Melbourne Circle

Nick Gadd

Jul 2021 · Australian Scholarly Publishing

About this ebook

Over two years, writer Nick Gadd and his wife Lynne circled the city of Melbourne on foot, starting at Williamstown and ending in Port Melbourne. Along the way they uncovered lost buildings, secret places and mysterious signs that told of forgotten stories and curious characters from the past. Soon after they completed the circle, Lynne passed away from cancer. Melbourne Circle is the story of their journey, a memoir, and a stunning meditation on personal loss.

‘What a gem this book is! Oddity, wonderment, weirdness: these splendid essays reveal a marvellous Melbourne most of us have never encountered before. This is a psychogeography dense with vernacular history, humane detail, and from beneath the shadow of grief, love.’ –­ Gail Jones, author of Five Bells and The Death of Noah Glass

‘‘‘Psychojogging”’ and the pleasures of walking.’ – interview with Hilary Harper on Radio National, Life Matters

‘Marvellous Melbourne: the books that capture our city and its life.’ – The Age/Sydney Morning Herald

‘Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss is a very special book. Just read it, and then take to the streets and walk with the same spirit of enquiry.’ – Sophie Cunningham, The Age

‘A beautiful meditation on the streets in which we live, ghosts, love and loss … While there is sadness in this book, Gadd writes with warmth, humour and a generosity of spirit.’ – Stephen Romei, The Weekend Australian

‘An endearing book about enduring love and serendipitous discoveries; of remnants of the past pasted onto old buildings, and the way these ghost signs are portals into another time.’ – The Saturday Paper

About the author

Nick Gadd is the author of the novels 'Death of a Typographer' (shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Award in 2020) and 'Ghostlines' (winner of a Ned Kelly Award in 2009 and a Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript in 2007). Nick was the winner of the 2015 Nature Conservancy Australia Nature Writing Prize, and his non-fiction has appeared in 'Griffith Review', 'Meanjin', 'Kill Your Darlings' and 'The Guardian'. His interests include psychogeography, typography and urban wandering. Find more of his work at melbournecircle.net and nickowriter.com.