Sydney

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. Part memoir, part guide to Sydney, Australia, this melancholic, moving, and funny exploration intertwines novelist Delia Falconer's own stories with the city's historical and literary past, showing how the city has evolved from the 1970s through today. From mad clergymen and amateur astronomers to Indigenous weather experts and local artists, this personal and unique record depicts the inhabitants of a beautiful, violent, and deeply spiritual city. Part memoir, part guide to Sydney, Australia, this melancholic, moving, and funny exploration intertwines novelist Delia Falconer's own stories with the city's historical and literary past, showing how the city has evolved from the 1970s through today. From mad clergymen and amateur astronomers to Indigenous weather experts and local artists, this personal and unique record depicts the inhabitants of a beautiful, violent, and deeply spiritual city. "Sydney may look golden, but this is the sunniness of Mozart, whose bright notes, especially at their most joyous, seem to cast themselves out across a great abyss." Sydney has always been the sexiest and most gaudy of our cities