Perth Writers Festival - a (rather long) snapshot

This post is a work in progress.

Let me start by saying that I was very impressed by the Perth Writers Festival. When I decided to go, I wasn't quite sure what to expect - texts and discussions as sleep-inducing and difficult to get through as that which I was subjected to (for the most part) in English and English lit at school. Or people as entertaining as Terry Pratchett and conversations as interesting and educational as the book I'm constantly raving about: Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I'm pleased to annouce it was most definitely the latter. Writers, poets and illustrators seem to be almost universally funny and entertaining in person as well as brilliantly talented on the page or when performing. sigh... Jealous, me? no, of course not... ok maybe just a little. But they were all so likable as well that you couldn't possibly resent them for it.

The other great thing about the Perth Writers Festival was that so many of the sessions were free which is very important to a student like me. I paid $10 to go to "Spotlight on Tim Harford", and that was it for the whole weekend. I did have to resist, with some difficulty, the temptation to buy books. Lots of books. Every session I went to I came out with another book (or two, or three...) added my list of books to read. But libraries are wonderful things and I am not allowing myself to start my own one just yet. I'd have nowhere to put it for one thing.

It opened my eyes to so many new things. Poetry slam. Ghost writing. Gastro-porn. The economics of speed dating and rational crime. Going to bed with a poem. And so much more...

I want to put down a bit more including memorable quotes and a list of the sessions I went to and what was great about each of them, but I have to go in a few minutes. So I'm just going to list all the books I now have to read as a result of going to the Perth Writers Festival. (some of them aren't books, and some you don't exactly read, but anyway...)

In no particular order:
Chasing Bohemia: A year of living recklessly in Rio de Janeiro (Carmen Michael)
*www.chocolateandzucchini.com (Clotilde Dusoulier)*
*The Undercover Economist (Tim Harford)*
The Logic of Life (ditto)
Touquoise (Greg and Lucy Malouf)
The Science of Happiness (Stephan Klein)
The Secret Pulse of Time (ditto)
*Everything Shaun Tan has illustrated.*
To Die For (Stephen Downs)
Paris on a Plate (ditto)
UFO - Unavoidable Family Outings (Cartoon Dave)
Does My Head Look Big in This? (Randa Abdel-Fattah)
Ten Things I Hate About Me (ditto)
*Miles Merrill's dvds and cds*
*And anything Vivienne Glance has done*

I'm sure there was more, but I can't think of anything else at the moment.