Blessed
is the Sabbath–especially if
there is a
whopping big book
sale on that day . On Magnetic
Island , North Queensland, there
is an annual bookfest offering
large numbers of goodies at the kindergarten.
Some of the offerings, spread on tables come with bookworm , free of charge ; often discovered are a range of interesting
inserts, inscriptions , a
variety of old library
notices and the trade
stamps of book dealers in various parts of Australia . This bug eyed book addict , showing great self control , managed
to buy a
mere 70 volumes.
A number were early editions
by Ion
Idriess covering North Australian
topics : John Flynn, Sir Sidney Kidman, the Cattle King, In
Crocodile Land , Islands of Despair and Horrie the Wog Dog - read when this
writer was a pimply
lad in Sydney , more than 60 years ago, seemingly back in the Gutenberg Press days.
A l964
first edition copy of Eaters of the Lotus
, complete with a pictorial dustjacket, by Keith Willey , a former NT News
reporter in the days of Jim Bowditch, was eagerly snapped up . Willey dedicated the book to his friends in the North who eat the
Lotus , probably the reason why recently I had expensive dental treatment . Another find was
Syd Kyle-Little’s Whispering Wind, Adventures in Arnhem Land , with
dustjacket, which includes a photograph of
Cadet Patrol Officer Jack Doolan
who later became a Northern Territory ALP politician. If I remember correctly,
Kyle-Little was a ranger at Alice Springs.
The eclectic range of purchases covered India after
Gandhi; Bangkok by Alec Waugh ;
the Hong Kong Plague of 1894 ; an
autographed copy of a Dr Jim
Cairns book ; early, illustrated ,
Australian novels , including the l922 Cooee of Glenowie ; accounts
of WW1; a batch covering the Torres Strait ; Australian National Estate , by an
old journo mate from way back ,
the late Professor Clem Lloyd , an ALP staffer (Lance Barnard , Tom Uren, methinks) ; The Forgotten Rebels
of Eureka ; adventurer
Francis Birtles ; a battered, wormed, 1933 copy of The Life of Kiwi author Katherine Mansfield, with associated
newspaper
clipping (follow up post later) ; The Reef–the Great Barrier Reef in 12 extraordinary tales ; the life of
George Goyder and the letters of the great
Goon , Spike Milligan.
