Christmas 2011: Peter Coleman

The book of the year for me is Australian Poetry since 1788  edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann.  A wonderful anthology that will not be replaced for many long years. Its critical and biographical notes are a joy to read and a great resource.

So is Geoffrey Blainey’s A Short History of Christianity. Well written, well researched and enlivened with inside knowledge.

Mark McKenna’s An Eye for Eternity must be in any shortlist for 2011. A critical and comprehensive life of Manning Clark.

Peter Ryan’s Final Proof   is a memoir of his years as director of Melbourne University Press. A rivetting  read.

Family File by Mark Aarons, partly based on ASIO archives, records growing up in a Stalinist and post-Stalinist communist family. An honest, sometimes moving story, although you cannot always agree with what he says.

John Bell’s On Shakespeare  is the great Shakespearean’s reflections on acting and directing in Australia.

If I may add one timely polemic it is The National Curriculum: A Critique  edited by Chris  Berg of the IPA. You have been warned!