Hi Veronica ....

I also am a great fan of the Banjo .... & know what you mean about the magic of Gundagai.  I've only been there twice but loved the feeling of the old bridge & reflect at the sad tradgedy of the flood that destroyed the old town with great loss of life.  I recall a small museum there that contained a model of ?   (I can't remember the details but I'm sure someone will remind me.)

Back to AB ... I have Two volumes 'Singer of The Bush" & "Song of the Pen" that contain his complete works from1885 to 1941.  I like the prose works in particular.

I'm also a fan of his contemporary Henry Lawson &  have similar volumes of his complete works.  In his case, given my liking of prose, I am fortunate in that I have two publications containing just his prose .. 87 stories in "While the Billy Boils" & another 56 in "Joe Wilson's Mates".

A favourite of my young grandchildren is a book & accompaning tape of Mulga Bill's Bicycle that we have enjoyed in-numerable times.
I like the bit that set the scene ..

".... The grinning shop assistant said, 'Excuse me, can you ride?'
'See here young man,' said Mulga Bill, 'from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none that can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows ......"

For those of you who bush camp off the beaten track I'm sure that there could be no better companion than the four volumes that I refered to earlier.

It must have been great to enjoy their verbal sparing in the newspapers of the day.

regards & please continue to keep us posted of your travels  .. I for one enjoy the memories that your commentry arouse.

-- Edited by Cupie at 20:14, 2008-11-25

G'day again V

Just Googled "Tim Winton Cloud Street" & got this ...

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Dustjacket synopsis:
"Cloudstreet a broken down house of former glories on the wrong side of the tracks, a place teeming with memories of its own, a place of shudders, shadows and spirits.

"From separate catastrophes, two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing this great breathing, sighing, muttering structure and begin their lives again from scratch.

"There are the industrious Lambs, who wait and wait on the God of Miracles who seems to have foresaken them, and the gambling Pickleses, who prefer to deal with the mysteries of Lady Luck and her henchmen. Both aghast at the fates which have delivered them to Cloudstreet, and the baffling realisation that they will always remain there.

"Together they roister and rankle in a divided house that begins as a roof over their heads and becomes a home for their hearts.

"In this fresh, funny novel, full of wonder and dreams, brilliant young Australian author, Tim Winton, weaves the threads of lifetimes, of 20 years of shouting and fighting, laughing and grafting, into a story about acceptance and belonging."

Quotes:
"It is, I suspect, a masterpiece" - Veronica Brady, West Australian
"Nothing short of magnificent...a wonderful read" - Andrew Yule, Time Out


First Paragraph

Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear, clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with bagnecked pelicans riding above them, the city their twitching backdrop, all blocks and points of mirror light down to the water's edge.

Twenty years, they all say, sprawling and drinking. There's ginger beer, staggerjuice and hot flasks of tea. There pasties, a ham, chickenlegs and a basket of oranges, potato salad and dried figs. There are things spilling from jars and bags.

The speech is silenced by a meodious belch which gets big applause. Someone blurts on a baby's belly and a song strikes up. Unless you knew, you'd think they were a whole group, an earthly vision. Because, look, even the missing are there, the gone and taken are with them in the shade pools of the peppermints by the beautiful, the beautiful the river. And even now, one of the here is leaving.

From the Picador hardback edition, 1991.

Notes:
This novel won the Miles Franklin Award in 1992

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Looks like I'll have to add it to my list & then off to the secondhand book shop where I get all of my reading these days ..

thanks

Yeah. He'd have to be one of Australia's top writers of the moment. I didn't know when Cloudstreet was published but from what you've turned up it was 1991. A long time ago. He's won a lot of awards since then with other books.

As I mentioned I'm listening to it as an audio book iwhile I'm driving, I have to give full credit to the reader - Peter Hosking _ he really makes it live and his fair dinkum accents make me think of my grandfather till the tears come.