Authors Electric

 My Brilliant Career Revisited   The recent screening on Netflix in six episodes of My Brilliant Career by Miles Frankllin caused me to look out the two books of hers that I had purchased in second hand bookshops. The first, the title book itself, I found in a shop in Sherborne Dorset, which I have been frequenting for many years. It is run by Claire who stations herself in a downstairs room, her person eclipsed by a mountain of books waiting to be catalogued or bought.  I discovered the book, attracted by its superbly designed Virago cover, in the upstairs paperback room. It was asking to be read and so after browsing further I took it down from the shelves, went back down the stairs, paid the relatively small amount written in pencil on the title page and began.    The story, which was based on the author’s life, is that of a young girl growing up in the Australian outback at the end of the 19 th  Century. It romps along, telling how Franklin’s alter...