From the Library budget I have purchased two new books. The catalogue is available on the Angair website—write down the Dewey number of the book listed there and call me anytime to open up the Library for you, if needed.
Flight Lines: Across the globe on a journey with the astonishing ultra-marathon birds
by Andrew Darby, published by Allen & Unwin 2020, 598.3 DAR
This astonishing story of migratory shore birds was well-publicised earlier this year and the scientific story took on a personal note when the author was diagnosed with cancer. Tim Flannery described it as ‘the greatest story ever recorded in the study of migration’. Meticulously researched and documented (there are 37 pages of references and notes and an exhaustive index) it is also very readable and describes the wonder of the Grey Plovers and their huge and dangerous journeys. It’s a beautiful book to read in lockdown.
Truganini: Journey through the Apocalypse
by Cassandra Pybus, published in 2020 by Allen & Unwin, 994 PYB
I have so far only read the first part and skimmed the rest of the book but I love a book that starts with maps! It also contains beautiful colour plates of contemporary people and places. The author’s family was intricately bound to the story of Truganini, as settlers on the land of Truganini’s people on Bruny Island. The life of Truganini from her childhood, when most of the Tasmanian tribes were virtually wiped out, to her journeying around Tasmania with George Augustus Robinson who was gathering the survivors to send them to exile on Flinders Island, the book reveals a strong, clever and courageous person behind the incorrect ‘last surviving Tasmanian aboriginal woman’ that we have heard of.
Mandy Mitchell-Taverner