Alpine book trail

Last month I made a trip to the alpine country in Victoria's northeast, lovely country where the Ovens and King rivers flow - and, most recently, overflow into a flood. An area of luscious river valleys and high mountains like Mount Buffalo and Mount Hotham.

There's a book trail that extends through the area along an arc from Kilmore in the south to Rutherglen up north, to Beechworth, Myrtleford and Bright in the east and sweeping down to the southeast to Bairnsdale near the coast in Gippsland. Bookshops in these and other towns have joined together to put out a brochure that lists their locations, descriptions of stock and contact details. See www.alpinebooktrail.com

I visited some of these shops and made a few purchases: in Euroa I called in at Euroa Fine Books which is run by the well-known bookseller, Kenneth Hince OAM. What a lovely bookshop it is, located in Euroa's main street. Across the road is The Already Read Bookshop which is operated by members of the Friends of the Euroa Library; proceeds from that shop go to support the library. In Beechworth, the Quercus Bookshop is also run by volunteers to support the Beechworth Neighbourhood Centre.

Although I was keen to visit Bibliomania in Myrtleford, I only managed a look through the windows as its opening times were restricted. Luckily the small but well-stocked Books at Bright was open and I found a book I was interested in there.

In Bright I found the book, Orr, by W. H. C. Eddy. It is a very odd book that details the many law suits and events that surrounded the case of Sydney Sparks Orr, the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania from 1952 until he was dismissed in 1956. The book, published in 1961 by Jacaranda , features a lurid yellow jacket with an outline map of Tasmania surrounding a big red question mark. The cover suggests revelation and scandal and the author argues that Orr was the innocent victim of a conspiracy against him. The case caused an uproar in academic circles at the time and a ban was imposed on jobs in philosophy at the university. Eddy goes on at great length (apparently assisted by Orr according to a recent study of the case), but the book is certainly an interesting historical document pertaining to the history of universities in Australia in the 1950s.

In Euroa I picked up Greer: untamed shrew by Christine Wallace, a biography of Germaine Greer. It's an interesting read that details events in this famous writer's life into the 1990s. Greer emerges as a complicated figure who Wallace sees as more of a individualist than a feminist.

The work of another of our great women writers, Christina Stead, came my way at the Beechworth bookshop. I found a hardback edition of The Man Who Loved Children which is one of my favourite books, one that I intend to read again now I have a sturdy volume I can look into.