The Book Wolf in Maldon, Victoria | Shopping & retail

The Book Wolf

Locality: Maldon, Victoria

Phone: +61 487 193 223

Address: 1/26 High Street 3463 Maldon, VIC, Australia

Website: http://www.thebookwolf.com.au

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25.01.2022 What Is to Be Done (2020) by Barry Jones Australian National Living Treasure, ex quiz champion, leader of the campaign to abolish the death penalty, polymath and our longest-serving Science minister (phew!) Barry Jones’ recent book consciously echoes Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s 1902 treatise, What Is To Be Done? but there is no question mark; Jones is not asking a question but telling us what must be done. His 1982 book Sleepers, Wake! won international acclaim and was known t...Continue reading

23.01.2022 Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) One of the most loved books ever written; ask a dozen people their favourite book, and this will almost certainly be mentioned. Widower and lawyer Atticus Finch, with the help of his black cook Calpurnia, is doing his best to raise his two children in America’s deep south during the 1930s. Telling a story from a child’s point of view is an established way of exposing the foibles and foolishness of adults. It’s also a rich source of hu...mour as readers see through an innocent description to what’s really going on. Five-year-old Scout (based on the author) begins relating the events of the next three years as she and her brother Jem meet Dill Harris and they plan ways to persuade their mysterious, reclusive neighbour ‘Boo’ Radley to come out. Harper Lee said of her novel, It’s a love story, pure and simple. She meant the deep love and admiration she felt for her father. The central event is the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. He is defended by Atticus, who explains: if I didn’t, I couldn’t hold up my head in town. As their generous neighbour Miss Maudie tells the children, If your father’s anything, he’s civilized in his heart. This is the tale of a thoroughly decent man who lives every day with integrity and raises his children with impeccable values. One riveting episode involving a rabid dog invading the neighbourhood reveals to the astonished siblings that their ‘boring’ father is still the finest shot in the county despite not having picked up a gun in thirty years. In another Atticus makes them spend time with the offensively cantankerous (but wonderfully named) Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose because, I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. The children’s socially distant relationship with Boo Radley is resolved at the novel’s end when he saves their lives To Kill a Mockingbird was written after Lee’s first manuscript (Go Set a Watchman, in which Scout is a young woman, finally published in 2015) was rejected; the publisher encouraged her instead to write about Scout’s childhood. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into an outstanding film starring Gregory Peck in an Academy award winning performance in 1962. See more

23.01.2022 An early HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all. Here's a great photo taken today by Lorena Ferdinands ... I even look seriously like I'm working!

22.01.2022 The Terror (2007) by Dan Simmons A teaching colleague from my time in Istanbul - a Scot who has since returned to his country of birth loaned me this book in 2009 (and yes, I did return it). It is a re-imagining of the fate of the (Captain Sir John) Franklin expedition to the Arctic searching for the North-West Passage in the mid-19th century. Franklin commanded HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and the expedition’s mysterious disappearance has prompted much speculation. It has ...also provided rich pickings for a writer like Simmons. Captain Francis Crozier captains Terror as Franklin’s second-in-command, accepting the position as a distraction after Franklin’s niece rejected his advances. Both ships become trapped in the ice during a particularly cold winter. Franklin sends parties out in search of open water, one of which encounters two ‘Esquimaux’ indigenous locals - an old man and a young woman. The old man is accidentally shot, and they are taken to the ships, where the man dies. This is when a creature begins stalking and killing crew members. At first they assume it is a huge and aggressive polar bear, but it is blindingly fast and cunning. Franklin is killed in a bungled attempt to trap the creature, and Crozier takes command. He christens the second captive ‘Lady Silence’ as her tongue has been removed. After Erebus sinks and Terror faces the same fate, Crozier decides they must haul the lifeboats south. Along the way the crews continue to be prey for the creature. They could see it a small dot loping along to the southwest of them, moving much faster than they could haul. Or run, should it come to that. Aside from the creature’s deady attacks, many die of exposure, exhaustion and illness. On arrival at what they call ‘Rescue Camp’ the survivors split into three groups and plan to go separate ways. What follows is a tale of betrayal and treachery, cannibalism and a descent into madness. Crozier is shot and apparently killed, but miraculously recovers in the novel’s final twist which involves an Esquimaux myth and some unexpected outcomes which it would be bordering on criminal to divulge. The Terror was made into a TV series By Ridley Scott and debuted in 2018 to mixed reviews. See more

22.01.2022 The Great Bendigo Mystery by Danny Willis There are trolls in our towns, hiding in plain sight! HAVE YOU had the eggs STOLEN from your chookpen? Got huge BITE marks on your letterbox? Found unusually LARGE footprints in the garden? Or had the wheels CHEWED off your lawnmower? Had strange BOTTLES of foul smelling stuff left at your back door? Stepped in YUKKY piles of gravel-like stuff in your driveway? Heard strange NOISES in the dead of night (REALLY strange noises?) Dann...y Willis asks these questions as he unfolds the story of a mysterious buried journal and a book of photos (and more notes) discovered in the Winter of 2013. They revealed research dating back 40 years showing that these huge, unbelievably strong and shy-but-friendly (If you do make a friend of a troll, you’ll have a friend for life) live nearby. They are smelly, not very clever, always hungry and will eat anything. And they could never ever be described as good-looking! Danny, who is from Bendigo and who also has a strong connection with Maldon, wrote and illustrated this wonderful book for kids, and bravely self-published. The illustrations let you know that this unassuming bloke has a wild imagination and a child-like sense of wonder. You will find trolls all over the district and yes, there are three detailed in the Maldon, Baringhup Newstead and Welshmans Reef area. Check any location and you’ll find a colourful picture, a name, a lair location, a description and a list of favourite foods. Kerry Cain tells me that her grandkids Madison, Zoe and Felix who reside in the US and whose dad grew up in Maldon, love this book. She says they often ask about the trolls that live in Maldon. Kerry adds, I have mentioned that I may have seen them out near the cemetery. They read me sections of it and are so keen to come over and look for them lovely! This large (29 x 29 cm) and handsome hardback volume is great value at $25, and $1 from each sale is donated to Bendigo Health. Plenty available at The Book Wolf. See more

21.01.2022 Robert M Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974) and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991) Robert Maynard Pirsig (1928 2017) was an American writer and philosopher of German and Swedish descent. A child prodigy who recorded an IQ of 170 at age 9 (genius apparently begins at 140), graduated from high school at 14 and then began a Science degree. He soon became deeply troubled by the fact that more than one possible hypothesis can explai...n a given phenomenon in fact the number of hypotheses was potentially unlimited. It perplexed him so much that he was distracted from his studies, to the point of being expelled from university. It was the first pointer to Pirsig becoming a victim of his own formidable intelligence. ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ quickly became a 1970s classic. The protagonist, based on the author, takes a motorcycle trip with his teenage son a device for his exploration of Western metaphysics and discussion of ancient Greek philosophy. Pirsig, or ‘Phaedrus’ eventually develops his theory of ‘Quality’ which aims to reconcile Western and Eastern philosophy. As his ideas are greeted with academic hostility he descends into mental breakdown and a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The book was welcomed as brilliant beyond belief and he was compared with Dostoevsky, Proust and Melville. Here’s a taste: When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion. The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. ‘Lila’ is the little-known sequel; it continues with the narrator-philosopher Phaedrus as a sailboat captain travelling alone down the Hudson River. Along the way he picks up a passenger, Lila angry, promiscuous and battling mental illness. His concept of Quality is now turned on notions of ethics, with Lila and her actions as a focus of his thinking. Pirsig’s work is not for everyone. I love being challenged by new ideas, and the contradiction of accepted beliefs, but the explorations in these books are so complex that I often found myself re-reading passages and even whole chapters two or three times. But he is also an accomplished storyteller whose descriptions and characters are masterfully realised. He writes an authentic sex scene too, which in typical fashion immediately prompts another set of reflections and philosophising. See more

20.01.2022 Dear Book Wolves, please forgive me. I pledged to post a book review each week, and now find a month has passed without even one. Scroll down from here and you will find the four missed reviews. I will try harder, Blame the virus.

19.01.2022 30 August is Victory Day (Zafer Bayram) in Turkey. On that day in 1922 the War of Independence was won and the foundation of the Turkish Republic (Turkiye Cumhuriyet) was made possible. Ayhan Ozer notes: "The victory of August 30th can aptly be characterized as the Rebirth of a Nation. It was a love affair between an ultimate leader who devoted himself selflessly to his country, and a grateful nation. This year the Turkish nation is celebrating the 98th anniversary of this momentous victory." The 'ultimate leader' of course was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The wolf is a powerful symbol of this victory.

18.01.2022 A COUPLE MORE BOOK REVIEWS RECENTLY FEATURED IN OUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER, 'THE TARRANGOWER TIMES'. Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne (1995) by Robyn Annear I loved this, my book club’s most recent read. ‘Bearbrass’ was an early name for Melbourne possibly a mangling of the indigenous name ‘Birrarung’, although it has been pointed out that it sounds a bit like a coarse version of ‘naked bottom’. Castlemaine author Robyn Annear has clearly based this work on extensive research...Continue reading

16.01.2022 Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests (Mt Alexander Region) was formed just over 20 years ago by local community members committed to promoting knowledge of and protecting the Box-Ironbark Forests and Woodlands. Their mission: We believe that the health of the land is intimately linked to its vegetation cover and the wildlife it sustains: that forests, soil and water are ‘an inseparable trinity.’ That’s why we work to encourage and support sound land management practices, on pr...ivate and public land. They have published three little gems: Eucalypts, Wattles and Mosses (titles abbreviated), pocket-sized books each packed with information and quality colour photos on their subject and ideal as companions for your COVID-era walks in the bush. Very affordably-priced at $10 (Wattles $15), customers at The Book Wolf often buy all three as a package. Bronwyn Silver assured a slightly-sceptical me that they were good sellers when she first visited the shop in 2017; she was right, they were consistently walking out the door right up until (sniff!) March this year. Still available, give me a call.

15.01.2022 Fungi of the Bendigo Region (2018) by Joy Clusker and Ray Wallace RRP $25.00 For once, The Book Wolf is stumped. Some say ‘fun-gee’, some say ‘fun-guy’ but my esteemed mother-in-law who has a PhD in the subject says ‘funj-eye’. Joy Clusker tells me that following good Autumn rains It has been a very good season for fungi, so if you are wondering what that growth is and/or whether you can eat it, this book is for you. The structure is helpful, with a brief introduction to u...nderstanding fungi and how to use the book to locate and identify them. The Bendigo region is separated into seven areas which includes Mount Alexander; it does not take in Maldon but will still be useful in identifying what you might find here. For example, I have found this beauty growing right outside our Neighbourhood Centre: ‘Amanita muscaria Fly Agaric 20 cm. Common, in association with Pine, Oak and Birch. Poisonous. Unmistakeable.’ Each entry (there are nearly 300) reads like that, giving both botanic and common names, a very brief description - Joy’s clear and close-up photographs do the real work and where to find them. All in a deadpan manner which might just be hiding a fine sense of humour. Try the following. ‘Mucor sp. Rare. On dog faeces. Black hair-like filaments to 4 cm long. Very distinctive.’ ‘Psilocybe subaeruginosa Magic Mushroom 4 cm. Uncommon. Widespread in diverse substrate eg. Grass, wood, mulch etc. All parts bruise and age blue.’ ‘Amanita phalloides Death cap 10 cm. Moderately common, under Oaks. The colour is variable from white to olive green to yellowish green. Deadly poisonous.’ The book itself is a good size (21 x 15 cm) to carry in your backpack or even a large jacket pocket and comes with a free bookmark featuring one of Joy’s beautiful photos. It’s too cold for dancing naked in the bush so if you are using The Great Pause to get to know the natural environment better, I have plenty in stock. Buy it with a copy of Castlemaine Bird Walks and the pair are yours for $40, saving you enough for a cappuccino while you browse through them. See more

14.01.2022 Castlemaine Bird Walks by Damian Kelly This little gem emerged a couple of years ago and has been The Book Wolf’s best-selling book just about ever since. On average, two or three copies walked out the door every week and sometimes in one day - before the plague turned our lives upside-down. Damian is married to Castlemaine writer/educator Lynne Kelly (The Memory Code), whose work has attracted international attention in recent years. While I enjoy observing our local bird... life (and insist on not having a cat) I’m hardly the type to grab a deerstalker hat and binoculars every weekend and go tramping about the countryside exclaiming, By Jove, a spotted pardalote! But twitcher stereotyping aside, I know a good literary package when I see one. Castlemaine Bird Walks is compact enough to fit in the pocket of your hiking jacket, the cover is robust enough to tolerate mild abuse and it’s spiral-bound to allow easy, rapid page turning. And at $20 it’s a steal for what you get. The Introduction gives practical advice on getting started with your addiction, then the book segments into the geographical regions around Castlemaine: Central, North-Eastern, North-West, South-East, South-West the Moolort Plains Wetlands and walks in each region. It neglects to mention that Castlemaine is an outer suburb of Maldon, but nobody’s perfect. Damian is an affable and softly spoken fellow who seems vaguely baffled by the extraordinary popularity of his book, something he had not anticipated. He assures me each walk has been tested for accuracy via multiple visits. There are 41 walks in all. Each one is introduced with a helpful summary (Distance/Ascent/Site Type/Habitat/Best time to visit/Paths/Facilities/Typical birds/Rare or unusual sightings/Land status/Track difficulty) and is illustrated with easy-to-follow maps and colour photographs of birds and scenery. CBW (as I abbreviate it when noting a sale) concludes with an Accessibility Guide for those with mobility issues, hints on attracting birds to your garden, a short guide to native mammals you may encounter on your walks and a comprehensive checklist of all birds. Finally a sample of Damian’s affectionate and whimsical writing, from his guide to the marvellous Bells Swamp: At times the mosquitoes can be diabolical at the swamp, especially in warm weather. Make sure you have protection! Usually only a problem in warm, wet weather. The composition of birds seen will surprisingly change from week to week and even day to day. Early mornings and on dusk are the best times to see the cryptic crakes and rails. Barn Owls, Tawny frogmouths and Southern Booboks may be heard through the night. See more

13.01.2022 The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) by Richard Flanagan A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else. In his old age Dorrigo Evans never knew if he had read this or had himself made it up. This is the novel Richard Flanagan was born to write, as one critic said. It truly is an Australian masterpiece. Not unlike A God In Ruins which I reviewed recently, it is the story of a man whose life is largely defined by his experience of World War 11 and stru...cturally, it also shifts regularly forward and back between different times in his life. The protagonist Dorrigo Evans is partly based on ‘Weary’ Dunlop, and Flanagan drew heavily on conversations with his elderly father, a survivor of Changi POW camp and the Thai-Burma railway, for his material. The descriptions are chillingly authentic, one in particular of the extended beating of a prisoner is brutally confronting and definitely not for the faint-hearted. Like Dunlop, Dorrigo is an Army surgeon who finds himself leading a thousand men racked with starvation, disease and ill-treatment, and standing defiantly between them and the sadistic camp commander Nakamura. Nakamura himself is a complex and tortured man, a methamphetamine addict on the edge of insanity and in his own way also a prisoner. Evans sees himself as, "a weak man whom the thousand were forming into the shape of their expectations of him as a strong man". When he presents to Nakamura the number of men fit to work, he knows, "three hundred and sixty-three was not the real number ... Because, thought Dorrigo Evans, the real number was zero." Dorrigo is also haunted by his intense pre-war affair with Amy, his uncle’s wife. After the war he dutifully marries another woman and soon after becomes a serial philanderer. His fame as a war hero grows with the years, but he sees himself as a fraud: The more he was accused of virtue as he grew older, the more he hated it, writes Flanagan. Virtue was vanity dressed up and waiting for applause. Flanagan also follows Nakamura’s life after the war first in hiding to escape trial as a war criminal, and later married to a woman whose genuine goodness fascinates him as he guards his dark secret. Winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize, this is a bold, complex and beautifully written book. See more

13.01.2022 Lovely story about the power of the written word.

12.01.2022 Thanks to my friend Maree for sharing this. Take a couple of minutes to consider the power and beauty of books.

11.01.2022 The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) (1958) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, translated from the Italian by Archibald Colquhoun Is this the greatest novel of the 20th century? The British novelist L P Hartley (no slouch himself) thought perhaps it was. Set in 1860, it takes place at a time of political upheaval: the Risorgimento led by Garibaldi and his redshirts, which will unite the small Italian principalities into one nation. The leopard is Don Fabrizio, a prince of Sicily based ...closely on the author’s great-grandfather. A huge, powerful man with appetites to match, he is also a deep thinker and an amateur astronomer of some note. He responds to the changing times partly with acceptance, consenting to the marriage of his beloved nephew to the daughter of Don Calogero an uneducated, uncultured man with no breeding but huge wealth. It is the age-old trade-off of new money for a chance to join the aristocracy. It is also a love match for the dashing Tancredi and the stunningly beautiful Angelica (Her sheets must smell like Paradise comments one character in what has been described as the most erotic line in all literature). The prince’s resistance to the new order is marked by his refusal of an offer to become part of the new regime. Fabrizio is himself ‘watching the ruin of his own class without ever making, still less wanting to make, any move towards saving it.’ Towards the novel’s end it leaps forward more than twenty years to his death, which Fabrizio greets with relish: He did feel sleepy; but he found that to give way to drowsiness now would be as absurd as eating a slice of cake immediately before a longed-for banquet. He smiled. I’ve always been a wise gourmet. And he sat there, immersed in that great outer silence, in that terrifying inner rumble. Lampedusa died aged 60 shortly after his manuscript was rejected by a publisher; he was not to see its phenomenal success or the political controversy it prompted. He wrote little else: a few articles and some short stories. David Gilmour’s introduction proposes ‘ it is doubtful whether he could have written a second novel of similar quality and intensity. The Leopard is a masterpiece because its author waited so long before writing it.’ Luchino Visconti’s 1962 multi-award-winning film is an outstanding page-to-screen work and a masterpiece itself, with Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale in the lead roles. See more

11.01.2022 THIS FRIDAY, 11 DECEMBER - LATE NIGHT SHOPPING TILL 7:30 (at least) WITH HOT DISCOUNTS! VISIT THE BOOK WOLF!

10.01.2022 Thanks to Margaret Crohn for sharing this one.

09.01.2022 An Outback Life: Images and stories from those who live and work in remote communities By Paula Heelan Award-winning photographer Paula Heelan produced this stunning coffee table book of photos and accounts of life in remote Australia in 2016, with a foreword by musician Graeme Connors. Following her ‘Introduction to the bush’ the book moves into five chapters. The Outback at Play takes us to Race Meetings, Campdrafts, Rodeos, Country Shows, the CWA and Gala Balls. The stand...out photo is ‘Mates all in blue’ taken at the Mount Coolon campdraft, of a group of young boys taking a break; wearing blue honours the memory of Greg Hoare, who died in a farm accident. Life and Work on a Station visits five different properties and concludes with ‘Homecoming Vet’ a profile of Zoe Rickertt who grew up on a Queensland station, left to study and work, and finally returned as a bush veterinarian. This chapter features some great shots of people and animals; most striking is a family at play in a muddy waterhole enjoying the last of the wet season. Overcoming Distance deals with remote education and medicine. It features a shot of a mother-of-four home schooling; she will take responsibility for their entire primary school education before shipping them off to boarding school. Journeys Across a Landscape mostly looks at Cattle Drives and Drovers, but my favourite shot is of emus crossing the Oodnadatta Track. This section also has the only reference to indigenous heritage. Finally, Weather and Wildlife appropriately begins: The most discussed subject in the outback is the weather. It covers drought, seasonal changes and wildlife, with a wonderful picture of a flock of galahs perched in a tree. The book concludes with photos of Paula Heelan’s Queensland home Ulcanbah Station and family members, the best a snap of her husband Peter clearly wishing he was somewhere else on horseback rather than posing for a photograph! Normally $39.99, you can have a copy for $29.99 if you hurry. See more

07.01.2022 MY LATEST BOOK REVIEW We’re All Australians Now (2015) by A B (Banjo) Paterson Illustrated by Mark Wilson The text of this book is a short poem Banjo Paterson wrote in 1915 as an open letter to the Australian troops fighting in the First World War. He was no stranger to armed conflict, having served as a correspondent during the Boer War (writing what he called ‘descriptive letters’ in contrast to the brief cables that informed the newspapers) and later reported on the sensat...ional sinking of the German ship Emden in 1914. He had driven an ambulance in France. Unable to find employment as a war correspondent, he returned to Australia and fibbed about his age at 51 he was just too old to enlist in the 2nd Australian Remount Unit. He was still an excellent rider and, with his family background and a private school education, perfect officer material. So in November 1915 Captain later Major Paterson sailed off to war. The Federation of Australia was only a recent event, and many Australians still identified primarily with their state of origin. But with men from different states fighting side-by-side Banjo commented: The old state jealousies of yore/Are dead as Pharoah’s sow,/We’re not State children any more/We’re all Australians now! He refers obliquely to the sinking of the Emden by suggesting that our previously unknown flag was now recognised internationally: ‘The wide seas know it now!’ But it must be said, he also peddles the offensive and dangerous myth that Australia wasn’t really a proper nation until we had sacrificed and traumatised our finest young men in the slaughter of the Great War: The mettle that a race can show/Is proved with shot and steel,/And now we know what nations know/And feel what nations feel. And: We have, through what you boys have done,/A history of our own. As if we had no history before Gallipoli. Interestingly, he sees the war as not only unifying the states but also our immigrant population: Our old world diff’rences are dead,/Like weeds beneath the plough,/For English, Scotch and Irish-bred, They’re all Australians now! It recalls the acclaim of commentators who observed the great wave of immigrants after WWII all working together harmoniously on the Snowy River Scheme. The simplistic language (and one rhyme that made me wince) reflects the uncritical jingoism that informs this verse; there is no nuance, just pure patriotism. it is not Paterson’s best work. Mark Wilson’s evocative illustrations are of men during the war, and occasionally of men at work before the war or of family members back home. See more

07.01.2022 The Pleasures of Dry Climate Gardening: one woman’s project by Barbara Maund and Denise Jepson Photography by Mary Thompson Some time ago a visitor to The Book Wolf spotted this title and remarked that it would be a very short read! However Barbara Maund has shown that it is not so difficult to work with a dry climate, unreliable rainfall and extremes of temperature to create a stunning garden. To do this she chose not indigenous but mostly hardy Mediterranean plants combine...d with stone, gravel, old bricks and no lawn to consciously create a place of peace and reflection. And all on a very limited budget. This large (30 x 30 cm and 194 pages) and handsome volume documents in words and pictures the development of Barbara’s Castlemaine garden. She moved to the town in 1984 and bought the property at 62 Kennedy Street in 1991, developing a modest quarter acre (1000 square metres) block into what garden historian and heritage consultant Trevor Nottle describes as, the first garden made in Australia on a domestic scale that reflects the owner-maker’s rare insight into the connections between person, place, culture and history. The book is structured in two parts. Part One tells Barbara’s personal story beginning with her childhood in Melbourne. From an early age she had a keen interest in gardening and the significant influences on her skills and philosophy are discussed in detail. It was following the move to Castlemaine that it all began to come together, at her first property and then the final triumph in the Kennedy Street block. Part Two is a detailed analysis of the garden’s design, of each major structure and piece of vegetation. There is a comprehensive overview and the thirteen different sections are described one by one. It’s all illustrated with a treasury of photographs that chronicle what Barbara began with and the vision that became a reality during the early part of the current century. For those of us who have despaired of doing much with a drab and unpromising piece of land, this book is an inspiration. And a steal at $69.95 See more

05.01.2022 Tell Me Why (2019) Archie Roach An autobiography this week: subtitled The story of my life and my music, it was shortlisted for the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and Australian Book Industry Awards. Gunditjmara man Archie Roach tells his story with simplicity and power, beginning with the day in 1970 at Lilydale High School when he was called to the office except it was as ‘Archibald William Roach’. He writes. Archie Cox had been my name for as long as I could ...remember, or so I thought. He goes on, something deep in me started to take over. He left his beloved Mrs Peters’ English class and was handed a letter. It was from a sister he had forgotten, telling him their mother had died. A stolen generation child removed from his family at age two, he was taken in by Dulcie and Alex Cox. They were kind, loving and supportive foster parents, but the ripple-impact of that letter changed Archie’s life completely. At fifteen he was already familiar with racism and accustomed to responding with his fists, but now he became rude and unco-operative at school and soon left. Then he turned his back on the Cox household, drifted, dabbled in crime and eventually made his way to Sydney where his sister’s letter had been posted from. As he comments, I didn’t find Myrtle, but I eventually found family. Or perhaps it’d be truer to say, it found me. To the non-indigenous reader this part of the book is striking for the way Aboriginal people look out for and look after each other. As a homeless drifter Archie quickly learnt to seek out indigenous people wherever he went, knowing they would help. He describes the road as his ‘second home’ during that time in his life. He became an alcoholic in his teenage years and spent some time in prison. From time to time he would escape from Melbourne and travel to Framlingham (the ‘mish’) in western Victoria where he got to know the wise and wonderful Banjo Clarke, who he called Uncle. We fans of Archie Roach know the rest. He met the love of his life Ruby Hunter, overcame his dependence on alcohol, became a happy father and family man, had a phenomenally successful singer-songwriter career and became a highly respected indigenous elder. This is a moving, sometimes heartbreaking and inspirational story of a great Australian. See more

05.01.2022 Get Dad a book for Fathers Day. Then he can get this one for the kids.

05.01.2022 PLEASE NOTE: THE BOOK WOLF HAS SINCE SOLD THE LAST TWO COPIES OF THIS ONE. A History of Seventeen Central Victoria Schools: Baringhup, Baringhup East, Baringhup West, Bradford, Brokenback, Eastville, Gowar, Muckleford, Muckleford South, Neereman, Nuggetty, Porcupine Flat, Shelbourne, Shelbourne South, Tarrengower, Walmer, Walmer North by Ken James and Sue Barnett. The Nuggetty Land Protection Group has been busy these last few years, producing a couple of heritage calendars (...and one contemporary) with great photos on frameable quality paper. In 2018 their next project was this very large and comprehensive history written by Sue Barnett and Ken James, both previously-published historians. It’s an unusual book in that the target audience is almost exclusively people who attended those schools (and perhaps local historians) and it has sold mostly by word of mouth. It is punctuated by historic photos, news clippings and documents. Much of the information is a revelation, as in the following. A 1912 article in the Mount Alexander Mail lamented the Education department’s neglect of Muckleford State School, which had not been painted or repaired inside or out, for twenty years. Between 20 and 30 students attended, under a single female teacher. The fence would have ‘gone to rack and ruin’ but for the work of local residents; an outbuilding had been destroyed by fire and not replaced; it swarmed with flies in the warmer months but no screens for the windows or doors were supplied; a request for a fly-proof safe to store the children’s lunches had been refused, and they were instead left on the porch where neighbourhood dogs often stole them; there was no shelter shed; the teacher’s residence leaked so badly that, ‘one has to use an umbrella when cooking or doing other work’ in the kitchen; diptheria had broken out among the children, which was attributed to the unsanitary state of the school building. It came to the attention of Castlemaine MLA Harry Lawson (later premier of Victoria), who got to work and within three months work had commenced at the school. Last year The Book Wolf was visited by a bloke from NSW hoping to learn more about his family history in central Victoria; in this book we found his surname attached to a ‘Work Mistress’ on the staff of Nuggetty Gully School between 1869 and 1875; she had married one of his ancestors. Why isn’t Maldon in there? I hear you asking. It was decided that the project would only include schools that had closed. This was a very limited-edition publication, and The Book Wolf has two of the last copies in captivity. See more

05.01.2022 The Pull of the Stars (2020) by Emma Donoghue It’s the day before Nurse Julia Power’s 30th birthday in 1918. As the war draws to an end the deadly influenza pandemic sweeps the world. Julia’s early-morning journey to work reveals a city of chronic poverty and suffering, the two catastrophes contributing to system collapse. She arrives at her busy Dublin hospital to find herself left alone in charge of the ‘Maternity/Fever’ ward a converted supply room - for expectant mothe...Continue reading

04.01.2022 A Rich Vein (The early days of Maldon’s North and the area known as Eagle Hawk) 2015 By Christopher Creek Maldon’s early history has become more available to us recently with the publication of Brian Rhule’s Maldon a new history 1853-1928 and Tony Kane’s compilation of historic articles from the TT, Maldon Our Stories the Early Years. Creek’s history focuses specifically on what I prefer to snobbishly call North Maldon, my own neighbourhood. The area was named Eagle Hawk as... it resembled the Eagle Hawk Gully on the Bendigo goldfields, though on a smaller scale. It is hard to imagine this peaceful and quiet waterway, which occasionally flows after heavy rain and is barely three kilometres in length, as a hive of activity where a great many holes have been sunk and abandoned (from The Empire 7 March 1854). Eagle Hawk was bordered by Growlers’ Gully, named for the large number of disputed claims, and Peg Leg Gully like Eagle Hawk named for Bendigo’s Peg Leg Gully. A Rich Vein is chock-full of charts, maps, photographs and colourful stories, and brings to life the noisy, crowded, polluted, dangerous place Eagle Hawk was with its many hotels, shops, churches, schools and post offices - and a coach service connecting it to central Maldon. It is intriguing to think that on Reef Street opposite the present Eaglehawk Motel and old Eaglehawk Hotel stood the ‘Tarrangower Baths’ as swimming pools were then called. The book focuses on three prominent men of Maldon’s early years: Captain John Mechosk, credited with the discovery of gold in the area, artist Edwin Stocqueler and Daniel Tallerman, storekeeper and land speculator. And as Christopher notes in his Foreword, There were, of course, the diggers and miners but there were also the entrepreneurs, businessmen, entertainers, artists and shysters. One of my favourite stories concerns a farmer needing a paddock turned over who took a small nugget of gold into town and announced where he had found it; that paddock was turned over in no time. Local indigenous history is not dealt with (for that, refer to Bain Attwood’s The Good Country: The Djadja Wurrung, The Settlers and the Protectors or Fred Cahir’s Black Gold: Aboriginal People on the Goldfields of Victoria 1850 1870), but the role of the diligent Chinese who later turned much of the area into market gardens makes fascinating reading. If you sometimes object to Maldon’s busy tourist-filled weekends, imagine a population of 20,000 and more than 60 liquor outlets! See more

03.01.2022 I love all my customers, and nothing is ever too much trouble.

01.01.2022 A God in Ruins (2015) by Kate Atkinson I have written about the marvellous Kate Atkinson’s work before; this one I recently read for my book club. A splendid work, she never seems to put a foot wrong. If you have read her Life After Life, you may recognise the central character as Ursula Todd’s beloved younger brother Teddy. ‘A God in Ruins’ reads partly as a history of 20th century Britain, beginning with eleven-year-old Teddy in 1925, a bookish country boy who will later b...ackpack around Britain and France before commencing an unrewarding career in banking, then welcome the war as an escape from this boredom. He becomes a legendary bomber pilot and charismatic leader of men (‘the best man he’d ever known’ to one of his crew), survives the war and marries his childhood sweetheart Nancy. A quiet and fulfilling rural life follows, where Teddy finds work writing ‘Nature Notes’ for a country newspaper and eventually becomes its editor. Their only child Viola must be one of the most irritating characters in fiction, masterfully portrayed as a pretentious egoist and dreadful mother; her eventual redemption aged 60 (‘Oh, Viola. At last.’) is very moving. Viola’s children shake off their dysfunctional upbringing with the help of Teddy’s love, and eventually turn out well-adjusted adults. Atkinson’s narrative is never chronological. She will without warning suddenly slip from 2012 to 1944 to any other time effortlessly, yet this technique is never distracting or confusing but contains its own inner logic. At the novel’s conclusion, Teddy is dying peacefully in a nursing home after a long and eventful and well-lived life; his adoring grand-daughter Bertie is holding his hand and reading to him from one of his favourite novels. He was a baby once, she thought. New and perfect, cradled in his mother’s arms. The mysterious Sylvie. Now he was a feathery husk, ready to blow away. Just for a moment at this point Kate Atkinson presents the alternative of Teddy instead dying during the war, and almost cruelly pans through characters we have come to love or admire or dislike or be surprised by and imagines a world without them, and those surviving living very different lives. From this, we understand the utter fragility of life, and therefore its profound sacredness. See more