Openbook summer out now!
Fishing for a great summer read? The summer issue of Openbook magazine — the State Library of NSW’s glossy culture mag — is shimmering with extraordinary words and visuals by celebrated Australian writers, thinkers and creatives, featured alongside fascinating historical finds of librarians and curators.
In this issue Torres Strait Islander and African American writer and editor Jasmin McGaughey profiles prominent Goori writer Melissa Lucashenko who has a new novel to talk about, Edenglassie, which follows her Miles Franklin Award win for Too Much Lip in 2019.
The youngest of seven children, Melissa recounts how her mum and the library were integral to storytelling in her early years as they didn’t have money for books, and the “idea of being an author was a bit like saying you want to be an astronaut.”
Wifedom author Anne Funder delivers Openbook’s most romantic ‘The Libraries that Made Me’ column yet. She writes: “My most profound memories are not of finding what Dewey told me I was looking for, but the excitement of finding what was next to it.”
The popular photo essay is inspired by Anna Clark’s book The Catch, giving a seasonal nod to the great Australian holiday pastime of fishing. Photos by Jenny Evans, Mark Evans, Narelle Autio and Louise Beaumont show inland rivers and choice coastal spots where the views are so good it doesn’t matter if the fish aren’t biting.
Other highlights include
- Openbook editor Phillipa McGuinness interviews incoming State Librarian, Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon who has “dreamt for many years of not just touching the surface here, but really understanding the way the Library ticks...”
- Mitchell Librarian Richard Neville and author and historian Rachel Franks dive into the Library’s priceless, little-known collection of ‘bad art’ which is the subject of a lavish new book;
- West Girls author Laura Elizabeth Woollett and poet Anne-Marie Te Whiu entertain with exciting new writing;
- Author Paul Daley deals with substantive questions about classics that fall out of favour;
- Historian and novelist Mark Dapin reviews the Australian War Memorial’s ambitious exhibition Action! Film & War, currently on show at the State Library; and
- Senior Curator Geoff Barker takes us back to Sydney’s first ice skating rink.
There are also the regular favourites — book reviews, quiz, collection spotlights — plus a recipe for a 1970s-inspired chicken pie named after the suburb of Parramatta.
“It’s so wonderful to have the work of one Australia’s best photographers, Narelle Autio, grace the cover of Summer Openbook 2023,” says Openbook editor Phillipa McGuinness. “The photo’s road trip vibe evokes that sense of freedom and getting away from it all that we crave over the summer months. With this issue, readers will know they have great reading material at hand.”