Born: Established: 1961 ;
Gender:
Male
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BiographyHistory
Most Referenced Works
Notes
-
Other works by Michael McGirr not individually indexed include :
Snooze: The Lost Art of Sleep (2017)
Ideas to Save Your Life : Philosophy for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure (2021)
Personal Awards
Awards for Works
-
y
Books That Saved My Life : Reading for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure
Melbourne
:
Text Publishing
,
2018
13940650
2018
selected work
essay
'HERE are forty texts to read at some stage in your life: forty texts that can enrich you in all manner of ways. Some are recent, like Harry Potter; some ancient, like Homer and Lao Tzu. There are memoirs (Nelson Mandela), poetry (Les Murray) and many of the world’s great novels, from George Eliot’s Middlemarch to Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
'Our guide, in entertaining short essays about personal encounters with each of these works, is Michael McGirr: schoolteacher and former priest, reviewer of hundreds of novels and lifelong lover of literature. His humour and insight shine through in stories that connect the texts he has selected with each other, and connect us to them.
'Never prescriptive, and often very funny, this book is an invitation to reflect on—and share with others—the extraordinary gift of reading. ‘It is a gift that is taking me a lifetime to unwrap,’ McGirr writes. ‘The excitement has never worn off.''.
Source: Publisher's blurb.
- 2019 longlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
-
y
Bypass : The Story of a Road
Sydney
:
Picador
,
2004
Z1136209
2004
single work
prose
travel
'Forty and flabby, Michael McGirr hits the Hume Highway on a cheap bicycle. Having stopped working as a Jesuit priest, he is on a quest to find heaven knows what. Along the way, he is joined by Jenny.
'Bypass is the story of Australia’s main street, the much-unloved highway between Sydney and Melbourne. The Hume has plenty of tales to tell—of bushrangers and bus drivers, publicans and poets, runners and refugees—and McGirr discovers he has one to add to the swag. The road is a source of wisdom and comedy, and maybe even a fine romance.
'One of the most popular books by the author of Things You Get For Free and Books that Saved My Life, Bypass is both a personal memoir and an unconventional biography of the road most travelled. This edition includes ‘Passing By’, a new afterword bringing the story up to date.' (Publication summary: 2022)
- 2005 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — Award for Non-Fiction
-
y
Things You Get for Free
Sydney
:
Pan Macmillan Australia
,
2000
Z668627
2000
single work
autobiography
travel
'At the age of thirty-four, Michael McGirr decides to take his charming and inimitable mum on the honeymoon she and her late husband never got around to having. Between recounting their hilarious travels around Europe and meditating on the historical figures who dot their voyage — everyone from Hemingway to Michelangelo to the quietly heroic people who inspire McGirr's special brand of faith — he plunges deep into his family history, unearthing sickness and depression but also moments of great love and perseverance. 'Things You Get for Free is a deeply moving spiritual and intellectual journey that sparkles with McGirr's singular wit and proves the truth behind his mother's favourite saying: "I know more than you think I know."' (From the Scribe website, abstract for 2012 edition.)
Last amended 14 Jul 2021 05:35:09
