As anyone that knows me knows, I am mad about my books.
And when I say mad; I mean extremely passionate, interrupt me in the middle of a good book and suffer the consequences mad!
So when I found out that ABC [Australia] was showing a show entitled The Books That Made Us I was always going to watch this documentary series.
Divided into three episodes, the host Claudia Karvan takes us on a ride that tries to encapsulates novels that made us (duh!)- from novels that captures the nation, it’s also a ride into the past, present and the future and how the written word shapes a national identity more than any other medium possibly could.
The series is not only intriguing but it’s also thought provoking; as while it presents the novels it also gives context in amongst interviews with the author (if they’re alive), as well as other people such as other authors. The contextualising is very useful; it doesn’t dumb things down and it provides insights that you may not think of. For example, Puberty Blues has also been seen as a insightful book (well that’s the impression I’ve gotten anyway!), but in reality it’s nothing more then proof of how sexist and misogynistic the Australian culture was in the 60s/70s/80s.
For me, while there was mention of books I already knew about, it did highlight a lot more that I didn’t so my TBR list has grown enormously- which is good because reading is such an intimate experience, but the rewards are sooo worth it.
After all, reading can help shape our world view, but also help us to grow as people and to empathise and experience different things we may not normally get to expereince. After all, a reader is a person that Can escape to a new world, anytime they want and return with a new sense of the world around them