While Joan Lindsay's haunting Australian classic Picnic at Hanging Rock is a work of fiction, the story is often considered one of Australia's grea...
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Jan 03, 2012
mark
rated it: 
ah! and there you are, my perfect little novel! it has been some time since last we've embraced. come, let us reacquaint ourselves. but what is that you say, and so modestly? what is so perfect about you? my sweet darling, don't be so shy! you are indeed a wondrous creation.
here, let me count the ways...
1. your mystery is timeless. three schoolgirls and one schoolmistress disappear on Valentine's Day afternoon, in 1900, in australia, at the mysterious Hanging Rock. where More...
here, let me count the ways...
1. your mystery is timeless. three schoolgirls and one schoolmistress disappear on Valentine's Day afternoon, in 1900, in australia, at the mysterious Hanging Rock. where More...
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Jul 09, 2008
_inbetween_
rated it: 
Surprisingly superficial. Instead of "a sense of evil" and "inexplicable terror", Lindsay has all her bad characters be ugly (ie. big or fat) and all her pretty characters be good (ie. lovely, beautiful, elegant, slim). Not a mention goes by without Miranda's shining hair, Irma's lovely curls and stunning face or Madame's slim figure. I was hoping for irony, but Lindsay seriously stipulates that Irma's loving nature makes her deride unattractive(ly dressed) people, and it's c
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(4 people liked it)
Dec 27, 2011
Louise
rated it: 
I must admit, the $9.99 price tag attached to the orange-and-white paperback was the initial and primary reason for my purchase. Being an avid fan of a good crime/mystery/thriller, I was also quite interested in purchasing the novel.
Picnic at Hanging Rock, however, should not primarily be remembered for its suspense or intrigue. It is more than just another crime/mystery novel. The real beauty of this novel is the great elaboration of its numerous characters and thus the exploration More...
Picnic at Hanging Rock, however, should not primarily be remembered for its suspense or intrigue. It is more than just another crime/mystery novel. The real beauty of this novel is the great elaboration of its numerous characters and thus the exploration More...
Aug 25, 2009
Stuart
rated it:
It is very rare that you can say a book is "exquisite" but there is really no other words for this little gem by Joan Lindsay. Short and sweet, eerie and elegant all at once, this book is part romance, part comedy of manners, part horror story. Three schoolgirls and their teacher go missing during a picnic and the impact of the mystery reverberates throughout the small rural community they live in, negatively and positively changing the lives of a variety of characters from different s
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Feb 13, 2010
Jay
rated it:
This book can be reviewed from two angles.
It can be reviewed as a mystery novel and the investigation that went into trying to find the girls. The second way is that it can be viewed as the events that occur after someone's (or multiple someones) disappearance. Rather, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a book about both sides, with, in my opinion, an emphasis on the latter. Granted the first third of the novel is focused on finding the girls and retracing their steps, and the last chapter (i More...
It can be reviewed as a mystery novel and the investigation that went into trying to find the girls. The second way is that it can be viewed as the events that occur after someone's (or multiple someones) disappearance. Rather, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a book about both sides, with, in my opinion, an emphasis on the latter. Granted the first third of the novel is focused on finding the girls and retracing their steps, and the last chapter (i More...
Sep 09, 2009
Sean
rated it:
One of my favourite books.
Four girls and one of their governesses climb Hanging Rock on St. Valentine's day. One returns immediately, scared out of her mind and with no memory of why she is in such a state. Another is found later, also with no memory of what happened to her during her time on the Rock. The other two girls and their teacher are never seen again.
One of Australia's most enduring, and fictional despite it being so ingrained our cultural memory it often is More...
Four girls and one of their governesses climb Hanging Rock on St. Valentine's day. One returns immediately, scared out of her mind and with no memory of why she is in such a state. Another is found later, also with no memory of what happened to her during her time on the Rock. The other two girls and their teacher are never seen again.
One of Australia's most enduring, and fictional despite it being so ingrained our cultural memory it often is More...
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Aug 11, 2010
Debbie
rated it:
I belong to a book/movie club and the book of the month this month was Picnic at Hanging Rock. Well I’m not sure but I think it was around 20 years ago that I read the book. This time around it struck me as being so much more well written than I remembered. Joan Lindsay was obviously fascinated with Time (with a capital T) as I am and this is an echoing thread (and possible explanation to the mystery of the disappearance of the girls). Another theme presented in the book is man against nature, p
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Sep 18, 2010
Laura
rated it: 
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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10 comments
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Mar 17, 2011
Delilah
rated it:
Feeling guilty about not reading enough Australia or female authors, I picked up Picnic at Hanging Rock, by Joan Lindsay. My only knowledge of this book is the shrill screaming of “Miranda!” from poor renditions and drama eisteddfods.
I didn’t like this book. The descriptions of the landscape didn’t arouse any sense of pride in my country. There we many unnecessary details of characters that I didn’t need to know. The plot was strong to begin with but then had unnecessary twists and t More...
I didn’t like this book. The descriptions of the landscape didn’t arouse any sense of pride in my country. There we many unnecessary details of characters that I didn’t need to know. The plot was strong to begin with but then had unnecessary twists and t More...
Nov 14, 2010
Narib
rated it:
This is one of the rare cases where the cinema version enhances the written version—and vice-versa. Anyone who wants a clearer picture of either should read and see both versions.
The story concerns an outing at an Australian private school that goes unexpectedly awry. Like a rock dropped into a still pool, the ripples from the incident radiate outward, some of them finding shores, some of them vanishing into the ocean. Do not expect find anything explicit or explained—the veil of my More...
The story concerns an outing at an Australian private school that goes unexpectedly awry. Like a rock dropped into a still pool, the ripples from the incident radiate outward, some of them finding shores, some of them vanishing into the ocean. Do not expect find anything explicit or explained—the veil of my More...
Jan 30, 2012
Christopher Rex
rated it:
The book is OK. Referring to it as "Australia's Greatest Mystery"....well, I dunno about that. Not having read many (any?) Australian Mysteries, it's hard for me to say one way or the other. The cool element of the book is the characters. Very well developed (especially the Headmistress) and believable throughout. The problem is simply that the story doesn't carry the reader along at a "page-turning" pace, which is what I really want from a mystery.
The story su More...
The story su More...
Feb 02, 2008
Michalle
rated it:
Stayed up until 4:30 a.m. reading this book, even though I knew it wouldn't have a conventional resolution. One of the few books to deal convincingly with friendship, both between men and between women, and the way a single piece of misfortune can undo even the hardest of work and the most carefullly put together of lives (Mrs. Appleyard's).
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Feb 01, 2012
Kerstin
rated it:
3.5 Stars
I finally got my hands on a copy of "Picnic at Hanging Rock", which I meant to read for the longest time. I went in with rather high expectations...and I'm not quite sure if they were met. I was ready for an eerie and creepy atmosphere throughout the book, surrounding the disappearance of the three girls and their teacher. A spooky horror/mystery story. Not sure why I expected all that, probably all the tidbits I heard about the book and the movie (which I haven't s More...
I finally got my hands on a copy of "Picnic at Hanging Rock", which I meant to read for the longest time. I went in with rather high expectations...and I'm not quite sure if they were met. I was ready for an eerie and creepy atmosphere throughout the book, surrounding the disappearance of the three girls and their teacher. A spooky horror/mystery story. Not sure why I expected all that, probably all the tidbits I heard about the book and the movie (which I haven't s More...
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Sep 27, 2009
Blake
rated it:
Immediately one thinks of this title and thoughts of the mystery contained therein follow. What does not always seem apparent - though it was Lindsay's intention for the book, just as it was Weir's stated intention for the film - is that great melancholy that attends it's most affecting chapters. It is in the flush of Australian life that colours the picnic grounds about the rock, in the unforgiving harshness of the pristine college and between the two men (whose conflicting desires form a compl
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Jul 21, 2010
Samantha
rated it:
As soon as I read Lesley's (A Life In Books) review of this book, I knew that I had to pick it up. It just sounded like a book that I had to read and right away. And when I opened up the book and read this I knew that I had made the right choice.
"Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is Fact or Fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly More...
"Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is Fact or Fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in the year nineteen hundred, and all the characters who appear in this book are long since dead, it hardly More...
Jun 07, 2010
David
rated it:
We got this rather obscure (in America)1967 novel from out of the Mid-York system, (from the University of Connecticut) after watching the enigmatic 1975 Australian movie based on it. Well! Very good. Almost Victorian language, fluffy and fussy characters, and the intriguing mystery of three missing girls and a governess, all of whom disappear on the afternoon of St. Valentine's Day, 1900, from a volcanic formation in the countryside of Victoria state in Australia. Lindsay's (unintentional?)
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Apr 09, 2010
Jadewik
rated it: 
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jul 15, 2011
Sue
rated it:
This is our book club read for July and I must say I am ever so slightly disappointed, although I did enjoy the book.
The whole mystery was in fact it was pretty subtle rather than in your face and I couldn't help comparing the atmosphere to that of Walkabout, that lazy, dazed feeling whenever one was in the vicinity of the Rock and the urges and power the Rock held over people.
The book is well written in that whole sexually suppressed Victorian sense - slits in the rock sur More...
The whole mystery was in fact it was pretty subtle rather than in your face and I couldn't help comparing the atmosphere to that of Walkabout, that lazy, dazed feeling whenever one was in the vicinity of the Rock and the urges and power the Rock held over people.
The book is well written in that whole sexually suppressed Victorian sense - slits in the rock sur More...
Oct 24, 2011
Roberta
rated it:
...rimarrà probabilmente per sempre insoluto.
Ambientato in Australia, questo breve romanzo racconta la storia di alcune ragazze ospiti paganti dell'Appleyard College. Dall'atmosfera sognante e contemporaneamente oppressiva del collegio, retto dall'inglesissima Sig.ra Appleyard, si passa alla selvaggia formazione rocciosa dell'Hanging Rock alla base della quale si svolge un picnic il giorno di San Valentino del 1900. Durante questo picnic tre ragazze e un'insegnante scompaiono e non ven More...
Ambientato in Australia, questo breve romanzo racconta la storia di alcune ragazze ospiti paganti dell'Appleyard College. Dall'atmosfera sognante e contemporaneamente oppressiva del collegio, retto dall'inglesissima Sig.ra Appleyard, si passa alla selvaggia formazione rocciosa dell'Hanging Rock alla base della quale si svolge un picnic il giorno di San Valentino del 1900. Durante questo picnic tre ragazze e un'insegnante scompaiono e non ven More...
Jan 06, 2012
Alex
rated it:
The premise was something that really intrigued me, and I was looking forward to reading the book. However, I was quite disappointed in the way that it was written, and it didn't live up to the eerie quality that I was expecting when I read the synopsis of the story. Rather than focusing on the unexplained disappearance of the girls from Hanging Rock, the bulk of the book is taken up by the relationships between those at the school. The ending was the best part of the book, and the mystery of th
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Feb 14, 2012
Kimberley
rated it:
I'd heard about this book being an Australian classic, so when I saw the audiobook in the library and read the intriguing premise, I thought I'd check it out.
For most of the book I was considering giving it a 3 star rating, although it wasn't amazing, it was holding my interest and I wanted to see how the mystery surrounding the missing girls unfolded. Then I reached the end of the book and thought I'd missed something because I still had no idea what happened to them. I re-listened but i More...
For most of the book I was considering giving it a 3 star rating, although it wasn't amazing, it was holding my interest and I wanted to see how the mystery surrounding the missing girls unfolded. Then I reached the end of the book and thought I'd missed something because I still had no idea what happened to them. I re-listened but i More...
Jan 23, 2011
Andrea
rated it:
How can be so unpleasant a pleasant Australian countryside?
Nature can be dangerous and hit with no reason, or with reasons to be hardly understood by.
Hanging Rock are vivid, present and far at the same time. Obscure and suffocating, though fascinating, they carve lives of those living nearby.
Tragedies and events occur, but social restraints make daily life worse than death. In this masquerade, nothing really happens, but everything does. Time goes by slowly, but you r More...
Nature can be dangerous and hit with no reason, or with reasons to be hardly understood by.
Hanging Rock are vivid, present and far at the same time. Obscure and suffocating, though fascinating, they carve lives of those living nearby.
Tragedies and events occur, but social restraints make daily life worse than death. In this masquerade, nothing really happens, but everything does. Time goes by slowly, but you r More...
Oct 24, 2011
Nemesis
rated it:
Ho letto molti pareri positivi su questo libro, molti ne sono rimasti affascinati, colpiti, alcuni lo hanno amato più del film stesso.
Per me non è stato così, posso asserire con certezza che finora questa è stata la lettura più deludente che abbia fatto, le mie aspettative erano altissime e sono state demolite in un soffio come un castello di carte.
Un libro che ho desiderato molto leggere, che ho trovato difficile da reperire (ho impiegato più di un anno e mezzo per trovarlo ), da More...
Per me non è stato così, posso asserire con certezza che finora questa è stata la lettura più deludente che abbia fatto, le mie aspettative erano altissime e sono state demolite in un soffio come un castello di carte.
Un libro che ho desiderato molto leggere, che ho trovato difficile da reperire (ho impiegato più di un anno e mezzo per trovarlo ), da More...
Jun 25, 2011
Núria
rated it:
‘Picnic en Hanging Rock’ de Joan Lindsay es una novela gótica que en lugar de estar ambientada en los nebulosos páramos ingleses está ambientada en el caluroso verano australiano. Es un relato fantástico en el que no sucede nada fantástico y una novela de misterio sobre un misterio que es investigado pero que no queda resuelto. El adjetivo que mejor le queda es “inquietante”. Aunque no suceda nada sobrenatural ni terrorífico es inquietante porque no hay nada más inquietante que lo que escapa a n
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Jul 24, 2011
Ape
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 11, 2010
Carin
rated it:
This is an Australian classic. To me it had hints of Muriel Spark and Henry James. A mystery, it was riveting and spooky. It's set up as if it were based on a true story that happened in 1900 (It was written in 1967), but I researched afterwards and it is not based on anything - it's completely fiction.
A group of students from a girls' college outside of Melbourne go on a day trip to Hanging Rock for a picnic. Towards the end of the afternoon, four girls go off on their own to hike More...
A group of students from a girls' college outside of Melbourne go on a day trip to Hanging Rock for a picnic. Towards the end of the afternoon, four girls go off on their own to hike More...
Apr 30, 2010
Bella
rated it:
For someone who has actually HAD a picnic at Hanging Rock,this book is incrediby creepy. I think it would be incredibly creepy anyway... but even more so when you've been to the place.
I love the whole old time Random Capital Letters. It reminds me of my old books, how they will have a random Capital every so often. Who capitalises Australian Bush? The Australian part, obviously yes, but bush? It makes me happy!
I dont think this book would be as good for someone who isnt A) Australian More...
I love the whole old time Random Capital Letters. It reminds me of my old books, how they will have a random Capital every so often. Who capitalises Australian Bush? The Australian part, obviously yes, but bush? It makes me happy!
I dont think this book would be as good for someone who isnt A) Australian More...
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Jul 15, 2010
Linds
rated it:
This is one of the few times that the movie is better than the book.
Peter Weir directed a minor masterpiece in the 1970's from this book. It's hard to find but worth searching for. He takes the best elements: the unnerving tone, the underlying creepiness, and the question "just what the hell happened to those girls on that rock?"
In 1903 a group of twenty girls and their teachers from a private school go on a picnic to a monolith in the Australian outback. The m More...
Peter Weir directed a minor masterpiece in the 1970's from this book. It's hard to find but worth searching for. He takes the best elements: the unnerving tone, the underlying creepiness, and the question "just what the hell happened to those girls on that rock?"
In 1903 a group of twenty girls and their teachers from a private school go on a picnic to a monolith in the Australian outback. The m More...
May 30, 2010
Tom
rated it:
A briskly written and readable little novel, this book is written as if it were a true unsolved mystery of three boarding school girls and a teacher/governess in Australia who, one Valentine's Day, go out for a picnic at the title place and disappear. One girl is recovered later, though most of the book centers on what happens to various associated figures afterwords, some finding mostly tragedy, though for there is others joy. The disappearance seemed to affect everyone to one degree or anoth
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Aug 02, 2008
Susan
rated it:
For the seasoned reader of the supernatural-tinged suspense genre (if genre it can be called), this is a perfectly fine way to spend an afternoon. The author does a good job of keeping the central mystery veiled, and the pace, while progressing as leisurely as a summer day, is at least consistent.
However, don't look for depth of character here. The girls at the boarding school...well, ever seen "The Facts of Life"? That's about as much dimension as you'll find in these fl More...
However, don't look for depth of character here. The girls at the boarding school...well, ever seen "The Facts of Life"? That's about as much dimension as you'll find in these fl More...
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