SOURC. BOOKCASING
Bookcasing editor.
Bill Liddelow, co-owner of Boffins Books and guru on all things literary.
Bill’s must-have books for the shelf.
With more than 30 years as one of Perth’s most favourite independent booksellers, Boffins has seen a few books. So we asked: out of them all, which are the ones that you would recommend as definite keepers and why?
“It’s hard to narrow the field, and there are many, many books that I love and value and heartily recommend. But each of the books in this little selection has a special place for me, and each of them has stood the test of time ”
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre (1963)
Growing up during the Cold War, spy thrillers were a dime a dozen. And I did read quite a few. But it’s not surprising that this is my favourite spy story. James Bond might be great for an escapist night at the movies. But le Carre operates at a higher level than Ian Fleming. There’s the excitement, the chase, of course – the narrative is superb. But it’s the complexity of the story and the characters, the understatement, the nuances that make it really stand out. It’s not just a caper, it’s an insight into how espionage corrodes people. For that reason, thriller or not, it’s a rewarding book to read again. And if you haven’t read it, do so now!
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia by Bill Gammage (2011)
I first came across Bill Gammage in the late 1970s when I read his myth busting The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War. The Biggest Estate on Earth was a revelation when it first came out. Very few of us were in any way aware of the complexity of Aboriginal land management before this book. We thought that early colonial paintings showing meadows and parks did not actually depict how the land appeared at the time; rather we thought that the colonial painters of the time styled their work to reflect the landscapes from their British homeland. Gammage looked past this, and through his researches he uncovered the extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. The land really did look like a park at the time of colonisation! And that was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion that we had ever realised. This is a seminal work, and a decade on is still a bestseller.
The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander (1996, this revised edition 2014)
To me, this is the one cookbook that I wouldn’t be without. I don’t use it every day, I still use and love other cookbooks, but this one is sacred. Why?
1. It’s Australian, written for us, capturing all the wonderful ingredients available to us to make food reflecting the diverse cultures that have influenced our eating habits and our home cooking.
2. It’s arranged by ingredient, making it easy to cook according to the produce available seasonally. I can find what to do with an old world fruit like quinces, or how to prepare and cook a rock lobster. I can easily find a recipe to cook chicken English style, Moroccan style, Vietnamese style or in a host of other styles from the world’s cuisines
3. It’s authoritative, meticulously researched, and written by a master of technique who shares her knowledge in a way that is easy to follow and enables us to produce great results.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (1946)
Viktor Frankl was a Viennese psychiatrist who spent the last two and a half years of World War Two in German concentration camps, and survived. He died in 1997 at the age of 92. This book was written to share his experiences of that awful time, and to explain how some people survived the awful ordeal that he shared, whilst most did not. It has become a classic of its kind, a book from which so many of us have drawn inspiration for over 70 years. I read it in the late 1970s when I was confused about my direction in life. It affected me in a very positive way, helping me to focus on what really mattered to me and to understand what motivates me and draw on that knowledge in a practical way. It’s a book I often recommend to people, and often have them coming back to tell me how they felt rewarded by reading it.
A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey (1981)
The very personal style of an autobiography, the choice of what the writer shares with us of their lives, and of what they leave out, means they often tell us their story as they’d like us to see it. That’s a good thing too, for we find out what’s important to them and what affected them most in their lives. Albert Facey’s autobiography spans the period from the early 1890s when he came as a child to the Kalgoorlie Goldfields through to the mid-twentieth century. Drover, railway worker, soldier at Gallipoli, soldier settler (forced off the land during the Great Depression) and then tramway worker, Facey lived a full but hard life and tells his story in a frank and matter-of-fact way. If you want to feel what it was like to live as an average Joe in the first half of the twentieth century, then I don’t think you can do better than read this book. The good old days won’t look so good, but you’ll be both moved and informed, and you’ll perhaps be grateful for what you have today. I treasure this book.
High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove (1983)
Andrew Grove was chairman and CEO of Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer, during the 1980s and 1990s. This book is a wonderful guide to organizing work in any organization. Grove’s book is a practical guide to the everyday structure and running of a business, small or large. Management is replete with fashionable ideas and theories. This is no “flavour of the month” book. It’s a powerful management resource that is as relevant today as it was when it was first published. I was running a small business at the time, and I devoured it and used it to change how I manage. Nearly forty years on, I still subscribe to the principles and practices Grove laid out. It’s a gem.