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y separately published work icon Sydney single work   prose  
Issue Details: First known date: 2010... 2010 Sydney
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Sydney has always been the sexiest and most gaudy of our cities. In this book, the third in a series in which leading Australian authors write about their hometowns, novelist Delia Falconer conjures up its sandstone, humidity, and jacarandas. But she goes beyond these to find a far more complex city: beautiful, violent, half-wild, and at times deeply spiritual. It is a slightly unreal place, haunted by a past that it has never quite grasped, or come to terms with. Here, in her first non-fiction book, she proves herself an adept memoirist. She twines the stories of the people that have made Sydney the twenty-first century city it is today. Mad clergymen, amateur astronomers, Indigenous weather experts, crims and victims, photographers and artists: their stories are surprising, funny, and moving.' (From the publisher's website.)

Notes

  • Epigraph:
    I looked out of my window in the dark
    At waves with diamond quills and combs
    of light
    That arched their mackerel-backs and
    smacked the sand
    In the moon's drench, that straight enormous
    glaze,
    And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys
    Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,
    And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard
    Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal,
    Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells,
    Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.
    Five bells.
    -from 'Five Bells' by Kenneth Slessor

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: NewSouth Publishing , 2010 .
      image of person or book cover 2862037901617534775.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 293p.
      Description: maps on endpapers
      ISBN: 9781921410925 (hbk.)
      Series: y separately published work icon Cities NewSouth Publishing (publisher), Sydney : NewSouth Publishing , 2009- Z1730249 2009 series - publisher prose Number in series: 3
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: NewSouth Publishing , 2020 .
      image of person or book cover 5925484090964593141.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Booktopia
      Extent: 320p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 1st November 2020
      ISBN: 9781742237084

Works about this Work

Lost City : Different Expressions of Love for Sydney Jacqueline Kent , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , March no. 429 2021; (p. 57-58)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose

'Poor old Sydney. If it isn’t being described as crass and culturally superficial, it’s being condemned for allowing developers to obliterate whatever natural beauty it ever had. Is it doomed, will it survive, and if so, what kind of city is it likely to be?' (Introduction)

Busy Week for Library Marc McEvoy , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 6 May 2012; (p. 19)
Writing the City Sally Heath (interviewer), 2011 single work interview
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 70 no. 3 2011; (p. 179-189)
'The brief to 'write about the city you live in' has produced diverse books by five Australian writers. Another has just started to contemplate the process. The cities series was the brainchild of University of New South Wales Press, with Peter Timms' Hobart the first in the series to be published, in 2009. In 2010 Matthew Condon wrote Brisbane and Delia Falconer Sydney. Sophie Cunningham's Melbourne has just been published, and Adelaide by Kerryn Goldsworthy is due out in October. Paul Daley has just been commissioned to produce 'Canberra'. The series will continue around the country. The authors and I conducted an email conversation about the project, of which and edited version is presented here.' (p. 178)
The Picks of the Crop Jo Case , Chris Flynn , Morag Fraser , David McCooey , Maria Tumarkin , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 6 August 2011; (p. 26-27)
The judges of the 2011 Age Book of the Year Awards comment on each of the fifteen shortlisted titles. Morag Fraser and Maria Tumarkin comment on the non-fiction titles, David McCooey on the poetry titles and Jo Case and Chris Flynn on the fiction titles.
In the Dialectic City : "The Bumpkin Calculus of Time" Michael Butler , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 25 no. 1 2011; (p. 105-106)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose
Beyond the Emerald City Limits Louis Nowra , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 2-3 October 2010; (p. 22-23)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose
Florid, Intoxicating Hymn to the Harbour City Barry Oakley , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , October vol. 5 no. 9 2010; (p. 15)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose
First Among Equals Joshua Rosner , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 9 October 2010; (p. 27)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose
The Secret Life of the Emerald City Warwick McFadyen , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 6 November 2010; (p. 24)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose
'Glitz and Rot' Rhyll McMaster , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 326 2010; (p. 62)

— Review of Sydney Delia Falconer , 2010 single work prose
Delia Falconer Helen Greenwood , 2010 single work biography
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 2-3 October 2010; (p. 30-31)
A Moment of Mortal Humiliation Delia Falconer , 2010 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Australian Author , December vol. 42 no. 3 2010; (p. 18-19)
'Your first novel marks a transition from writing for yourself to feeling the audience over your shoulder, says Delia Falconer, who weeded the vegies and played golf to maintain balance under the pressure.' (p. 18)
The Picks of the Crop Jo Case , Chris Flynn , Morag Fraser , David McCooey , Maria Tumarkin , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 6 August 2011; (p. 26-27)
The judges of the 2011 Age Book of the Year Awards comment on each of the fifteen shortlisted titles. Morag Fraser and Maria Tumarkin comment on the non-fiction titles, David McCooey on the poetry titles and Jo Case and Chris Flynn on the fiction titles.
Writing the City Sally Heath (interviewer), 2011 single work interview
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 70 no. 3 2011; (p. 179-189)
'The brief to 'write about the city you live in' has produced diverse books by five Australian writers. Another has just started to contemplate the process. The cities series was the brainchild of University of New South Wales Press, with Peter Timms' Hobart the first in the series to be published, in 2009. In 2010 Matthew Condon wrote Brisbane and Delia Falconer Sydney. Sophie Cunningham's Melbourne has just been published, and Adelaide by Kerryn Goldsworthy is due out in October. Paul Daley has just been commissioned to produce 'Canberra'. The series will continue around the country. The authors and I conducted an email conversation about the project, of which and edited version is presented here.' (p. 178)
Busy Week for Library Marc McEvoy , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 6 May 2012; (p. 19)
Last amended 14 Jan 2021 14:22:54
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