Things that are too long for Twitter
I've been spending a fair amount at Book Depository lately, and my current bookmark is one of the ones they send out with your purchase.
The bookmark is "Books you should read as voted for by our customers" on one side. I looked at it and thought there was a strong Australian influence there; it includes works like The Thorn Birds (I know it was made into a miniseries in the USA, but it remains pretty damn Australian in my head), Cloudstreet, The Slap and Tomorrow, When The War Began. It also includes The Book Thief, but I think of that as being much more international than The Thorn Birds.
So yeah, I thought that was pretty heavily influenced by their Australian book buying base. I mean, Cloudstreet is as Australian as it gets, as it tends to have to be in order to win the Miles Franklin Award.
The reverse of the bookmark has "International Books you should read as voted for by our customers". I can't see a single title there in English... with the exception of Seven Little Australians.
I just am confused about a world in which Seven Little Australians is an "international book" but The Slap isn't.
(This was going to be the year I only read the historical -- mostly Tudor -- biographies on my shelves, aside from whatever we were doing in the Tuesday night study group. That plan was sent out the window by the Promote Literature and Reading booklist, and now I seem to be buying mostly books with titles like A Year of Biblical Womanhood and Holy Misogyny and The Skeptical Believer. My inner preacher's kid, let me show you it.)
This entry was originally posted at http://purple-smurf.dreamwidth.org/503865.html
The bookmark is "Books you should read as voted for by our customers" on one side. I looked at it and thought there was a strong Australian influence there; it includes works like The Thorn Birds (I know it was made into a miniseries in the USA, but it remains pretty damn Australian in my head), Cloudstreet, The Slap and Tomorrow, When The War Began. It also includes The Book Thief, but I think of that as being much more international than The Thorn Birds.
So yeah, I thought that was pretty heavily influenced by their Australian book buying base. I mean, Cloudstreet is as Australian as it gets, as it tends to have to be in order to win the Miles Franklin Award.
The reverse of the bookmark has "International Books you should read as voted for by our customers". I can't see a single title there in English... with the exception of Seven Little Australians.
I just am confused about a world in which Seven Little Australians is an "international book" but The Slap isn't.
(This was going to be the year I only read the historical -- mostly Tudor -- biographies on my shelves, aside from whatever we were doing in the Tuesday night study group. That plan was sent out the window by the Promote Literature and Reading booklist, and now I seem to be buying mostly books with titles like A Year of Biblical Womanhood and Holy Misogyny and The Skeptical Believer. My inner preacher's kid, let me show you it.)
This entry was originally posted at http://purple-smurf.dreamwidth.org/503865.html