$24.95 – Paperback book / Penguin Books / ISBN:9780143205227
Reading By Moonlight: Reading By Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life
When Miles Franklin-shortlisted novelist Brenda walker became sick she turned to two healers: doctors and books. This is the story of how she recovered.
Packing her bag for hospital after being diagnosed with breast cancer, Brenda wondered which book to put in. As a novelist and professor of literature, her life was built around reading and writing. Books had always been her solace and sustenance, and now choosing the right one was the most important thing she could do for herself.
In Reading by Moonlight, Brenda describes the five stages of her treatment and how different authors helped her through an arduous recovery. Along with insightful introductions to the work of writers like Dante, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Beckett and Dickens, Brenda show how the very process of reading – surrendering and then regathering yourself – echoes the process of healing.
Reading by Moonlight guides, reassures, throws light on dark places, and finds beauty in the most fearful of illnesses. It affirms that reading can be essential to life itself.
'A work of rare richness and unending generosity of spirit – a beautiful meditation on the gift of reading death and the spirit of survival.' ALEX MILLER, THE AGE
'Brenda Walker's account of the healing power of books is a gift . . . beautifully written, heartfelt.' SUSIE BURGE, HARPER'S BAZZAR
'Irresistible . . . A many-layered reading experience.' WEST AUSTRALIAN
'Instructive, uplifting and palliative. And what more can one look to a book for?' JAMES GRIEVE, CANBERRA TIMES
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature 2012 Non-Fiction Shortlist
1835: The Founding Of Melbourne And The Conquest Of Australia
$44.95 – Hardcover book / Black Inc
In 1835 an illegal squatter camp was established on the banks of the Yarra River. In defiance of authorities in London and Sydney, Tasmanian speculators began sending men and sheep across Bass Strait – and so changed the... Buy or find out more →
My Blood's Country
$27.99 – Paperback book / Allen & Unwin
An intensely personal exploration and celebration of the life and work of one of Australia's premier poets, Judith Wright, through the landscape and country she loved so much.
'Sometimes in life you get lucky. Someone of... Buy or find out more →
A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W.K. Hancock
$59.95 – Hardcover book / New South Books
While W.K. Hancock may no longer be described as ‘Australia’s most distinguished historian’, he has some enduring claims to our attention. No other Australian historian – and few elsewhere – can match his ‘span’, to use ... Buy or find out more →
Franklin And Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage
$36.99 – Paperback book / Melb Univ Press
Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt’s marriage is one of the most celebrated and scrutinized partnerships in presidential history. It raised eyebrows in their lifetimes and has only become more controversial since thei... Buy or find out more →
An Eye For Eternity: The Life Of Manning Clark
$54.99 – Hardcover book / Melb Univ Press
Manning Clark (1915–1991) was a complex, demanding and brilliant man. Mark McKenna’s compelling biography of this giant of Australia’s cultural landscape is informed by his reading of Clark’s extensive private letters, j... Buy or find out more →
Reading By Moonlight: Reading By Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life
$24.95 – Paperback book / Penguin Books
When Miles Franklin-shortlisted novelist Brenda walker became sick she turned to two healers: doctors and books. This is the story of how she recovered.
Packing her bag for hospital after being diagnosed with breast canc... Buy or find out more →
Meg Mundell's Winter Reads
Dark Matter: A Ghost Story
$0.00 – Paperback book / Orion
A terrifying 1930s ghost story set in the haunting wilderness of the far north.
January 1937. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to be the wireles... Buy or find out more →
Samaritan
$24.99 – Paperback book / Bloomsbury
After a lucrative television writing career comes to an abrupt end, ex-high school teacher Ray Mitchell returns to the New Jersey city of his birth to rethink his life, reconnect with his teenage daughter and to spread t... Buy or find out more →
Careless
$0.00 – Paperback book / Macmillan
On the title page of Careless is a photo of Fallingwater, that iconic dwelling built on a waterfall by Frank Lloyd Wright, whose life was marred by personal tragedy. Pearl copies this image as she waits in her therapist’... Buy or find out more →
Paradise
$49.95$9.95 – Hardcover book / Vintage
From one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists, a comic but terrifying love story about two alcoholics alternately battling and embracing their addiction, and each other.
Everything in Hannah Luckraft’s life is tinted ... Buy or find out more →
Reading By Moonlight: Reading By Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life
$24.95 – Paperback book / Penguin Books
When Miles Franklin-shortlisted novelist Brenda walker became sick she turned to two healers: doctors and books. This is the story of how she recovered.
Packing her bag for hospital after being diagnosed with breast canc... Buy or find out more →
The Psychopath Test
$0.00 – Paperback book / Macmillan
This is a story about madness. It all starts when journalist Jon Ronson is contacted by a leading neurologist. She and several colleagues have recently received a cryptically puzzling book in the mail, and Jon is challen... Buy or find out more →
WA Premier's Book Awards Non-Fiction Shortlist 2011
A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W.K. Hancock
$59.95 – Hardcover book / New South Books
While W.K. Hancock may no longer be described as ‘Australia’s most distinguished historian’, he has some enduring claims to our attention. No other Australian historian – and few elsewhere – can match his ‘span’, to use ... Buy or find out more →
Into The Woods: The Battle For Tasmania's Forests
$29.95 – Trade paperback / Black Inc
For many years, the Tasmanian wilderness has been the site of a fierce struggle. At stake is the future of old-growth forests. Loggers and police face off with protesters deep in the forest, while savage political games ... Buy or find out more →
Breaking News: The Golden Age Of Graham Perkin
$59.95 – Hardcover book / Scribe Publications
It is now more than 30 years since Graham Perkin’s tragically premature death, but his legacy lives on in every corner of the Australian media. Perkin was, without question, the country’s greatest editor of the 20th cent... Buy or find out more →
The Quest For Justice
$35.00 – Trade paperback / Scribe Publications
What is justice? How does our legal system work? And how can we trust a system that is so changeable and widely criticised? These are some of the fundamental questions that former Supreme Court judge Ken Crispin sets out... Buy or find out more →
Macquarie
$34.95 – Trade paperback / Heinemann
From colony to country
'He was a Christian, a perfect gentleman, and a supreme legislator of the human heart. … Whenever the sculptor shall imagine a guardian angel for New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, the chisel o... Buy or find out more →
Reading By Moonlight: Reading By Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life
$24.95 – Paperback book / Penguin Books
When Miles Franklin-shortlisted novelist Brenda walker became sick she turned to two healers: doctors and books. This is the story of how she recovered.
Packing her bag for hospital after being diagnosed with breast canc... Buy or find out more →