To leave out Richard Flanagan is a sin! Peter Carey has had a long-winded career and Billy Bryson is a curmudgeon. If you want to read of Australia's past weaved into a fabulous tale of historical fiction then pick up a copy of Gould's Book of Fish and get stranded on Sara's Island.

In this discussion of Australian literature I did not want to see Arthur Upfield's treasured collection of mysteries overlooked. For sheer reading pleasure and total imersion in the geographical and cultural mystic of Australia Upfield is hard to beat.

"A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute is one of my favorite books. Admittedly, the first have of the book doesn't take place in Australia, but the part that does is all about the outback...and making it habitable.

I like the Go-Betweens as well Reed, but this is (purportedly)a Literary series! Not that I'm all that hidebound about it. If Ms. Pearce had wanted to plug the Go-Betweens, then "Go ahead!" say I. And, yes, your insights on why the Aussies don't like White are spot on. He casts a very cold eye on the Philistinism of Aussie culture. But this does not change the fact that as the country's only Nobel Laureate he should have at least been mentioned!

with some of my favorites, like Murray Bail and David Malouf and Thomas Kenneally. I would add Helen Garner and Rodney Hall. There are some fantastic poets. Chris Waldrop (coincidentally a friend of mine) mentions Les Murray. I won't give a long list, but I'll add A.D. Hope, J.R. Rowland and Judith Wright.

And I am glad someone went off track and mentioned the Go-Betweens. I know it's easy to say, since they were relatively unlistened-to here in the U.S., but I think they were the best pop band in the world between whenever they started and now. Grant McLennan's recent death was such a blow!

As to the letter writers who think the article was crap for not mentioning some favorite author or other, mainly Patrick White, I've always thought the main purpose of this series was to experience the country through the literature, not just, or primarily, to experience the literature as an end in itself. The selection is going to be partly subjective, but I can think of some objective reasons for not including Patrick White. White is morally austere and scarily intelligent and he rarely shows affection for his characters. He doesn't exactly satirize them, but it's often hard to find them sympathetic. If I weren't already intrigued by Australia and didn't have other authors (and movies) to give me a more rounded (by which I may mean sentimental) view, I don't know what I would think about the place after reading White. White is easy to hate and is apparently not popular in Australia, maybe because these self-critical people don't think their criticisms ought to be shared with the world. Personally, when I read White I am constantly on edge and, I guess, sort of afraid of being judged by him. On the other hand, I get the same feeling reading George Eliot, and I would hate to deny myself the incredible intellectual and creative pleasure that comes with reading either author. I just don't think I would ever be handing someone one of White's novels and saying this is what Australia is about.

The point I have been trying to make here (with surprisingly limited success I must say, given its obviousness) is that a series that its editors have (presumptuously?) entitled a "Literary Guide to the World" (note that capital "L") is harbouring a Gargantuan (I wonder now if Salon's editors will even get THIS literary allusion.) mistake in NOT SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT Patrick White-a capital "W" writer and the country's only Nobel Laureate. Perhaps-Laura Miller, are you there?-the solution lies in renaming it as something like, Books to Pick Up on Layovers To These Way Cool Places--I'm not against including middlebrow writers. I'm simply against excluding highbrow ones from a soi-disant capital "L" literary guide. It detracts from the credibility of the entire series (which I have enjoyed until this piece), it casts in doubt what exactly Salon is all about here and, really, it makes Ms Pearse and whoever edited (or didn't edit) this article come across as almost incredibly illiterate and unknowledgable about the subject upon which they are expatiating.

What's with the obsession with Patrick White? Must every article ever written about Australian writing pay homage to his work? There are, in fact, other writers in Australia, too, as the article shows!

Maybe Patrick White fans aren't very close readers -- if they were, they might have noticed the whole point of this series of guides isn't some kind of summary judgement of a country's literary history, but rather "to recommend the best books -- fiction, history, memoir or otherwise -- to take with you on your travels."

To this end, I second the recommendation below for "Oscar and Lucinda," and add to the list the books of crime writer Arthur Upfield -- particularly "Death of a Lake." He's certainly not a capital-W Writer in the league of White, but his stories manage to wonderfully convey the sense of natural Australia, plus they're page-turners, perfect for that long flight across the Pacific.

Leaving Patrick White out--and including a marginally funny, simpering (good word, Burt) xenophobe like "Anglo-American" Bill Bryson instead--is mind-numbingly dumb.

I hope that Salon is NOT going to collect all of these literary travelogues into a book and sell it to an unsuspecting public, but this has the smell of such a project.

The experiment mentioned by the anti-Patrick White letter-writer (send his writing to publishers and watch 'em reject it) was attempted more than twenty years ago with Jerzy Kosinski's Steps here in the US. Editors' rejection of that seminal novel was taken for what it was--evidence of piss poor editing skills--and not as a slap at the novelist himself. Cf. the White case.

It wasn't Australia's "mistake" that gave Patrick White the Nobel, that blame lies with a certain Swedish committee. As far as the "hoax" mentioned: I imagine the same exact thing would happen here if you copied some pages from Faulkner down and sent them in to any of the publishers of the books on the NYT bestseller list. See here, if you're a self-respecting editor or writer covering a country's literary heritage, leaving out that country's only Nobel Laureate is a catastrophe of a mistake. If you're just doing a cutesy travelogue in installments with a few literary tidbits thrown in, then call it what it is. Otherwise, the article should be pulled.

PS-Rotten job Ms. Pearse