Join us as we travel around the globe, reading a different book each month with the Museum Friends' Time Traveller's Book Club, on the last Tuesday of each month. Free and exclusive to Museum Friends. We’re meeting on Zoom during coronavirus.
Online bookings essential. A link and instructions on joining the meeting will be emailed to you at least one hour before Book Club starts.
Tuesday 29 September, 11am–12pm
This gripping boy’s-own history of the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara is by Martin Windrow, Orion Publishing, 2010. This is one of the few accessible histories of the western and central Sahara, in this case, one framed around France’s military activity in this desert.
Tuesday 27 October, 11am–12pm
Leading historian Geoffrey Blainey takes readers on a vivid journey through history, challenging accepted views and looking at the intersection of myth, science and exploration. This book looks at the hardships and adventures of Cook's first Pacific voyage, with a keen eye for context and detail.
Tuesday 24 November, 11am–12pm
An engaging and beautifully written popular history of the settlement of the islands of Polynesia. For more than a millennium Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean in a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand and to Easter Island. Christina Thompson's book combines an account of 'how we know’ and how ‘the puzzle of Polynesia’ was cracked.
Our book club host
Our book club conversations are led by Dr Mike Smith AM. Mike is a pioneering desert archaeologist who established the National Museum's Centre for Historical Research. He is a Professor at Flinders University in South Australia and an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University in Canberra.
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