AUSTRALIANA PHOTOGRAPHY West Australiana

From an Indigenous food source to a hedonistic playground, the beach has long been a national obsession. Robert Drewe’s lyrical examination of Australian beach culture, in this new National Library of Australia publication, combines imagery from some of Australia’s most celebrated photographers with his stories – a favourite boat, a capsicum-strewn beach, a summer holiday and an unwelcome great white. Drewe looks at the sunny, salty sexiness of the beach that first enticed the crusading Mr William Gocher into the ocean at Manly in 1903, defying authorities in his neck-to-knee bathing costume. We’ve come a long way from sunbathing in stockings and pantaloons to the unabashed display of sun-kissed bodies of all shapes and sizes at any beach in the country today. But the beach also has a dark side as a place of tragedy, violence and danger, a place where sharks attack prone surfers and prime ministers disappear. In The Beach, Drewe turns his attention to the favourite coastal theme, but in a new way: a mix of history, reminiscence and lyrical description, complemented by photographs from the National Library of Australia’s collection.

• iii, 236 pages : illustrations (chiefly colour), 1 colour map ; 29 cm (no dustjacket) #030324
• Beaches — Australia — Pictorial works
• Beaches — Recreational use — Australia — Pictorial works
• Beaches — Australia — Anecdotes
• Settlement and contacts – Colonisation – 1788-1850
• Noongar / Nyungar / Nyungah people (W41) (WA SI50)
• Settlement and contacts – Explorers – European
• Australia — Social life and customs — Pictorial works
• Rottnest Island / Wadjemup (SW WA SH50-14)
• Australian