Review of Teaching Australian and New Zealand Literature, edited by Nicholas Birns, Nicole Moore and Sarah Shieff

This collection is, at its best, like a conversation with colleagues over a shared meal after a stimulating conference, something all-too-often dreamed about and longed for but far too rarely experienced. There are shared interests and enthusiasms to discuss; ideas are circulating; suggestions and counter-claims mingle in an unfussy and informal way. The strutters and big-noting boofheads have headed elsewhere, off to the next keynote address, leaving behind more modest, self-effacing, but serious company. These essays are shop-talk of the best kind: twenty-seven scholars, all able to draw on wide reading and their own research, offer insights from their own classroom experiences and outlines for how the reader might bring Australian and New Zealand literary material to life in stand-alone courses or as part of more general literary studies programmes.