Ooooh! Look what was just delivered to my place – a beautiful new edition of Elizabeth Macarthur.

Just quietly, I think I like this cover better.

I fear the previous one was in danger of being dismissed as ‘a woman’s book’.  That’s not a joke.  I took my daughter into a bookshop recently, one of a large commercial chain.  In an effort to embarrass her even more than usual, I took her hunting for a copy of my book.  There it was on the Biography shelf.  Nice.

Then we went over to the Australian History shelf.  Not there.

In fact there were no books about women there, and very few titles by women.  Apparently women weren’t in any way involved in Australian history…

Maybe, I thought, they don’t put biographies on the Australian History shelf.  So I looked a little closer.  There were plenty of biographies on the Australian History shelf, just not any about women.

So, much to my daughter’s horror, I took my book from the Biography shelf and placed it fair, square and face out on the Australian History shelf.  I encourage you to do the same.

Postscript:  Yes, I did mention the situation to the bookshop in question but failed to receive a meaningful answer.  And, in my experience, the problem I’ve described occurs far less often in the independent bookshops. Vive la independent bookshops!