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A Book To Love: Favourite Guests of ABC TV's First Tuesday Book Club Share Their Most Loved Books
first tuesday book club has been blessed with entertaining, inspiring and provocative guests. Now, a selection of wonderful authors and booklovers featured on the show comes together to reveal the books closest to their hearts.
Some love classics-Jane Eyre anyone? A Moveable Feast? Anna Karenina? Some champion neglected gems: Ask the Dust, New Grub Street and Excellent Women may soon top your must-read-next list. And some make choices that will surprise you-which author′s books are beloved by both Augusten Burroughs and Christos Tsiolkas? Who adores the cultish whimsy of Mervyn Peake′s Gormenghast ? Who puts up their hand for The Hobbit?
One thing remains common to all the contributors: a deep and genuine love of books and reading. That′s what first tuesday book club is all about. So find yourself a comfortable spot, tune out your daily distractions, and enjoy!
Some love classics-Jane Eyre anyone? A Moveable Feast? Anna Karenina? Some champion neglected gems: Ask the Dust, New Grub Street and Excellent Women may soon top your must-read-next list. And some make choices that will surprise you-which author′s books are beloved by both Augusten Burroughs and Christos Tsiolkas? Who adores the cultish whimsy of Mervyn Peake′s Gormenghast ? Who puts up their hand for The Hobbit?
One thing remains common to all the contributors: a deep and genuine love of books and reading. That′s what first tuesday book club is all about. So find yourself a comfortable spot, tune out your daily distractions, and enjoy!
175 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Various
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If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.
Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 25, 2011
Quick, enjoyable read from First Tuesday Book Club about some of their favourite books
September 12, 2024
Some of you will remember the Book Club (previously the first Tuesday book club) which was the (Australian) ABC’s nationally televised book club from 2006 to 2017. Jennifer Byrne was the host, and her regular panellists were Marieke Hardy and Jason Steger. It was a terrific show, with each episode discussing two books: one new release, and one panellist’s favourite. I remember that the guests also provided book recommendations. Ah, memories …
In ‘A Book to Love’ (which I rediscovered on my bookshelf a few weeks ago), fourteen guests reveal the books closest to their hearts.
Augusten Burroughs chose ‘The Member of the Wedding’ by Carson McCullers
Emily Maguire chose ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brönte
Ian Rankin chose ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark
Jason Steger chose ‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tostoy
Sophie Gee chose ‘Excellent Women’ by Barbara Pym
Matthew Reilly chose ‘The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Malcolm Knox chose ‘Labyrinths’ by Jorge Luis Borges
Peter Fitzsimons chose ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens
Marieke Hardy chose ‘Ask the Dust’ by John Fante
Di Morrissey chose ‘The Gormenghast Trilogy’ by Mervyn Peake
Michael Rowbotham chose ‘A Moveable Feast’ by Ernest Hemingway
Peter Corris chose ‘The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham’
Catherine Jinks chose ‘New Grub Street’ by George Gissing
Christos Tsiolkas chose ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers
I have read five of these books (have written reviews for two) and have several others in various TBR mountains. What I most enjoyed about this book was reading what other readers chose, and why. Reading about books is almost as good as actually reading books 😉
If I had to choose one book closest to my own heart, it would be ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brönte. There is no analytical, logical explanation for this: it is all emotional. Yes, you can remind me (if you choose) about how unlikeable the characters are, and I shall smile nicely and agree, while planning my next reread.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In ‘A Book to Love’ (which I rediscovered on my bookshelf a few weeks ago), fourteen guests reveal the books closest to their hearts.
Augusten Burroughs chose ‘The Member of the Wedding’ by Carson McCullers
Emily Maguire chose ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Brönte
Ian Rankin chose ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark
Jason Steger chose ‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tostoy
Sophie Gee chose ‘Excellent Women’ by Barbara Pym
Matthew Reilly chose ‘The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Malcolm Knox chose ‘Labyrinths’ by Jorge Luis Borges
Peter Fitzsimons chose ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens
Marieke Hardy chose ‘Ask the Dust’ by John Fante
Di Morrissey chose ‘The Gormenghast Trilogy’ by Mervyn Peake
Michael Rowbotham chose ‘A Moveable Feast’ by Ernest Hemingway
Peter Corris chose ‘The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham’
Catherine Jinks chose ‘New Grub Street’ by George Gissing
Christos Tsiolkas chose ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’ by Carson McCullers
I have read five of these books (have written reviews for two) and have several others in various TBR mountains. What I most enjoyed about this book was reading what other readers chose, and why. Reading about books is almost as good as actually reading books 😉
If I had to choose one book closest to my own heart, it would be ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brönte. There is no analytical, logical explanation for this: it is all emotional. Yes, you can remind me (if you choose) about how unlikeable the characters are, and I shall smile nicely and agree, while planning my next reread.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
November 7, 2018
Does anyone else miss the ABC show “Tuesday Book Club”? I do. Thankfully another stumbled upon find in the local library transported me back for a bit. 14 guests of the show wrote essays about the books that made them. Of course, this has only led me to add more to my own TBR list.
June 29, 2020
A good eclectic mix of authors talking about the books they hold dear to their hearts.
January 3, 2012
One of the joys of imminent retirement will be my ability to watch some ‘late’ night television, a pleasure denied to me after the rigors of an aged teacher’s day. Of course there’s ‘At the Movies’, but another I’ve only occasionally managed to stay awake for is ‘The First Tuesday Book Show’. Depending on guest and theme, and with its host the erudite Jennifer Byrne, this programme can delight any booklover – as does this spin-off.
Here the show’s regular panelists and some chosen guests ruminate about their very favourite books – and often these pieces tell more of the ponderers themselves than of the masterpieces they’re lauding. The selections are a mixture of the predictable, the well known and a few more obscure tomes. In truth none of the recommendations were hastily added to my reading list, but all discourses were illuminating. Shiningly delightful (as always) was Marieke Hardy’s account of how a love/lustlorne heart led her to John Fante’s ‘Ask the Dust’. I enjoyed Michael Robotham’s paralleling his life experiences with Hemingway being ‘down and out’ in ‘A Moveable Feast’ – a classic I read at about the same stage in my life as the contributor. Another personal favourite, Catherine Jinks, was all for ‘New Grub Street’, and Peter Fitzsimons, in typical bluntness, states why he is a Dickens fan. Ian Rankin, it seems, owes much to Muriel Spark and Jean Brodie.
But what would I choose if in the unlikely event I was asked to select my preference for Volume Two of ‘A Book to Love’? As Matthew Reilly concurs, a turgid mind-numbing diet of Dickens, Austen and Shakespeare, as fed to me during my schooling, does not (and did not) encourage young men in particular to be readers. Then towards the end of that period of my life came the revelation that was Gatsby, and to a lesser extent, Hardy’s Tess. I was hooked. Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, most Winton and Miller’s ‘Journey into Stone Country takes the silvers and bronzes, but the solitary gold goes to ‘The Shipping News’. Quoyle is the character I most relate to in literature, and the novel is so perfect in my memory (aided by the film), I’ll never revisit it, nor read and other of Proulx’ books!
Here the show’s regular panelists and some chosen guests ruminate about their very favourite books – and often these pieces tell more of the ponderers themselves than of the masterpieces they’re lauding. The selections are a mixture of the predictable, the well known and a few more obscure tomes. In truth none of the recommendations were hastily added to my reading list, but all discourses were illuminating. Shiningly delightful (as always) was Marieke Hardy’s account of how a love/lustlorne heart led her to John Fante’s ‘Ask the Dust’. I enjoyed Michael Robotham’s paralleling his life experiences with Hemingway being ‘down and out’ in ‘A Moveable Feast’ – a classic I read at about the same stage in my life as the contributor. Another personal favourite, Catherine Jinks, was all for ‘New Grub Street’, and Peter Fitzsimons, in typical bluntness, states why he is a Dickens fan. Ian Rankin, it seems, owes much to Muriel Spark and Jean Brodie.
But what would I choose if in the unlikely event I was asked to select my preference for Volume Two of ‘A Book to Love’? As Matthew Reilly concurs, a turgid mind-numbing diet of Dickens, Austen and Shakespeare, as fed to me during my schooling, does not (and did not) encourage young men in particular to be readers. Then towards the end of that period of my life came the revelation that was Gatsby, and to a lesser extent, Hardy’s Tess. I was hooked. Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, most Winton and Miller’s ‘Journey into Stone Country takes the silvers and bronzes, but the solitary gold goes to ‘The Shipping News’. Quoyle is the character I most relate to in literature, and the novel is so perfect in my memory (aided by the film), I’ll never revisit it, nor read and other of Proulx’ books!
December 19, 2010
This is essentially reviews, with backstories of how much the reviewers loved reading these particular books (their favourites). It's great reading about reading, particularly from those clever with words, as these contributors all were. Definitely made me want to read some books I hadn't previously thought of.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews