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The Reading Room (2pm in the Library for a start @ 10.30am – 12noon)

This volunteer run reading and discussion group meets monthly. It is anticipated that members will read the selected book prior to attendance.
If you would like to be a part of this group (free to BMI members) please complete the Expression of Interest. We welcome your feedback through this form as we progress this great new initiative. 
 
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Books That Saved My Life | Michael McGirr

More about the Author.

JUNE SESSION

Here are forty texts to read at some stage in your life- forty texts that can enrich you in all manner of ways. Some are recent, like Harry Potter; some ancient, like Homer and Lao Tzu. There are memoirs (Nelson Mandela), poetry (Les Murray) and many of the world’s great novels, from George Eliot’s Middlemarch to Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Our guide, in entertaining short essays about personal encounters with each of these works, is Michael McGirr- schoolteacher and former priest, reviewer of hundreds of novels and lifelong lover of literature.

His humour and insight shine through in stories that connect the texts he has selected with each other, and connect us to them. Never prescriptive, and often very funny, this book is an invitation to reflect on-and share with others-the extraordinary gift of reading. ‘It is a gift that is taking me a lifetime to unwrap,? McGirr writes. ‘The excitement has never worn off.?

About the Author

Michael McGirr is the bestselling author of Snooze- The Lost Art of Sleep, Things You Get for Free and Bypass. He has reviewed almost one thousand books for various newspapers; his short fiction has appeared in Australian and overseas publications; and he has been a publisher of Eureka Street and fiction editor at Meanjin. 

Review a title

Why not review a book for the benefit of our members. We will publish these reviews in our social media and website from time to time.

This event is a BMI Community Art Project – Ballarat’s Oldest Cultural Institution

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Newsletter – January 2026

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Lost and Found Liz Byrski Rose Walters has never taken a leap of faith quite like this one.She is flying home to England for the first time in decades to search for her first love. But what she finds there is far from what she expected.When Rose turns up at her door, Dora Stutchbury is not sure she’s willing to take over the coals of the past – especially those she has taken care to let lie for so long.

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