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Queensland Literary Awards

There’s rich literary pickings in Queensland, Australia, as the shortlist for the Queensland Literary Awards reveals. It used to be the Queensland Premier’s Award until the Government pulled its support but all credit to the businesses and academic organisations that stepped in to provide the funds for the Awards to continue.

There are 42 books, whittled down from more than 200 entries, in the running for awards in more than 10 categories. The spectrum covered is vast. The Man Who Invented Vegemite (that oh-so-Australian spread) by James Callister is one of the six battling it out for Book of the Year. Kristina Olsson’s Boy, Lost tells the heart-wrenching story of the life-long impact on a young woman and her family after her son is stolen from her by an abusive partner. Or there’s Jane Lydon’s The Flash of Recognition which looks at the roleHistory of photography as a tool for change and reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Or Murray Bail’s The Voyage about Sydney piano manufacturer who travels to Vienna to present his unique concert grand piano. And as Narelle Oliver wisely warns, Don’t Let a Spoonbill in the Kitchen.

The full roll call of short-listed books and authors is below and you can find out what the judges thought at http://www.queenslandliteraryawards.com/2013-shortlists.html. You can also vote on-line for the Queensland Book of the Year and People’s

How many books is too many?

TassieLibraryphotoCan you ever read too many books? Author and Poet Michael Bourne raised the question this week writing in The Millions when he revealed he had read 56 books in 2012, slightly down from the average of 60 books per year he had set himself when he entered a new millenium. To achieve his target he had to read five books a month or just over one book per week. 
 
“For years now, reading has been something like training for a marathon,” he writes.  “I keep mental tallies of how many pages I’ve read per night, and how many more pages I need to read in the next few days to keep to my average. In 2011, after years of hovering in the mid-50s, when my annual average hit precisely 60 — that is, 720 books read over 12 years — I did a private victory lap.”
 
Bourne keeps track of  his reading habits by listing every book he has read dating back over the past 12 years so he can quickly tell how he is tracking, month by month,  to ensure that he fulfills his target. Unfortunately the result wasn’t just  a considerable amount of  great reading but also a compulsion to stick to his timetable and achieve his quota and that took over from pure reading pleasure as motivation.  No More.
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