Event: Ramona Koval

When Ramona Koval began to speak, the entire bookshop seemed suddenly at ease. Hers is a voice that we instantly recognise, as familiar as listening to an old friend, someone who we've been tuning into for years on ABC's Radio National. On Monday we had a chance to listen to her much-loved voice once again, when she came to Shearer's to talk about her new book By the Book.

Ramona spoke of her love of bookstores, and that being around books was where the idea for By the Book started. She told us about her childhood of reading, and the books her mother bought her as a child - and had a great anecdote about her mother purchasing a copy of the karma sutra! Certain books shaped her childhood, and there were books that defined her mother and family and what life was like for them. Ramona remembered a book in her house called Home Management Volume One. Published in the 1950s, it told you how to be a perfect family. She read it looking for instruction about how families and love worked, finding she often turned to books to find out about how the world worked, and especially to learn about love.

An important book for Ramona was Colette's My Mother's House and Sido, where Colette plays fictional variations on the themes of childhood, family, and, above all, her mother. She delighted in Colette's stories, and encouraged us to read Colette if we hadn't yet - plus look for a photo of Colette on her 80th birthday taken by Walter Carone of her burning birthday cake (here it is!).

While Ramona loved Colette, nothing surprised her more than The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead. It mirrored the fault lines of her family, and the lack of affection between her parents. Her French teacher set Madame Bovary at school, and Ramona wrote an essay - calling EmmaBovary a woman ahead of her time. She was the only student in her class who didn't think that Emma Bovary was a bad wife and bad mother, just that she was an unhappy and bored woman. Because Ramona felt as though Emma was describing her own adolescent life: her mother restricted her social life, and chose her clothes. But she was grateful that her mother never restricted her reading life.

Ramona also told us a lovely story about how her granddaughter is learning to read, and read the first paragraph of her book. Her relationship to the books that have been written into her life was beautiful to hear, and By the Book is a wonderful memoir. It was also interesting to hear about how she treats her books! She said: "My books were my workplace, my office. I wrote in pencil all over them."

After signing some books for us, Ramona had to dash off to an interview with Phillip Adams on Late Night Live on the ABC. You can her the interview with Phillip here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/ramona-koval-on-reading/4337932

- Antonia

Interview: Ramona Koval

Writer, journalist and broadcaster Ramona Koval needs no introduction - she was the presenter of ABC Radio National's The Book Show and is editor of Best Australian Essays. 

We asked Ramona some questions about her reading life and her new book, By the Book - about reading and living, and about the authors that have written themselves into her life: from Oliver Sacks to Oscar Wilde, Christina Stead to Grace Paley.

Ramona will also be here at Shearer's at 7pm on Monday October 29th. More details here, or call 9572 7766 to book your tickets.

Your new book By The Book is very much about the importance of reading. What is it exactly about books and reading that you think is so powerful? 

Books and reading are the main ways that we learn empathy,  a value that is  vital to a life well-lived.

What made you want to write this collection of essays?

I wanted to think about reading and what it has meant to me, as I had made my living through reading for so many years, and I still love the thrill of opening a book and wondering just how I will fall into its pages. 

What was the first book you read that made you fall in love with reading?

I loved reading Hills End by Australian children's writer Ivan Southall, and realised how transported and frightened and relieved you could be without leaving your room.

What was the most recent book you've read that made you fall in love with reading all over again?

I reread the short stories of Colette as I was writing about them, and was surprised to see how they still moved me.

Which interview with an author are you the most proud of?

I have my favourites which I collected a few years ago in "Speaking Volumes: conversations with remarkable writers" and when I look at that book and flick through the chapters, I can't believe I was so lucky to have had a job where reading and talking was the main component. 

Which interview would you rather forget? 

I wouldn't want to forget any of them, even with the more difficult people. I learned so much both from reading their work and  speaking with them, sometimes more about their insecurities and personal foibles, and how to manage extreme situations.

What do you think makes someone a 'reader'? 

Readers are people who realise that they can live more than just one life by opening a novel and they can travel the world by reading someone's account of a place they will never go. And that any of the most difficult times in our lives can be soothed by losing yourself, even for a little while, in a well-written book.