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Sold by the Millions: Australia’s Bestsellers
Editor: Toni Johnson-Woods and Amit Sarwal
Date Of Publication: Mar 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3584-8
Isbn: 1-4438-3584-6
Australian genre fiction writers have successfully exploited the Australian landscape and peoples and as a result their books are today “sold by the millions” across boundaries. They have created stories that are imaginative, visionary, and diverse. They appeal to local and international readerships and, most importantly, are thoroughly entertaining, thus making them a strong presence in the popular fiction bazaar.

Sold by the Millions: Australia’s Bestsellers is the first collection to concentrate on Australia’s best-selling material that forms the armchair reading of many Australians. Leading experts of popular fiction provide introspective pieces on Romance, Horror, Crime, Science Fiction, Western, Comics, Travel, Sports and Children’s writing so that a wholesome picture emerges of the wide range of reading and research options available for scholars.

Dr Toni Johnson-Woods is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia. She has published books on pulp fiction: Pulp – A Collectors Book of Australian Pulp Fiction Covers (2004), and on television: Big Bother – Why did that Reality-TV Show become such a Phenomenon (2002) and Blame Canada!: South Park and Popular Culture (2007).

Dr Amit Sarwal is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, India. He has edited a number of books in the field of Australian studies, the most prominent being Reading Down Under: Australian Literary Studies Reader (2009), Creative Nation: Australian Cinema and Cultural Studies Reader (2009) and Australian Made: A Multicultural Reader (2010).

“Sold by the Millions is a timely and significant contribution to Australian book history and cultural studies. Diverse as well as entertaining, these essays on popular genre publishing entice the reader into the underworld cornucopia that is Australian pulp fiction.”

– Dr Craig Munro, Co-editor of Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia 1946–2005

“This is the story of those Australians who, quite literally, sold out. True to the objects of their study, the authors thrill with tales of staggering sales achieved by Australian writers you’ve never heard of and delight with impossible literary thirsts, such as Scandinavia’s for Australian cowboy stories. And in more strictly scholarly terms this volume represents a timely re-evaluation of the place of popular fiction both in the canon and academia.”

– Dr Alistair Rolls, University of Newcastle

“Australian popular fiction has a broad impact on Australian and international readerships, but has thus far been undertheorized in the academy. This much-needed collection takes Australian popular fiction as its focus, covering a range of topics and genres. A more complete picture of Australian literature is emerging, and it is a very exciting picture indeed.”

– Dr Kim Wilkins, University of Queensland

Price Uk Gbp: 39.99
Price Us Usd: 59.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

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