, Australia, and feature an unusual lawyer-gambler protagonist...
– September 2007 - The Memory of RunningThe Memory of RunningThe Memory of Running is a 2004 novel by Ron McLarty. Narrated by obese, single, and suddenly orphaned Vietnam War-veteran Smithy Ide, the book relates, in alternating chapters, his bike ride across the country, from East Providence to Los Angeles, to claim the body of his late, mentally unbalanced...
by Ron McLartyRon McLartyRon McLarty is an American actor, playwright and author. He began his career in theatre during the early 1970s with one his earliest professional performances being the role of Lucky in Michael Weller's Moonchildren for the play's American premiere at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in November...
- September 2007 - Moby-DickMoby-DickMoby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
by Herman MelvilleHerman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
– October 2007 - East of Time by Jacob G. Rosenberg - October 1997
- On Chesil BeachOn Chesil BeachOn Chesil Beach is a 2007 novel by the Booker Prize-winning British writer Ian McEwan. The novel was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist....
by Ian McEwanIan McEwanIan Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
- November 2007 - The Big SleepThe Big SleepThe Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first in his acclaimed series about detective Philip Marlowe. The work has been adapted twice into film, once in 1946 and again in 1978...
by Raymond ChandlerRaymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
- November 2007 - Not in the FleshNot in the FleshNot in the Flesh is 2007 novel by British crime-writer Ruth Rendell. The novel is the 21st entry in the Inspector Wexford series.- Plot summary:...
by Ruth RendellRuth RendellRuth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, , who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, is an English crime writer, author of psychological thrillers and murder mysteries....
- December 2007 - The Children by Charlotte WoodCharlotte WoodCharlotte Wood is an Australian novelist.Wood was born in Cooma, New South Wales. She has a background in journalism and has also taught writing at a variety of levels. She currently lives in Sydney. She has a Master of Creative Arts from UTS and a BA from Charles Sturt University. Her new novel,...
- December 2007
2008
- The Memory Room by Christopher KochChristopher KochChristopher John Koch, AO, Australian novelist, was born in Hobart in 1932. He has twice won the Miles Franklin Award. In 1995 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for contribution to Australian literature....
– March 2008 - NakedNaked (book)Naked, published in 1997, is a collection of essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The book details Sedaris’ life, from his unusual upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, to his booze-and-drug-ridden college years, to his Kerouacian wandering as a young adult...
by David SedarisDavid SedarisDavid Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor....
– March 2008 - Liar's PokerLiar's PokerLiar's Poker is a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book by Michael Lewis describing the author's experiences as a bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s...
by Michael LewisMichael Lewis (author)Michael Lewis is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Panic and Home Game: An...
– April 2008 - People of the BookPeople of the BookPeople of the Book is a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab . The three types of adherents to faiths that the Qur'an mentions as people of the book are the Jews, Sabians and Christians.In Islam, the Muslim scripture, the...
by Geraldine Brooks – April 2008 - The Girl with the Dragon TattooThe Girl with the Dragon TattooThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an award-winning crime novel by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson. It is the first book in the trilogy known as the "Millennium series"....
by Stieg LarssonStieg LarssonKarl Stig-Erland Larsson , who wrote professionally as Stieg Larsson, was a Swedish journalist and writer, born in Skelleftehamn outside Skellefteå. He is best known for writing the "Millennium series" of crime novels, which were published posthumously...
– May 2008 - A Farewell to ArmsA Farewell to ArmsA Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Ernest Hemingway concerning events during the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The book, which was first published in 1929, is a first-person account of American Frederic Henry, serving as a Lieutenant in the ambulance...
by Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
– May 2008 - BreathBreath (novel)Breath is the twentieth book and the eighth novel by Australian novelist Tim Winton. His first novel in seven years, it was published in 2008, in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany....
by Tim WintonTim WintonTimothy John "Tim" Winton , is an Australian novelist and short story writer.-Life:Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the regional city of Albany....
– June 2008 - Demons at Dusk by Peter Stewart – June 2008
- Peter PanPeter PanPeter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
by J. M. BarrieJ. M. BarrieSir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
– July 2008 - Miracles of LifeMiracles of LifeMiracles of Life is an autobiography written by British writer J. G. Ballard and published in 2008.-Overview:The book describes Ballard's childhood and early teenage years in Shanghai in the 1930s and the early 1940s, when the city is ravaged by the Second Sino-Japanese War and W.W.II...
by J. G. BallardJ. G. BallardJames Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, and prominent member of the New Wave movement in science fiction...
– July 2008 - Devil May CareDevil May Care (novel)Devil May Care is the thirty-sixth original James Bond novel. Written by Sebastian Faulks , it was published on 28 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming, creator of Bond.-Background:...
by Sebastian FaulksSebastian Faulks-Early life:Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 in Donnington, Berkshire to Peter Faulks and Pamela . Edward Faulks, Baron Faulks, is his older brother. He was educated at Elstree School, Reading and went on to Wellington College, Berkshire...
– August 2008 - The Adventures of Augie MarchThe Adventures of Augie MarchThe Adventures of Augie March is a novel by Saul Bellow.It centers on the eponymous character who grows up during the Great Depression...
by Saul BellowSaul BellowSaul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
– August 2008 - Disquiet by Julia LeighJulia LeighJulia Leigh is an Australian novelist, film director and screenwriter.-Early life:Born in 1970 in Sydney, Australia, Leigh is the eldest of three daughters of a doctor and maths teacher. She initially studied law but shifted to writing. For a time she worked at the Australian Society of Authors...
– September 2008 - A Confederacy of DuncesA Confederacy of DuncesA Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel written by John Kennedy Toole, published by LSU Press in 1980, 11 years after the author's suicide. The book was published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother Thelma Toole, quickly becoming a cult classic, and later a...
by John Kennedy TooleJohn Kennedy TooleJohn Kennedy Toole was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, best-known for his posthumously published novel A Confederacy of Dunces. He also wrote The Neon Bible. Although several people in the literary world felt his writing skills were praiseworthy, Toole's novels were rejected...
– September 2008 - The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian MooreBrian Moore (novelist)Brian Moore was a Northern Irish novelist and screenwriter who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland after the Second World War, in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The...
– October 2008 - Pandora in the Congo by Albert Sánchez PiñolAlbert Sánchez PiñolAlbert Sánchez Piñol is a Catalan Spanish author and anthropologist writing in the Catalan language. He has been described as a "significant European writer".- Works :* Les edats d´or * Pallasos i monstres...
– October 2008 - The Outsider by Albert CamusAlbert CamusAlbert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
- November 2008 - Something to Tell You by Hanif KureishiHanif KureishiHanif Kureishi CBE is an English playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, novelist and short story writer. The themes of his work have touched on topics of race, nationalism, immigration, and sexuality...
- November 2008 - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie SocietyThe Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie SocietyThe Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows published in 2008.According to WorldCat, there are over 2200 library holdings of this title.From the Book Flap...
by Mary Ann ShafferMary Ann ShafferMary Ann Shaffer was a writer, editor, librarian, and a bookshop worker. She is best known for her posthumously published work The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which she wrote with her niece, Annie Barrows.References1...
- December 2008
2009
- The Grapes of WrathThe Grapes of WrathThe Grapes of Wrath is a novel published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962....
by John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
– March 2009 - The White TigerThe White TigerThe White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was first published in 2008 and won the Man Booker Prize in the same year. The novel provides a darkly comical view of modern day life in India through the narration of its protagonist Balram Halwai...
by Aravind AdigaAravind AdigaAravind Adiga is an Indian writer and journalist. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.-Early life and education:...
– March 2009 - Revolutionary RoadRevolutionary RoadRevolutionary Road, the first novel of author Richard Yates, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1962 along with Catch-22 and The Moviegoer. When it was published by Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1961, it received critical acclaim, and the New York Times reviewed it as "beautifully crafted.....
by Richard YatesRichard Yates (novelist)Richard Yates was an American novelist and short story writer, known for his exploration of mid-20th century life.-Life:...
– April 2009 - The Private PatientThe Private PatientThe Private Patient is a crime novel by English author P. D. James, the fourteenth in her popular Adam Dalgliesh series.-Synopsis:In deepest Dorset, the once magnificent Cheverell Manor has been renovated and transformed into a plastic surgery, run by the famous cosmetic practitioner George...
by P.D. James – April 2009 - The SlapThe SlapThe Slap is a novel by Australian author Christos Tsiolkas. The eight-part television series, The Slap, is an adaptation of the book. Its filming commenced in January 2011 and first screened on Australian television channel ABC1 from October 2011....
by Christos TsiolkasChristos Tsiolkas-Biography:He was born and grew up in Melbourne and was educated at Blackburn High School and the University of Melbourne where he completed an Arts Degree in 1987. www.austlit.edu.au. Retrieved 2007-07-22. He edited the student newspaper Farrago in 1988....
- May 2009 - Darwin and the Barnacle by Rebecca StottRebecca StottRebecca Stott is a British academic, broadcaster, novelist and a professor at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of two historical thrillers, Ghostwalk and The Coral Thief a biography of Charles Darwin, Darwin and the Barnacle and an epic history of Darwin's predecessors called...
- May 2009 - The Great GatsbyThe Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
by F Scott Fitzgerald - June 2009 - RansomRansom (Malouf novel)Ransom is a novel by Australian author David Malouf. It retells the story of the Iliad from books 16 to 24.It is studied in Australian high schools as an English text.-Summary and Analysis:...
by David MaloufDavid MaloufDavid George Joseph Malouf is an acclaimed Australian writer. He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2000, his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, he won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008, and he was...
- June 2009 - The Housekeeper + the Professor by Yoko OgawaYoko Ogawais a Japanese writer.-Biography:Ogawa was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, graduated from Waseda University, and lives in Ashiya, Hyōgo, with her husband and son. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor's Beloved Equation has been...
- July 2009 - The CollectorThe CollectorThe Collector is the title of a 1963 novel by John Fowles. It was made into a movie in 1965.- Plot summary :The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall, and collects butterflies in his spare time...
by John FowlesJohn FowlesJohn Robert Fowles was an English novelist and essayist. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Fowles among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Birth and family:...
- July 2009 - Gone TommorowGone Tomorrow (novel)Gone Tomorrow is the thirteenth book in the Jack Reacher series written by Lee Child. It was published on 23 April 2009 in the UK and 19 May 2009 in the USA. This book is written in the first person.- Plot summary:...
by Lee ChildLee ChildJim Grant , better known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British thriller writer. His wife Jane is a New Yorker, and they currently live in New York state. His first novel, Killing Floor, won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel....
- August 2009 - MiddlesexMiddlesex (novel)Middlesex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 2002. The book is a bestseller, with more than three million copies sold as of May 2011. Its characters and events are loosely based on aspects of Eugenides' life and observations of his Greek heritage. It is...
by Jeffrey EugenidesJeffrey EugenidesJeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Eugenides is most known for his first two novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex . His novel The Marriage Plot was published in October, 2011.-Life and career:Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan,...
- August 2009 - The LeopardThe LeopardThe Leopard is a novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa that chronicles the changes in Sicilian life and society during the Risorgimento...
by Giuseppe Tomasi di LampedusaGiuseppe Tomasi di LampedusaGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , was a Sicilian writer. He is most famous for his only novel, Il Gattopardo which is set in Sicily during the Risorgimento...
- September 2009 - Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff dyerGeoff DyerGeoff Dyer is a British author and novelist. He is also a journalist who writes about a wide range of topics. His published work includes four novels and several books of non-fiction, which have won a number of literary awards...
- September 2009 - the Little StrangerThe Little StrangerThe Little Stranger is a 2009 gothic novel written by Sarah Waters. It is a ghost story set in a dilapidated mansion in Warwickshire, England in the 1940s...
by Sarah WatersSarah WatersSarah Waters is a British novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.-Childhood:Sarah Waters was born in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1966....
- October 2009 - Ask the DustAsk the DustAsk the Dust is the most popular novel of Italian-American author John Fante, first published in 1939 and set during the Great Depression-era in Los Angeles. It is one of a series of novels featuring the character Arturo Bandini as Fante's alter ego, a young Italian-American from Colorado...
by John FanteJohn FanteJohn Fante was an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Italian descent. He is perhaps best known for his work, Ask the Dust, a semi-autobiograpical novel about life in and around Los Angeles, California, which was the third in a series of four novels, published between 1938...
- October 2009 - This is How by MJ Hyland - November 2009
- The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel SparkMuriel SparkDame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...
- November 2009 - Ordinary ThunderstormsOrdinary ThunderstormsOrdinary Thunderstorms is a novel by William Boyd. It explores the dark side of London's underworld and the international pharmaceutical industry.- Plot :Adam Kindred is a recently divorced climatologist who has moved back to England...
by William BoydWilliam Boyd (writer)William Boyd, CBE is a Scottish novelist and screenwriter.-Biography:Of Scottish descent, Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria, in Africa...
- December 2009 - Summer Reads - December 2009
2010
- CloudstreetCloudstreetCloudstreet is a novel by Australian writer Tim Winton. It chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street, in a suburb of Perth, over a period of twenty years, 1943 - 1963...
by Tim WintonTim WintonTimothy John "Tim" Winton , is an Australian novelist and short story writer.-Life:Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the regional city of Albany....
- March 2010 - ZeitounZeitoun (book)Zeitoun is a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers and published by McSweeney's in 2009. It tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the Syrian-American owner of a painting and contracting company in New Orleans who chose to ride out Hurricane Katrina in his Uptown home...
by Dave EggersDave EggersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
- March 2010 - SolarSolar (novel)Solar is a novel by British author Ian McEwan, first published on 18 March 2010 by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Random House. It is a satire about a jaded Nobel-winning physicist whose dysfunctional personal life and cynical ambition see him pursuing a solar-energy based solution for climate...
by Ian McEwanIan McEwanIan Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
- April 2010 - Strange case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis StevensonRobert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
- April 2010 - Wide Sargasso SeaWide Sargasso SeaWide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 postcolonial parallel novel by Dominica-born author Jean Rhys. Since her previous work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939, Rhys had lived in obscurity. Wide Sargasso Sea put Rhys into the limelight once more, and became her most successful novel.The novel...
by Jean RhysJean RhysJean Rhys , born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, was a mid 20th-century novelist from Dominica. Educated from the age of 16 in Great Britain, she is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea , written as a "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.-Early life:Rhys was born in Roseau, Dominica...
- May 2010 - The Museum of InnocenceThe Museum of InnocenceThe Museum of Innocence is a novel by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel-laureate Turkish novelist published on August 29, 2008. The book is a long and detailed account of the obsessive love that Kemal, a wealthy businessman, bears for Füsun, a lower class shop girl 12 years Kemal's junior, for over 30 years...
by Orhan PamukOrhan PamukFerit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....
- May 2010 - Pride and PrejudicePride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
by Jane AustenJane AustenJane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
- June 2010 - Reading by Moonlight by Brenda WalkerBrenda WalkerBrenda Walker is an Australian writer. She studied at the University of New England in Armidale and, after gaining a PhD in English at the Australian National University, she moved to Perth in 1984. She is now Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia...
- June 2010 - One Day by David Nichols - July 2010
- Portnoy's ComplaintPortnoy's ComplaintPortnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...
by Phillip Roth - July 2010 - Anna KareninaAnna KareninaAnna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger...
by Leo TolstoyLeo TolstoyLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
- August 2010 - Beatrice and VirgilBeatrice and VirgilBeatrice and Virgil is Canadian writer Yann Martel's third novel. First published in April 2010, it contains an allegorical tale about representations of the Holocaust. It tells the story of Henry, a novelist, who receives the manuscript of a play in a letter from a reader...
by Yann MartelYann MartelYann Martel is a Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi.-Early life:Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain where his father was posted as a diplomat for the Canadian government. He was raised in Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Canada...
- August 2010 - To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...
by Harper LeeHarper LeeNelle Harper Lee is an American author known for her 1960 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama...
- September 2010 - Inheritance by Nicholas ShakespeareNicholas ShakespeareNicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a British journalist and writer. Born to a diplomat, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school then Winchester College and Cambridge and worked as a journalist for BBC television and...
- September 2010 - Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor - October 2010
- Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger - October 2010
- Atlas ShruggedAtlas ShruggedAtlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...
by Ayn RandAyn RandAyn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
- November 2010 - Freedom by Jonathan FranzenJonathan FranzenJonathan Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections , a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
- November 2010 - Parrot and Olivier in AmericaParrot and Olivier in AmericaParrot and Olivier in America is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It was on the shortlist of six books for the 2010 Man Booker Prize....
by Peter Carey - December 2010 - Dead Man's Chest by Kerry GreenwoodKerry GreenwoodKerry Greenwood is a solicitor from Melbourne, Australia. She is also the author of many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centred on the character of Phryne Fisher. She writes mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, and children's stories, as well as...
- December 2010
2011
- Madame BovaryMadame BovaryMadame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
by Gustave FlaubertGustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
- March 2011 - Our Kind Of Traitor by John le CarreJohn le CarréDavid John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
- March 2011 - Super Sad True Love Story by Gary ShteyngartGary ShteyngartGary Shteyngart is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.-Life:...
- April 2011 - The Man Who Loved Children by Christina SteadChristina SteadChristina Stead was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations.-Biography:...
- April 2011 - Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
- May 2011 - Me and Mr Booker by Cory Taylor - May 2011
- Women in Love by DH Lawrence - June 2011
- The Happy Life by David MaloufDavid MaloufDavid George Joseph Malouf is an acclaimed Australian writer. He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2000, his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, he won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008, and he was...
- June 2011 - The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan - July 2011
- Cold Comfort FarmCold Comfort FarmCold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb...
by Stella GibbonsStella GibbonsStella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer.Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933...
- July 2011 - The Master and MargaritaThe Master and MargaritaThe Master and Margarita is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and one of the foremost Soviet satires, directed against a...
by Mikhail BulgakovMikhail BulgakovMikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
- August 2011 - Past The Shallows by Favel Parrett - August 2011
- Cloud Atlas by David MitchellDavid Mitchell (author)David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist. He has written five novels, two of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize.- Biography :...
- September 2011 - Kinglake 350 by Adrian Hyland - September 2011
- The Hare With Amber EyesThe Hare with Amber EyesThe Hare with Amber Eyes is a family memoir by British ceramicist Edmund de Waal. Waal tells the story of his family the Ephrussi, who were once a very wealthy European Jewish banking dynasty centered in Odessa, Vienna and Paris, peers of the Rothschild family. The Ephrussi lost almost everything...
by Edmund de WaalEdmund de WaalEdmund Arthur Lowndes de Waal OBE is a British ceramic artist, and author of The Hare with Amber Eyes . He has worked as a curator, lecturer, art critic and art historian and is a Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster. He has received several awards and honours for his...
- October 2011 - RebeccaRebecca (novel)Rebecca is a novel by Daphne du Maurier. When Rebecca was published in 1938, du Maurier became – to her great surprise – one of the most popular authors of the day. Rebecca is considered to be one of her best works...
by Daphne du MaurierDaphne du MaurierDame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
- October 2011
Guests
Guests have included Jesuit priest Frank Brennan, actress Penny CookPenny Cook
Penny Cook is an Australian actress. She graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1978.Cook first appeared in the 1970s Australian television soap opera The Restless Years...
, gardener Peter Cundall
Peter Cundall
Peter Cundall, AM is a horticulturalist, conservationist, author, broadcaster and television personality in Australia. He currently lives in Tasmania's Tamar Valley, and until the age of 81 continued to be a presenter of the ABC TV program Gardening Australia. His last show aired on 26 July 2008...
, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward
Pru Goward
Prudence Jane Goward MP , an Australian politician, is the Minister for Community Services and Women in the O'Farrell Liberal-National Coalition Government since 2011. Goward is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Goulburn for the Liberal Party of Australia since 2007...
, feminist Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
, author Di Morrissey
Di Morrissey
Di Morrissey is one of Australia's most popular female novelists. She grew up in the remote surrounds of Pittwater, north of Sydney, Australia....
, enfant-terrible John Safran
John Safran
John Safran is an Australian documentary maker and radio broadcaster, known for combining humour with explorations into religion and other issues...
, musician and broadcaster Lindsay 'The Doctor' Mc Dougall
Lindsay McDougall
Lindsay "The Doctor" McDougall is an Australian radio presenter for national youth network Triple J and guitarist in Australian punk rock band Frenzal Rhomb.- Frenzal Rhomb :...
, politician Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Bligh Turnbull is an Australian politician. He has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives since 2004, and was Leader of the Opposition and parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party from 16 September 2008 to 1 December 2009.Turnbull has represented the Division...
, retired NSW Premier Bob Carr
Bob Carr
Robert John "Bob" Carr , Australian statesman, was Premier of New South Wales from 4 April 1995 to 3 August 2005. He holds the record for the longest continuous service as premier of NSW...
, comedian Judith Lucy
Judith Lucy
Judith Mary Lucy is an Australian comedian, known primarily for her stand-up comedy. She has toured Australia with several highly successful one-woman shows, including No Waiter I Ordered the Avocado , King Of The Road , An Impossible Dream , The Show , The Show 2 , Colour Me Judith...
, retired Australian General (and author) Peter Cosgrove
Peter Cosgrove
General Peter John Cosgrove AC, MC is a retired Australian Army officer. He was the Chief of the Defence Force from 3 July 2002 to 3 July 2005, when he retired from active service...
, and actor/writer/director Richard E Grant.