Book review

The Best Australian bush Stories

Here is a book which certainly live up to its name – and the blurb on the back cover. Editor Jim Hayes, himself an accomplished writer, has gathered together around seventy yarns and poems some going right back to the early Australian writers such as Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson through to contemporary writers including Jim Haynes himself.

These are stories from the remote outback, cattle stations, wheat farms and rural towns. Some are really short, only a couple of pages while others are into double figures. Haynes has gathered them into nine chapters each grouping a distinct set of subjects. The chapters have around nine stories or poems with the chapter titles giving a pointer into what to expect, although some of the headings are definitely firmly tongue in cheek. So there are: Delight of the bush, Bush justice, Dave in love, Theres a patron saint of drunks, To the city, Benefit of clergy, The night we watched wallabies and The lost souls hotel. 

Some of the stories work to an expected others end with an unexpected twist. There are stories to make the reader smile others may have the opposite effect. This is a book which can be picked up for a quick read with the stories being well grouped enabling it to easy choose one to fit the reader’s mood.

Of particular note are the classic old-time poems, some are short and pithy others rambling narrations of the tribulations of some accident prone bush character which can’t fail to raise a smile.

This is a deceptively substantial book, four hundred pages of quite small print.  Entertaining, thought provoking humorous, nostalgic, and above all highly readable, there is a lot of reading which I thoroughly enjoyed. Highly recommended.

Note. The Best of Australian Bush stories is one of the of books now available from the library thanks to the recently established library cooperative. This book coming from the Masterton library, I have now also enjoyed books from the Hutt and Kapiti libraries. With the combined catalogues now offering thousands of books it is possible to borrow pretty much any book you may like to read. 

Check the catalogue, or if you require assistance just ask one of the friendly librarians.

Mike Beckett