My goodness, but it took some hunting about online to find this shortlist!
I was alerted to Anna Goldsworthy’s Piano Lessons (see my review) making the shortlist because her publisher tweeted about it. I was very pleased about this because by coincidence I had just heard Anna speak at the Lyceum Club in Melbourne and she is such a warm and engaging person, it is a delight to take pleasure in her success.
But it took some determined foraging to find the other titles. Even when I found the NSW Library Website it took a bit of mucking about. However once I found the page with the list of titles it was easy, and further searching led to the blogs of the literati which cover the announcement well. But clearly they forgot to tag their blog posts with 2011 National Biography Awards!
Anyway, here’s the full list:
- Alan ‘the Red Fox’ Reid: Pressman Par Excellence (University of New South Wales Press), by Ross Fitzgerald (NSW) and Stephen Holt (ACT)
- Grand Obsessions: The Life and Work of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin Penguin Group Australia), by Alasdair McGregor (NSW) See my review.
- Macquarie: From Colony to Country (Random House Australia), by Harry Dillon (NSW) and Peter Butler (VIC)
- My Father’s Daughter: Memories of an Australian Childhood (Melbourne University Press), by Sheila Fitzpatrick (VIC)
- Piano Lessons (Black Inc), by Anna Goldsworthy (VIC). See my review.
- Playing with Fire: The Controversial Career of Hans J. Eysenck (Oxford University Press), by Roderick Buchanan (VIC)
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
I congratulate you on your perseverance. (I’ve come here from the Literary Saloon blog, where M.A. Orthofer is scolding those prizes that don’t give you the titles of the competing books, although it’s longlists he’s talking about, not shortlists. The Wales Book of the Year prize is “worth prominent mention and high praise for their making publicly available (as every literary prize should !) the list of eligible books, i.e. all the titles that were considered.”)
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By: DKS on April 15, 2011
at 1:22 am
Hi Deane, you know what’s really sad? No one, it seems, has any record of the shortlisted titles from the early days of the Miles Franklin…
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By: Lisa Hill on April 15, 2011
at 2:51 pm
Well, that certainly looks an interesting list. How many of them will you read?
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By: Tom C on April 15, 2011
at 5:28 pm
Hi Tom – I don’t read as much NF as I should (only 9 so far this year) and my NF TBR shelf is a bit neglected, but I’ll probably add the Macquarie one and the Burley-Griffin one to it because I’m interested in history.
But first, I’m going to tackle a few from the TBR…
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By: Lisa Hill on April 15, 2011
at 5:51 pm
[…] ANZ LitLovers LitBlog – For lovers of Australian and New Zealand literary fiction by Lisa Hill – “2011 National Biography Award shortlist“ […]
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By: Spotlight on the Wordpress Book Bloggers! « Randomize ME on April 17, 2011
at 1:03 pm