|
|
| |
|
| |
Kerry Greenwood, author
 |
What's your favourite work of fiction set in Victoria?
Creina Rohan, Down By the Dockside. Its funny, tragic, vivid. Both Irish and Australian, Rohan celebrates and empathises with the immigrants tale and grips the reader throughout, sometimes by the throat. Its impression of tacky, sleazy exciting war time Melbourne has never been bettered.
Which Victorian writer do you admire the most?
Judith Rodriguez. She never disappoints. I've never read a poem by her that was not worth reading. And she teaches with fire and dedication as well as having this marvellous crafted gift.
Where do you like to do your reading in Victoria?
Everywhere. In the bath, carefully. At the kitchen table. Sitting on buses and trams and trains. While stirring risotto, gentleman's relish or jam. Unless I have company, at dinner. Sometimes even when I do have company, if the company also wants to read... I spent my childhood reading in my mother's apricot tree, where I also, at sixteen, wrote my first book.
What do you believe is the best film adaptation of a Victorian book?
I think that the ABC did a wonderful job with casting David Wenham in Shane Maloney's Stiff. Where we also got John Clarke as a scriptwriter - that was about as perfect an adaption of a book as I am ever likely to see.
What is your most treasured memory of a public library?
At the age of five I entered Footscray Library, which was in an old civil defence building in Buckly Street. It had two rooms of books for children. I was hanging on to my mother's hand but as soon as I saw the treasury before me I let go, dived in, and didn't come out until she had changed her own books and I had to go. I was astounded to find that they would let me take the books home, and when I brought them back they would let me have more. I have never been offered so great a gift. The first book I borrowed was called The Useful Dragon of Sam-Ling-Toy and I can still recite it.
What is your best holiday read?
I usually go to the library and borrow an armload (more like a donkey-load) of cosy crime fiction and science fiction. Amongst all those books there will probably be a discovery, like the last time I caught the flu and found Marion Babson. I don't mind reading dross if it is crime fiction dross because at least it has limits. If pressed, I would have to say that I read Herodotus and Dickens and Mrs Gaskell and Terry Pratchett and almost anyone, really, if they are funny or have something to tell me. I love the new Jet lag Travel Guide to San Sombrero. Satire of the highest order.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| Explore > |
 |
|
|
| Your thoughts and ideas about the Reading Victoria books, events and more. |
|
 |
|
|
| A PDF of the Reading Victoria brochure can be downloaded here. |
|
|
|
|
|
