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Reading Pleasures
This is a little gem of a book - the perfect Christmas gift for lovers of reading! 'Reading Pleasures' is filled with gorgeous photographs and artworks, each paired with an inspiring quotation. With a thoughtful Foreword by book lover and host of The Book Club, Jennifer Byrne, 'Reading Pleasures' will appeal to young and old, to bookshop frequenters and lovers of books.
"By pairing inspiring and thoughtful images with quotations from Australian writers and readers, Reading Pleasures celebrates the love affair readers have with their books."
"By pairing inspiring and thoughtful images with quotations from Australian writers and readers, Reading Pleasures celebrates the love affair readers have with their books."
128 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
2 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 13, 2024
A year or two back I found myself in the National Library of Australia, an old stamping ground of mine. It’s a building done in the ‘Late Twentieth Century Stripped Classical Style’, which if you are unkind you might say Albert Speer would have liked, but I am not unkind so let’s just say it’s timeless. And actually quite majestic.
The setting on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin gives us unimpeded views of the building with a significant Henry Moore out the front. The library boasts a Tom Bass sculpture at the entrance; rather like a moth casing, and some beautiful Leonard French stained glass windows which you could see in full measure in the early days, the mid-seventies (the library was opened in 1968), before the view was impeded by internal exhibition structures and the bookshop.
It’s just as well the bookshop is wonderful, even if on the small side. The selection is excellent. That day I picked up a couple of beautiful volumes of New Yorker stories from the forties and fifties The 40s: The Story of a Decade, The 50s: The Story of a Decade, and Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created, edited by the redoubtable Laura Miller, about the worlds imagined by authors. And this little book.
Unpretentious and cheery, Reading Pleasures comprises thoughts on books and reading mainly from Australian authors, though there is a good smattering of international scribes. The tremendous illustrations are images from the library’s own vast collection, ranging broadly from historic and contemporary photos and paintings of people of all ages reading, indoors and outdoors, poring over library shelves or taking a moment from their daily work. Some of the paintings are exquisite in the extreme.
The compilers have made a genuine attempt to marry the images to the quotations so they add to each other: Haruki Murakami’s remark; ‘Storytelling is the common language of the world’, is opposite an 1897 Japanese print by Keishu Yamada of a child reading, while her mother watches (pp 38-39). A heavy 1965 portrait by George Hamlyn Channing, of expatriate Australian author Vernon Knowles, with red wine and a cigarette, open book on a table, is paired with Susan McLaine’s ‘Great writers tackle the mysteries of human personality and dark existential concerns. Reading them we feel less alone.’ (pp 62-63).
But my favourite is a double spread of a young woman seated reading on a terrace, her plaited hair reaching to the ground and a magnificent vista behind her which she knows is there but she is absorbed in her book. The painting is ‘Leitura’ (1892) by Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior.
Of the people mentioned specifically above, I had heard of only Haruki Murakami. I learn a lot reading books.
The setting on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin gives us unimpeded views of the building with a significant Henry Moore out the front. The library boasts a Tom Bass sculpture at the entrance; rather like a moth casing, and some beautiful Leonard French stained glass windows which you could see in full measure in the early days, the mid-seventies (the library was opened in 1968), before the view was impeded by internal exhibition structures and the bookshop.
It’s just as well the bookshop is wonderful, even if on the small side. The selection is excellent. That day I picked up a couple of beautiful volumes of New Yorker stories from the forties and fifties The 40s: The Story of a Decade, The 50s: The Story of a Decade, and Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created, edited by the redoubtable Laura Miller, about the worlds imagined by authors. And this little book.
Unpretentious and cheery, Reading Pleasures comprises thoughts on books and reading mainly from Australian authors, though there is a good smattering of international scribes. The tremendous illustrations are images from the library’s own vast collection, ranging broadly from historic and contemporary photos and paintings of people of all ages reading, indoors and outdoors, poring over library shelves or taking a moment from their daily work. Some of the paintings are exquisite in the extreme.
The compilers have made a genuine attempt to marry the images to the quotations so they add to each other: Haruki Murakami’s remark; ‘Storytelling is the common language of the world’, is opposite an 1897 Japanese print by Keishu Yamada of a child reading, while her mother watches (pp 38-39). A heavy 1965 portrait by George Hamlyn Channing, of expatriate Australian author Vernon Knowles, with red wine and a cigarette, open book on a table, is paired with Susan McLaine’s ‘Great writers tackle the mysteries of human personality and dark existential concerns. Reading them we feel less alone.’ (pp 62-63).
But my favourite is a double spread of a young woman seated reading on a terrace, her plaited hair reaching to the ground and a magnificent vista behind her which she knows is there but she is absorbed in her book. The painting is ‘Leitura’ (1892) by Jose Ferraz de Almeida Junior.
Of the people mentioned specifically above, I had heard of only Haruki Murakami. I learn a lot reading books.
December 31, 2016
A gorgeous little book filled with many wonderful quotes on books and the love of reading. Many from some favourite Australian authors. In her introduction, Jennifer says " a choice of book is not a test; there's no merit badge awarded. Read what you like. Read when you can. Read because you must." And that's what most of us do. In the words of Kate Morton, " Quite simply the book and I were meant to be together." Who of us here cannot relate?
January 19, 2018
The book opens with a Forward written by Jennifer Byrne, an Australian journalist and, over the last decade, the host of ABC Television’s Book Club program. She writes that the book represents “a celebration – and examination – of the lifelong, earthly, impossible-to-explain love affair between readers and their books.” What she found, she says, when reading all the quotations, was how many different ways readers view reading. Some see at as private, a refuge, an escape, while others see it as the opposite, as providing company, as reassuring us that we are not alone. There are other views too, of course, such as those that apply social, moral and/or intellectual values to reading, but it is this issue of aloneness – or non-aloneness – that I want to share, because it’s a significant feature of my reading.
For my full review, please check out my blog: https://whisperinggums.com/2018/01/19...
For my full review, please check out my blog: https://whisperinggums.com/2018/01/19...
February 21, 2017
Great combination of quotes and a variety of art pieces depicting reading over time, highlighting different painting styles as well.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews