Tag Archives: Melbourne Rare Book Week

MRBW – setting up a display

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The eighth Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) and the 47th Australian Antiquarian Book Fair, will be held from 5 to 14 July. Preparations have been going on since the end of last years event (and before that). My involvement began in January, creating the posters for the Melbourne Library Service events as the marketing deadline was in March. The program was launched on May. View all the free events and see booking details here. This week Chris, Linda & I set up a display at Library at the Dock.

In a recent blog i posted the drawings I had created for the Melbourne Library posters or you can see them on the Melbourne Library Service website

Melbourne Library Service theme is Crime Fiction.

One display cabinet holds Vintage Crime fiction novels

  • from Footscray Mechanics Institute Library
  • some classic titles and covers
  • Linda, myself and Keith. Very pleased after setting up the display

The front display window has a “crime scene body outline” and photocopies of some of the covers of those Vintage Crime fiction books. It also has my posters for the different Melbourne Library Service events in Melbourne Rare Book Week.

  • marking up “crime scene” body outline in white tape in the front window
  • photocopied Vintage Crime Fiction book covers scattered around ‘the body’

  • photocopied Vintage Crime Fiction book covers scattered around ‘the body’

  • photocopied Vintage Crime Fiction book covers scattered around ‘the body’

There are two display cabinets featuring books discussed in two MRBW events

  • The knife is feminine : discovering Charlotte Joy. A forgotten Australian crime writer
  • Linda and Chris contemplating the display

There are a few ‘teaser’ interviews on You Tube introducing some of the events.

Chris Browne. Introduction to MRBW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFPuk6N67Yg

Portrait of Molly Dean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzSU7V-VNDg

If you are in Melbourne, make sure you visit this display – on now. And if you see me sketching at any of the MRBW events July 5-14, come and say hello.

Melbourne Rare Book Week – launch

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The program for the annual Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) was launched on Monday night. MRBW is held from 5–14 JULY 2019 . Have look at the wide variety of talks on offer,

2019 sees the eighth Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) and the 47th Australian Antiquarian Book Fair, presented by the Australian Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) and Rare Books Melbourne (RBM). 

The program will be presented by both regular and new MRBW partners. It will include a wide variety of interesting topics on book-related themes, and entry to all events is free of charge. There will be something for all interests and taste. We welcome bibliophiles, established collectors and those new to book collecting.

I am honoured to once again be the official sketcher on location at MRBW events.

I have also been working with Melbourne Library Services to draw the posters for their events in the week. This year the focus is crime. There are four events and a display. Below are my drawings that feature in the program and on posters.

Event 1 An exploration of the 1880s Melbourne of Fergus Hume.

Hosted by Dr Lucy Sussex, an expert on Australian detective fiction, explore the sites of Melbourne featured in the books of Fergus Hume, the author of Mystery of a Hansom Cab. Hear extracts from the works of Hume along the way.

Event 2 Views from outsiders: cooking, culture and European crime fiction

In some crime fiction, the setting and the cultural details are as important as the crime itself. Join Chris Browne, an avid fan and collector of this genre of popular crime fiction, for a comparison of four European cultures as he explores the worlds of Bruno, Brunetti, Gunter and Zen.

Event 3: The Knife is Feminine: discovering Charlotte Jay

Join our panel discussion with Sisters in Crime Australia’s Carmel Shute and Katherine Kovacic, with Chris Browne. Readings by Abbe Holmes. Presented by City of Melbourne Libraries and Sisters in Crime.
The first winner of the Edgar Allan Poe award was an Australian woman, forBeat Not The Bones a mystery book set in Papua New Guinea .
But who in 2019 has heard of Charlotte Jay in this her centenary year? Discover an Australian woman who wrote crime and mystery books set in locations around the world. Celebrate the life and works of Charlotte Jay. Find out why The Knife is Feminine.

Event 4: A Portrait of Molly Dean: fiction from true crime

Presented by City of Melbourne Libraries and Sisters in Crime, Katerine Kovacic in conversation with Chris Browne.
Crime fiction is often based on true crime. The murder of Molly Dean in November 1930 in Melbourne has prompted four books and a play.
​Join Katherine Kovacic, author of The Portrait of Molly Dean, for a discussion of the crime and the subsequent fiction of the life and death of an outsider on the fringes of Melbourne’s Bohemian elite.

Display; Who dunnit? Who wrote it?’: an exhibition of crime fiction books

Featuring books from our presentations on European crime literature and the Australian author Charlotte Jay and a range of crime books available from the Footscray Mechanics Institute Library.
Curated by: Chris Browne and Linda Longley . view at Library at the Dock
Saturday 8 June to Sunday 14 July

to see further details for times dates and bookings see the program for Melbourne Rare Book Week (MRBW) .