The Meaning of Recognition

The Meaning of Recognition
My sixth collection of essays, The Meaning of Recognition came out from Picador in hardback in 2005, and in paperback in late 2006. The opening title essay began its life as a lecture given in response to my being awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature in 2003, and the long closing essay "Save Us from Celebrity" was first delivered as a lecture to the Australian Commercial Radio Conference in 2004. Sandwiched in between, the numerical majority of pieces in the book were, however, commissioned as magazine and newspaper articles in the normal way, and even today I continue to accept such work with a view to putting it all together in book form when the time is ripe.