Library in Focus: What books to read in 2022

Joanna Deegan
College Librarian
We’re about to enter our mid-year break – a perfect time to get stuck into some leisure reading (whether you’re a student or not)!
Not sure where to start, though?
We’ve compiled a list of reads celebrating great books that turn 150 this year.
Books published in 1872:
A brief review of a selection of novels:
George Eliot’s Middlemarch explores women’s role in society, education and relationships.
Samuel Butler’s Erwhon is a satire on Victorian society and beliefs.
Phileas Fogg’s trip Around the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne), and Dostoevsky’s tale of a political murder inspired by real life, Demons, all celebrate their 150th birthday this year.
Classic children’s titles join the list of books celebrating 150th anniversary, including fantasy novel The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald and Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did, where we first meet Katy Carr.
Australian literature
If you’re keen to dive in to some literature from home, consider choosing one of these wonderful works:
Tressa’s Resolve by Louisa Atkinson
A Man of Genius by Harriet Miller Davidson
Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses by B.L. Farjeon
Jem’s Hopes and What They Grew To by Maud Jeanne Franc
Campion College Library
These 150-year-old titles and others are available for students to borrow from the Campion Library:
Ballantyne, R.M. The Pioneers: A Tale of the Western Wilderness
Bjornstjerne, Bjornson The Bridal March and One Day
Branch, Pamela The Wooden Overcoat
Butler, Samuel Erewhon
Coolidge, Susan What Katy Did
Darwin, Charles The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
De Forest, J.W. Kate Beaumont
Dostoevsky, Fydor Demons
Eliot, George Middlemarch
Hardy, Thomas Under the Greenwood Tree
Israel, Isaac The Land of Desolation: Being a Personal Narrative of Observation and Adventure in Greenland
Jokai, Mor The Man With the Golden Touch
Landis, Simon M. The Social War
Le Fanu, J. Sheridan Carmilla (available as an ebook) and In a Glass Darkly
Leighton, John Paris Under the Commune: The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege
MacDonald, George The Princess and the Goblin
MacDonald, George Wilfrid Cumbermede
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals
Turgenev, Ivan A Month in the Country
Twain, Mark Roughing It (available as an ebook)
Verne, Jules Around the World in Eighty Days
Zola, Emile La Curee