Last week, Annabel Smith tweeted a link to a fantastic article, The Literary United States: A Map of the Best Book for Every State. It got me thinking about an Australian equivalent.
Strictly speaking, an Australian literary map isn’t quite as crowded (not as many states in comparison to the US). It would be nice to do an Australian one that reflected cities and regional areas but that’s a big project (and for that matter, actually put it on a map…). For the time being, here are my favourite books set in different states.
Victoria: for Melbourne, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. For regional Victoria, Carrie Tiffany captures the Mallee perfectly in Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living.
New South Wales: Foal’s Bread by Gillian Mears (regional) and The Harp in the South by Ruth Park (for Sydney).
Queensland: He Died With A Felafel In His Hand by John Birmingham.
Northern Territory: We of the Never Never by Jeannie Gunn.
Western Australia: Red Dog by Louis De Bernières (and honorable mention to The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman).
Tasmania: When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett.
I’ve struggled with books for the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia. My son is reading Storm Boy by Colin Thiele at the moment – it’s set in a beautiful part of South Australia but I don’t count it as a particular favourite. Any ACT or SA suggestions that I may have overlooked?