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An Australian Christmas Compendium
From Quadrant‘s archives, a selection of Christmas reading.
Henry Lawson: An Australian Christmas
After the plum pudding and perhaps roasted turkey, two poems — ‘Along by Merry Christmas Time’ and ‘The Fire at Ross’s Farm’ — as reminders that while we inherited the traditions of a snowbound Yule, it is heat, smoke and the smell of burning bush that are more likely to mark our celebrations of the day. Read on…
Steele Rudd: Christmas at Snake Gully
‘Even the pet kangaroo was nearly jumping out of its skin; and it took the big black goanna that used to come after eggs all its time to beat Dad from the barn to the nearest tree, so fat was it. And such a season for butterflies and grasshoppers, and grubs and snakes, and native bears!’ Read on…
Roger Underwood: Christmas with Henry Lawson
Like Lawson, my Christmas memories contain some ghosts — my grandparents and parents among them — and some trying times, including being called away to bushfires as I was poised to carve…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins