LITERARY INDULGENCE (SYDNEY AIRPORT BOOKSHOP)

LITERARY CRITICISM is the battle-training by which we become better writers - stronger knights in the use of our language. One weapon within this armory is the categorisation 'Airport Fiction' . It is an arbitrarily flexible mace used to brand literary works that trade character development and relational depth for commercial gain.

This is a doubly convenient category because the escapist prose fits the holiday paradigm. Finding myself on holiday, in an airport I am choosing to indulge in just this activity.

Having devoured Bill Bryson's Brief History of Science over a year ago - I picked up another of his, "Down Under". Not that Bill Bryson is true airport fiction ( fleming clancy) - merely fiction in an airport.