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A Sand Archive

Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2019
By Gregory Day
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
A Sand Archive follows a young writer delving into the history of Australia's Great Ocean Road through a modest manual by FB Herschell, an engineer, historian, and philosopher. The book reveals not just the road's story but the poetically rendered life of Herschell himself, shaped by his experiences including the transformative Paris protests of May 1968. This novel is a profound meditation on landscape, history, and personal revolution.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$2499
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers drawn to literary fiction with rich character studies, Australian history, and evocative prose exploring the intersection of engineering, philosophy, and natural landscapes.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

'A BRAVURA WORK' MICHELLE DE KRETSER - 'BEAUTIFUL. ONE OF THE GREAT CHARACTERS OF AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE' CARRIE TIFFANY. A sweeping and humane novel of Sebaldian scope and power - the story of a man's life, the obsession which consumed him, all reconstructed from the prodigious archive he left behind...

'A BRAVURA WORK' MICHELLE DE KRETSER - 'BEAUTIFUL. ONE OF THE GREAT CHARACTERS OF AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE' CARRIE TIFFANY. A sweeping and humane novel of Sebaldian scope and power - the story of a man's life, the obsession which consumed him, all reconstructed from the prodigious archive he left behind...

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Winner of the Patrick White Literary Award

Long before I ever met him I knew his name from the leaky desiccated type of a grey-brown slim volume, cheaply printed but essential to my research...

Seeking stories of Australia's Great Ocean Road, a young writer stumbles across a manual from a minor player in the road's history, FB Herschell. It is a volume unremarkable in every way, save for the surprising portrait of its author that can be read between its lines: a vision of a man who writes with uncanny poetry about sand.

And as he continues to mine the archive of FB Herschellโ€”engineer, historian, philosopherโ€”it is not the subject, but the man who begins to fascinate. A man whose private revolution among the streets of Paris in May 1968 begins to change the way he views life, love, and the coastal landscape into which he was born...

Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2019

Praise for A Sand Archive

"So beautiful, so subtle...a story told with rare tenderness and restraint. FB Herschell is one of the great characters of Australian literature." โ€” Carrie Tiffany

"A bravura work" โ€” Michelle de Kretser

"Day has written a ripper of a novel here" โ€” Readings

"Effortlessly combines the erudition of two rarely yoked disciplines: engineering and literature [and] harnesses technical language to convincingly lyrical ends." โ€” Sydney Morning Herald

"The novel is an elegiac meditation on worlds changed by natural processes and human forces. Ultimately, through Herschell's character, it provides a model for the kind of rigorous and poetic attentiveness that might best honour the profundities of our landscapes and the lives we experience alongside them." โ€” The Saturday Paper

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781760552145

Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 24 April 2018

Country: Australia

Imprint: Picador Australia

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 29.0mm

Width: 160.0mm

Height: 240.0mm

Weight: 405g

Pages: 320

Collections

Fiction General Fiction Gregory Day Literary Fiction

About the Author

Gregory Day is a winner of the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize and the Manly Artist Book Award. He lives in south-west Victoria, Australia.

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