Australia: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Traveler's Literary Companions)
If you're launching a trip to Australia, chances are you've already purchased guidebooks, made reservations, perhaps even begun to pack. You may think you're prepared. But if Robert Ross' anthology of Australian literature is missing from your flight bag, you're not ready yet. Ross selected 25 short stories by some of Australia's finest writers to portray Australia through its literature, exploring its aboriginal and urban as well as its beach, bush, and suburban culture. So Oodgeroo and Kabul Oodgeroo Noonuccal give a view of aboriginal lore ("Well, gidday, gidday, all you earth fullas. Come, sit down, my country now") in "The Rainbow Serpent"; B. Wongar looks at the bush from the dingo's point of view ("No dingo ever barks to express grief. We all howl") in "Dingo's Picnic"; Robert Drewe evokes the intensity of the beach life ("Today had been humid and grim, full of sticky tension since this morning when he'd spilled black coffee down the crotch of his new Italian cotton suit") in "Stingray"; and Peter Carey explores Australian angst in his short story "American Dreams." It's the perfect book to read on a long flight to Down Under.