Each speaker at a FOBL event brings us a new perspective on issues of our culture, particularly literary ones. Our guests reward the audience of FOBL members and visitors with intelligent and entertaining food for thought. This was certainly the case at our last event for 2018. Luke Slattery, a Balmain resident and respected and awarded journalist, critic and author, …

This is the ninth year in which FOBL has held writing competitions for the primary schools on the peninsula and for the Balmain Campus of the Sydney Secondary College (SSC). As in previous years, for the Secondary writing competition we worked in conjunction with Mirjana Simic, the Head Teacher of English, to choose a theme to fit with the English …

It was our first, and I hope our inaugural, FOBL Trivia night. The Balmain Town Hall small meeting room had been turned into a patchwork of colourful tables. These were waiting to be filled by teams testing their literary knowledge as well as the occasional question about Balmain history. The evening started with people helping themselves to the delicious supper …

On the 30th August FOBL was proud and fortunate to be able to present Professor Steve Rayner while he was in Sydney attending a conference on the Social Study of Science.  Not a stranger to these shores, Steve had previously visited Australia on several occasions. In 2010 he delivered the Jack Beale Memorial Lecture at the University of NSW and …

FOBL’s year opened on Friday April 27 with a fascinating talk about the Sydney Modern project by Andrew Andersons AO, the renowned architect who designed the previous extensions to the Art Gallery of NSW. The function was well attended with FOBL members and non members who clearly had an interest in what is a closely scrutinised project. Our speaker’s talk was illustrated …

It was a full, excited, house on Friday 6th October to hear Kate McClymont speak to FOBL. Her talk was entitled The Bold, The Belligerent and the Bagmen. Kate McClymont is an investigative journalist currently reporting for the Sydney Morning Herald. In the late 1980s, McClymont worked for two years as a junior reporter on Four Corners. In 2002, she …

Friends of Balmain Library workers had a very happy time presiding over our Third Book Boost. We spent almost $5,000.00 buying books for the Library on the weekend of 17/18 October. This is how it works: we ask the Library staff which areas need a top up. Last year it was non-fiction which resulted in a very colourful supply of …