Christmas Books: Patrick McCauley

During this year, in poetry, I have found myself in the company of Stephanie Dowrick, Rainer Maria Rilke, Dante, Diana Georgeff’s excellent biography of the late Shelton Lea, Melbourne’s much loved bohemian poet, and an eclectic and unique mix of Australia’s very best contemporary poets in a remarkably apolitical genre with poems about Australian animals together with the stunning drawings of Raffaella Torresan: 

 
In the Company of Rilke, Stephanie Dowrick (Allen & Unwin)
Letters To A Young Poet­, Rainer Maria Rilke  translated by Stephen Mitchell
Dante’s Inferno,  Sean O’Brien (Picador)
Delinquent Angel, Diana Georgeff (Random House)
Literary Creatures. Drawings. Poetry – With poetry by Les Murray, Bruce Dawe, Jordie Albiston, Barry Dickens, Bernard Smith, Jennifer Harrison & many others. Drawings by Raffaella Torresan. (Hybrid Publishers, Melbourne)  
 

I have read and re-read throughout the following list of books during the year:

The Politics of Suffering – Peter Sutton, (MUP)
The Fabrication of Aboriginal: Vololume 3: The Stolen Generations 1881 – 2008, Keith Windschuttle, (Macleay Press)
Corrupting the Youth, James Franklin (Macleay Press)
The Road to Wigan Pier,George Orwell (Penguin)
Man’s Search For Meaning,Victor Frankl (Washington Square) 
The Lacuna,Barbara Kingsolver (HarperCollins). Although not The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver never fails to cast a poetic eye.

Looking forward to reading the following titles over summer: 

Final Proof, Peter Ryan (Quadrant Books)
Washout, New Expanded Edition, John Dawson (Macleay Press)
The Rest On The Flight: the selected poems of Peter Porter (Allen&Unwin
Look At The Birdie, Kurt Vonnegut, (Vintage): a posthumous collection of his work.
The Empty Family, Colm Toibin (Picador)
Once Upon a Time in Papunya, Vivien Johnson (UNSW) – especially for the tragic but beautiful story of Geoffrey Bardon.