Senator Andrew Bartlett
Monday, September 12, 2005
 
Cultural Interlude – Books
In the last few sitting days I have given speeches on the initial Telstra Bills, the referral to Committee of the Telstra Bills, the need to allow proper consideration of the first 2 Telstra Bills, the need to allow proper consideration of 3 other Telstra Bills and the need to allow a couple of weeks before we finalise the debate on the Telstra.

I led off debate on the Telstra Bills last week, but no one else had done their speech on the actual Bills, and that debate got under way at 7.30pm on the Monday night. The speakers list had at least 30 names on it. Much as I believe it's an important issue, it was a bit of a relief to go to a function where people were actually talking about something else.

I attended the Australian Book Industry awards, put on by the Australian Publishers Association, which was held at the National Museum down by Lake Burley Griffin. I saw a few people I knew, including the person that runs one of Brisbane's good bookshops, The Avid Reader in West End. I also met the sister-in-law of the person who maintains my main website, who is clearly a well read person who recognises high quality writing (and who just happens to read this blog).

One of the main awards was won by Helen Garner, for her book Joe Cinque's Consolation. I read this a little while ago and found it a fascinating read about an awful real life story which appropriately enough happened in Canberra.

I have attended these awards before. At some functions and dinners, listening to 10 or so acceptance and other speeches can sometimes get a bit dull, but one real plus about the book industry is that people give really good speeches. As they are writers and other people who work with words for a living, this perhaps should not be surprising, but it was certainly very noticeable. They are better than the speeches you get at music award nights, although I guess if the book industry people had to perform a song when they accepted an award, the reverse would apply.

Also noticeable was the real passion everybody had for the world of books in all their infinite variety. I came away feeling like I should just find a nice cabin somewhere and read books for a year. Instead, it'll be another day of speeches about Telstra in the Senate.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Monday, September 12, 2005 Permalink
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