FIRST PERSON UNIKEN August 2003 • 14
  FIRST Top 10Books
John Gascoigne
Head of the school of history

“Ever since school I've been keen on history. I enrolled in an arts degree at Sydney University with the goal of eventually becoming a history academic. The path to that was far from smooth and went via USA, UK and Papua New Guinea with a spell of unemployment, but I got there in the end.
    “I’ve been at UNSW since 1980 as a tutor (a grade that no longer exists) and have since passed through various stages of increasing permanency until I became a fixture in 1987.”
    What do you like most about your job? The variety of work. Pet hate? Occupational Health and Safety forms. What are you reading at the moment? Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin. I’ve had a few brief but enjoyable trips to Canada and wanted to read their foremost contemporary novelist. It was a chilling but enlightening read.

 Person
Best advice you’ve ever received?
Today’s headlines are tomorrow’s fish wrappers.

Who inspires you?
The resilience of human beings in the face of adversity – something that historians encounter regularly.

You’re hosting a dinner party and can invite three people. Who is on your guest list?
Since I spent ten years working on Sir Joseph Banks I would have to ask him and by all accounts he was an agreeable dinner companion who held his liquor well. There would be a lot I would want to ask him about his travels, particularly to Australia. I’m now writing a book on James Cook and he and Banks, as travelling companions, would be a natural duo. Since Cook’s wife burnt all his letters I would welcome the opportunity to try to understand something of the character that is barely visible in his journals. By way of something completely different, I would invite Nelson Mandela and try to learn something of the deep wells of his personality that makes possible such forgiveness for past wrongs.

Favourite expression?
Don't cross your bridges before you come to them.

What are you good at?
I cook a good moussaka and still swim regularly.

What can’t you do?
The list is long but the most spectacular areas of incompetence are household repairs and reading maps.

The ideal day …
finishes with the completion of a piece of writing that you think will last, followed by a dinner with all the family.
Fiction
1 My Life As a Fake – Peter Carey
($40.50)
2 Lanzarote – Michel Houellebecq
($25.16)
3 The Autograph Man – Zadie Smith
($20.66)
4 The Dream of Scipio – Iain Pears
($20.66)
5 The Impressionist – Hari Kunzru
($20.66)
Non-fiction
1 The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History – Phillip Bobbitt
($25.16)
2 Recollections of a Bleeding Heart – Don Watson
($31.46)
3 Currency Companion to Music and Dance in Australia – Edited by John Whiteoak and Aline Scott- Maxwell
($108.00)
4 What Philosophers Think – Edited by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom
($26.96)
5 Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers – Alissa Quart
($20.66)
Compiled by Robert O’Hearn from the UNSW Bookshop, Ph 9385 6622, www.bookshop.unsw.edu.au