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Book of the Week

Joan Lindsay: The hidden life of the woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock
Biography

Joan Lindsay: The hidden life of the woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock by Brenda Niall

Picnic at Hanging Rock, the 1975 film directed by Peter Weir, has achieved iconic status in Australian cinema, while the story on which it is based has also yielded a television drama series, a ballet, plays, and a musical. Indeed, the fiftieth anniversary of the film is being marked by the Sydney Theatre Company’s revival of Tom Wright’s modern adaptation. The story enjoying this long and varied life was originally published as a mystery novel in 1967. Yet the author of that story, Joan Lindsay (1896-1984), is herself something of a mystery. Aged seventy-one at the time of her novel’s publication and scarcely known as a writer, she has received little recognition since.

From the Archive

May 2004, no. 261

Thinking Images

Whether it is the television, computer, Personal Digital Assistant or mobile phone, many of us spend a considerable proportion of our lives engaging with images presented on screens. Digital images are integral to television, film, photography, animation, video games and the Internet, and are used increasingly as the main medium through which we interact and communicate with each other.

Although we may be aware of the increasing cultural presence of images, less apparent are the changes in how we might think about them. In the new media landscape, images are no longer just representations or interpretations of our actions; they have become central to every activity that connects us to each other and to technology. Understanding the nature of the complex relationship we have with the images that surround us is the principal concern of Ron Burnett’s new book, How Images Think.

From the Archive

December 1978–January 1979, no. 7

Bookshapes - January 1979

At the presentation of the Australian Book Publishers Association design awards for 1977–8 in Sydney last April, during a cocktail party at the association’s annual conference, I was struck by the inattentiveness of the gathering. A representative of the P&O Company, awarding for the first time a prize of $1000 for the book of the year (The Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds, published by William Collins, designed by Derrick I. Stone), could scarcely be heard above the party chatter. It seemed that many publishers who were present did not feel obliged to pay attention, their complacency abetting rudeness. One could almost hear them saying, ‘Well, yes, this was a disaster area up till the sixties, but we’ve fixed it now. Everyone knows that Australian books today are the equal of the world’s best.’

From the Archive

August 2004, no. 263

33 Kilohertz

While we are apart I will
wear no shoes, walk barefoot
over Nevada sands, tune my heart
to 33 kilohertz, synchronise
my inner ear to terra firma, and,