The Godfather: Peter Corris on finishing a book
Why am I wandering round my workroom putting books back on shelves and filing documents? Why I am rearranging books for God’s sake, and putting pens back in jars and screwing up scrap paper? Why am I drifting away to consult the Foxtel mag to see if there are movies I...The Godfather: Peter Corris on the old days of journalism
I was the literary editor of the National Times for almost three years, from 1979 to 1981. I was given the job by Anne Summers who had held it for some time and for whom I’d written a few book reviews. She was a top-flight journalist who had published her feminist...The Godfather: Peter Corris on authors, publicity and festivals
Popular Australian writers of the 30s, 40s and 50s rarely appeared in public, were heard on radio or seen in the early days of television. Writers like Arthur Upfield, Nevil Shute and Frank Clune did not give readings or talks. One of the most popular writers in the...The Godfather: Peter Corris on the bookshops of Newtown
I doubt there is any precinct in Sydney better supplied with new and second-hand bookshops than Newtown. There are hundreds of thousands of second-hand books at Gould’s bookshop in King Street. Going south, Berkelouw’s Books is just 50 metres off the main drag in...The Godfather: Peter Corris on books he’s glad to have read
Recently I was asked to name five books that everyone should read. That old chestnut. I declined; people have such different tastes and read in such different ways that the idea makes no sense. I offered instead ‘five books I’m glad to have read’. This was accepted. I...The Godfather: Peter Corris on historical fiction
Historical novels have always been my favourite kind of recreational reading. From Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel to Georgette Heyer’s Regency bucks to sterner stuff like Henry Treece’s bloody tales of Saxon and Roman Britain, I escaped from a dreary...The Godfather: Peter Corris on popular vs literary fiction
Some writers of popular and big-selling fiction claim that they would be able to write literary novels. I heard Lee Child and Matthew Reilly state this on Jennifer Byrne’s television program, and in a recent article on Bryce Courtenay in the Sydney Morning...The Godfather: Peter Corris on writing endorsements
From time to time writers are asked to give endorsements for forthcoming books. These are called straplines in the trade. You know the sort of thing: ‘This out-swashes and out-buckles Bernard Cornwall’. Often the publishers make the request on behalf of a debut...The Godfather: Peter Corris on Publishing Non-fiction
Mad Dog: William Cyril Moxley and the Moorebank Killings is the first non-fiction book (not counting a few ‘as told to’ autobiographies and some co-edited anthologies) since my history of prize fighting in Australia, Lords of the Ring, in 1980. All fiction in between....The Godfather: Peter Corris on Lee Child
photo by Lorrie Graham Patrick Gallagher, the publisher at Allen & Unwin Australia, asked me some time ago if I’d ever thought of writing a novel à la Lee Child. I had to admit I hadn’t read Lee Child. I checked with Jean, who consumes eight novels a week,...The Godfather: Peter Corris on the Kindle
photo by Lorrie Graham My wife gave me a Kindle for my birthday. I was sceptical but willing. At first I thought to download (that is, have her download – my IT skills are few), some Conrad, Hardy and Trollope, not (shudder) Henry James. These classics are...
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