More than a reader and less than a critic: literary authority and women`s book-discussion groups

The phenomenon of women reading books collaboratively is largely invisible, and certainly under-researched. This study, based on extensive circulation figures and on a small sample of members of four Council of Adult Education reading groups in metropolitan Melbourne, argues that such groups have a reading repertoire which is seriously middlebrow, far removed from the “wish-fulfillment” or “lazy reader” stereotypes purveyed by some who would scorn such groups. The study finds that such groups are sensitively served by the institution which hosts them. While such groups do not question the aesthetic assumptions that underlie their practice, they are combative with some manifestations of the literary establishment. Their powerful preferences for contemporary Australian women's fiction and their participation in global debates via identity politics suggests they warrant closer examination, both within Australian culture, and to find out if such groups have counterparts in other cultures.

Starring in the intimate space: picture book narratives and performance semiotics

This article examines the impact of narratological pragmatics as applicable to both theatre and children picture book performances. The premise is interdisciplinary in that it negotiates points of intersection between performance semiotics and theoretical approaches to Children's Literature. Employing a comparative case study of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days and John Burningham's picture book Aldo, the research assesses the narratological outcomes of intersecting semiotic codes in relation to these specific texts.

Charges over book debts in the United Kingdom and Australia : the way forward

Is it possible to create a fixed charge over book debts? This question was recently decided by the House of Lords in National Westminster Bank plc v. Spectrum Plus Limited & Ors [2005] UKHL 41 where the full House was against the idea of a fixed charge on book debts and insisted that only a
floating charge had been created. The law in this area is still vague and uncertain in Australia. This article argues that the financiers and the companies should be given the freedom to decide how they wish to structure their charge documents. The article sets out to argue that it is possible to create a sustained workable fixed charge or even a multiple combination of fixed and floating charge over book debts and argues that this would be the only way for both the financiers and the companies to do business together, in respect to the use of book debts as security for a loan. The author explains how this could be possible and how the proposed model would not deny the statutory priority rights of the preferential creditors.