Tony Birch

Well, we only had one book in our childhood home, so it's easy to talk about and easy to remember.

So my parents both worked in factories and we grew up reading comics.

So comics don't make it into the 100 list, I don't think.

But my mother had a copy of a book called A Bunch of Rack Bags by a writer using the pseudonym of William Dick, which is odd that you didn't have to choose that name while you would.

But... LAUGHTER

And that was an interesting book because although its literary merits would be questionable, my parents loved the book because it was a book set in Melbourne's working class footscray in the western suburbs.

It was a book set in the 1950s and it was basically about bodgy and widgy culture coming into that rock and roll era.

So it's just before Bill Haley and the Comets movie Rock Around the Clock Hits Australia.

And my parents loved the book because they recognised themselves in it because they were those sort of teenagers in the early 50s.

And so my mother passed the book on to me and I read a lot as a kid.

I was a really avid reader.

So I remember reading the book at quite a young age and like my parents being struck about, this is a book about Melbourne.

So there are scenes in the book where the protagonist gets a job in Myer in a department store and I knew the city.

So it was the first time and

probably the only time for a long time that I read a book which was about my city.

And I suppose in similar reference to thinking about the book in a contemporary sense, there are no four-year-old girls who priests fall in love with.

But today, if you read it, I think there are elements of racism in the book that are problematic towards new arrivals, particularly Italian immigrants.

I think the book is in some ways homophobic in the way it portrays a window dresser in Maya.

But...

Accepting that, I still think it's a really important book where people who are not recognised as book readers or people who are not part of a literary culture recognise themselves in work that they love.