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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The first time Brenda Walker packed her bag to go into hospital, she wondered which book to take with her. As a novelist and professor of literature, her life had been built around reading and writing. Now she was also a patient, being treated for breast cancer, fighting for her life and afraid for herself and her family. But turning to medicine didn't mean she turned away from fiction. Books had always been her solace and sustenance, and now choosing the right one was the most important thing she could do for herself.
'In Reading by Moonlight, Brenda describes the five stages of her treatment and how different books and authors helped her through the tumultuous process of recovery. As well as offering wonderful introductions and insights into the work of writers like Dante, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Beckett and Dickens, Brenda shows how the very process of reading - surrendering and then regathering yourself - echoes the process of healing.
'Reading by Moonlight guides, reassures, throws light on dark places, and finds beauty in the stories that come to us in times of jeopardy. It affirms that reading can be essential to life itself.' (From the publisher's website.)
Notes
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Dedication: To Christian and Francis
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Epigraph: Can the shape of the healing possibly fit the size of the wound? -James Wood
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On 1st June 2010 this book was the subject of a discussion on the Tuesday Book Club, a television book show from Australia.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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'Alone and in close company' : Reading and Companionship in Brenda Walker's Reading by Moonlight
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 27 no. 1 2012; (p. 62-75) -
The Afterlife of Books
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 71 no. 3 2012; (p. 79-88)'In Law and Literature, a subject offered to the University of Melbourne’s final-year law students, they study Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man and Helen Garner’s Joe Cinque’s Consolation. In both books the law fails. Or as Gary Cazalet, who got the subject up and running, says of Hooper’s book: ‘It is an indictment of our legal system and it isn’t.’ I’d put it another way. In both books the victims’ families find, in law, neither solace nor justice. Justice, that is, the way we laypeople like to imagine it: morally purifying, thunderously absolute, a revelation, a release—justice of the kind that law can rarely give us.' (Author's introduction)
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Looking between the Lines
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 14 May 2011; (p. 24-25) -
Non-Fiction Books
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 10-11 April 2010; (p. 32)
— Review of Reading by Moonlight : How Books Saved a Life 2010 single work autobiography -
Armed with Loving Care
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 14 - 15 August 2010; (p. 36)
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Untitled
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , March vol. 89 no. 6 2010; (p. 41)
— Review of Reading by Moonlight : How Books Saved a Life 2010 single work autobiography -
Alone in Close Company
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 27 March 2010; (p. 16)
— Review of Reading by Moonlight : How Books Saved a Life 2010 single work autobiography -
Healing Power of a Good Book
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 10-11 April 2010; (p. 31)
— Review of Reading by Moonlight : How Books Saved a Life 2010 single work autobiography -
The Healing Power of Narrative
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10-11 April 2010; (p. 18-19)
— Review of Reading by Moonlight : How Books Saved a Life 2010 single work autobiography -
Well Read
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 17 April 2010; (p. 24)
— Review of Reading by Moonlight : How Books Saved a Life 2010 single work autobiography ; Trouble : Evolution of a Radical : Selected Writings 1970-2010 2010 selected work essay poetry prose -
Brenda Walker
2010
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 27-28 March 2010; (p. 30-31) The Age , 27 March 2010; (p. 20-21) -
Word Power
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 27 March 2010; (p. 37) -
Armed with Loving Care
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 14 - 15 August 2010; (p. 36) -
Looking between the Lines
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 14 May 2011; (p. 24-25) -
'Alone and in close company' : Reading and Companionship in Brenda Walker's Reading by Moonlight
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 27 no. 1 2012; (p. 62-75)
Awards
- 2012 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards — Award for Non-Fiction
- 2011 winner Kibble Literary Awards — Nita Kibble Literary Award
- 2011 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
- 2010 shortlisted Western Australian Premier's Book Awards — Non-Fiction
- 2010 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Award for Non-Fiction