Please join Alan Brough at a celebration at the State Library on Friday 20 March, 4 - 5pm when he announces the the top five books, as voted by Victorian readers in the State Library of Victoria’s Summer Read program 2008-9, and voter’s prizes.

Experimedia
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street, Melbourne

RSVP by Wednesday 17 March 2009

Telephone                   8664 7555
email                          learning@slv.vic.gov.au
book online                summerreadawards.eventbrite.com

Thanks Sophie for your enjoyable posts, sharing your snaps as you were getting the hang of your new Nikon D80 camera and updating us all with the outcome of the ‘emu egg cup’.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Sophie will be appearing at:

* Yea Library on Tuesday 3 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm

For more information phone 5797 2209 or book online at http://summerread17.eventbrite.com

* Mildura Library on Wednesday 11 February 2009, 7.30 – 8.00 pm

For more information phone 5018 8350 or book online at http://summerread19.eventbrite.com

Vote for Bird or SMS BIRD to 13 46 88

The general chaos that is my life continued today as I sat down to write my first blog post and saw that in fact I should have begun yesterday.  Apologies all round.  The excuse is that I was in meetings for a total of ten hours yesterday - oh how I dream of sitting home and actually writing - and then went to the SPUNC (Small Press Underground Networking Community) Christmas drinks. To drink.  To make up for that I got a new camera today and later this afternoon plan to try it out and, if they’re any good, share the first results.

I am, I confess, in a state of yearning - mainly for the Christmas break and that sometimes bleak sometimes sweet feeling of a city that’s shut down for a couple of weeks.  People disappear. Favorite cafes close down. People with children head off to beach houses, people without wait until the school holiday season is done before they take their break.  The streets are quiet.

Yearning too , as I said above to have the time to read and to write without the pressure of work.  This Christmas break I am off to Vietnam and already have my books organised (yes, The Quiet American).  The writing will probably just be jotted notes, emails maybe blog posts. And hopefully those disorganised observations will bloom into something more substantial later on. That said, I’m not going to vietnam with a book project in mind and there is  a freedom in that.  Often my travel is more directed to an outcome and that can be both good and bad. 

I travelled to India a few times when I was writing Bird - and obviously that country is on my mind this morning.  There have been bombings throughout Mumbai and the Taj Mahal Hotel is burning. That is the place I had my first Indian meal in what was then known as Bombay.  It was January 1983, and my friend and I went straight to our divey hotel from the airport, and  then dutifully went to the Taj to try their Indian buffet - as recommended by our travel guide.  It was great food - and very expensive by backpackers standards ($20 -25 years ago) but it was such a treat. One of those nights, as a teenager, that I felt very grand and grown up - though India can often have the opposite effect.  The point of these bombings seems to have been to target tourist areas, but as is always the case, it is mainly the local people who’s lives are lost, or turned upside down.

Sophie Cunningham is the next Summer Read author blogging from 26 – 30 November.

Sophie has worked as an editor, publisher and journalist since 1989. Her first novel, Geography, was published in 2004. She is currently the editor of Meanjin and working on a novel This Devastating Fever, about Leonard Woolf’s time as a colonial administrator in Ceylon.

Her book Bird is one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

Bird tells the story of Ana-Sofia’s mother Anna Davidoff – ‘Bird’ – a famous wartime refugee, fifties movie starlet, sixties party girl and drug-charged acolyte of the jazz greats. Anna Davidoff went on to become a Buddhist nun and finally died alone in a Himalyan cave. Ana-Sofia now feels the need to confront the ghosts of the past; to find out who Anna was.

As part of the free Summer Read events across Victoria, Sophie will be appearing at:

- Yea Library on Tuesday 3 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
For more information phone 5797 2209

- Mildura Library on Wednesday 11 February 2009, 7.30 – 8.00 pm
For more information phone 5018 8350

What Sophie says about summer reading
“Summer is a time I try to read for fun, rather than work. This often means a thriller of science fiction novel – two genres that I enjoy a lot, and that have the advantage of not triggering the ‘at work’ part of my brain. I also like to read books about the place I’m holidaying in. This year I’m lucky enough to be going to Vietnam so I plan to read a book that I’ve never read but always wanted to: The Quiet American by Graham Greene.”