You remember the initial encounter for years, even decades after the first taste. You remember the quality of light, the position of your coffee mug on the table. On top of the emotional intensity of the moment, you remember, also, your physical reaction, the charge of the prose itself.
Always Astonished
Read, Kookaburra, Read: On Australian Literature
To mark Australia Day, we asked some of our favorite book people—novelists, booksellers, librarians and critics—to write about the Australian books they love the most, or the ones they find quintessentially Australian, or that they find essential to the Australian canon. Some of their picks will be familiar. Others will surprise you, much as they surprised us. They’ve given us lots to look forward to in our future reading and re-reading.