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 Fiona for your posts. Historical fiction lovers can look forward to hearing more at your events.

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

• Portland Library, DiscoverIT Centre,  38 Bentinck Street, Portland on Thursday 12 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
 For more information phone 0355222 265 or book online at  http://summerread21.eventbrite.com

• Caulfield Library, Glen Eira Town Hall, Cnr Glen Eira and Hawthorn Roads, Caulfield on Thursday 26 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
 For more information phone 9524 3623 or online at  http://summerread32.eventbrite.com

Vote for Musk and Byrne or SMS MUSK to 13 46 88

Fiona Capp is next Summer Read author blogging from 16 – 20 December.

Fiona trained as a journalist, has a PhD in English and has worked as a freelance writer and university tutor in English, journalism and novel writing. She is the acclaimed author of Night Surfing, Last of the Sane Days, and That Oceanic Feeling.

Her book Musk and Byrne is one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

Musk and Byrne is set in 19th-century Victoria and tells the story of passionate and headstrong Jemma Musk who seeks to establish herself as a painter and an independent woman. But scandal and tragedy set her on the run from the law, and a legend — that of the beautiful Musk and her accomplice Byrne — is born.

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

•    Portland Library, DiscoverIT Centre, 38 Bentinck Street, Portland on Thursday 12 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
For more information phone 0355222 265 or book online at http://summerread21.eventbrite.com

•    Caulfield Library, Glen Eira Town Hall, Cnr Glen Eira and Hawthorn Roads, Caulfield on Thursday 26 February 2009, 7.00 – 8.00 pm
For more information phone 9524 3623 or book online at http://summerread32.eventbrite.com

What Fiona says about summer reading

“A few years ago when bushfires were raging through Gippsland and other parts of Victoria I was reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ about a man and his son making their way to the West coast of America through an unrelentingly grey landscape devastated by some kind of apocalyptic event, most probably a nuclear war. The sun is blocked by a thick cloud of dust that cloaks the earth and everything on it. Eerily enough, while I was reading, the smoke from the Gippsland fires had veiled the sun here, creating a lurid, apocalyptic light that made the scenario in ‘The Road’ feel disturbingly close.”