Pageturners December Daytime Book Discussion

Central West Libraries

Thirty years ago, Gina Chick’s mother Suzanne wrote a bestselling memoir after discovering her birth mother was Charmian Clift....

Orange City Library

Book Clubs

Love reading? Love Books? Keen to talk about books? Come along to Pageturners for adults - mostly reading contemporary fiction with the odd classic included, and Inklings for children age 7 - 12 years.

At our final Pageturners Daytime Meeting for the year we will discuss the memoir Searching for Charmian by Suzanne Chick on Wednesday 10 December at 12.30pm.We will also be doing our usual book exchange. Please bring along a book - you can part with - to share with another Pageturner. It will be a "Kris Kringle" where the books will be wrapped in brown paper and exchanged. Thank you.Thirty years ago, Gina Chick’s mother Suzanne wrote a bestselling memoir after discovering that her birth mother was none other than iconic Australian writer Charmian Clift. That book, Searching for Charmian, has been re-released with a new foreword by Gina and an afterword by Suzanne. When forty-eight-year-old Suzanne Chick discovers the identity of her birth mother, suddenly nothing will satisfy her but knowing everything. Charmian was nineteen when she gave birth to her baby girl and had to give her up for adoption. By the time Suzanne unearthed her birth mother’s name, Charmian was dead, having taken her own life in 1969 at the age of forty-five. By then she was a beloved columnist, novelist and essayist whose name was known to thousands of readers. But for all her talent, intelligence and extraordinary beauty, Charmian's life was marked by deep unhappiness. As Suzanne learns about the mother she will never meet, she finds herself re-examining the course her own life has taken, gaining insight into the woman who brought her up – her adoptive mother, Marjorie Shaw. More than just a fascinating piece of literary history, this is a moving account of the consequences of adoption and Suzanne's search for identity. Suzanne Chick was born in Sydney in 1942 and grew up in Mosman, the same suburb where Charmian Clift and George Johnston settled on their return from Greece in 1964. An adopted child with utterly different talents from those of her new family, Suzanne exhibited an unstoppable creative urge from the earliest age. Educated at North Sydney Girls’ High School, she progressed to the National Art School and Sydney Teachers’ College. After a long career teaching art and bringing up three daughters, she now makes her living as a painter, with occasional forays into the world of words.Gina Chick is a barefoot nomad who’s happiest sleeping on the ground next to a fire, muddy paws and all. She’s the daughter and granddaughter of bestselling Australian authors Suzanne Chick and Charmian Clift. Writing is in her genes. She won the inaugural season of the survival show Alone Australia (produced by iTV for SBS) after spending 67 days completely solo in the Tasmanian winter wilderness, dancing barefoot in the moss and singing to a platypus; which just goes to show she’s a bit bonkers but also never quits. She gives great hugs. Her Instagram is @gigiamazonia, and if you want all her grown-up stuff, check out her website www.ginachick.com.

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