I really enjoy the books in the Australian City series. I have copies of Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide and was pleased to add this to the collection. Hobart gives an in-depth description of the town, its origins and socio-economic development. An interesting work. ( )

I like most of Australia’s capital cities, but – as many Australians do – I have a special fondness for Hobart. We like it because it is beautiful, intimate in scale and rich in interesting things to do and see. No other capital city lets tourists share such a wealth of treasures without much need of a car; though you need one to explore Mt Wellington, from a B&B in Battery Point I have spent half a dozen happy weekends mooching about on foot in the Salamanca district and the CBD while The Spouse attended conferences, and we were then able to walk to splendid restaurants without fear of a breathalyser to spoil our pleasure in the wine list. Hobart has all of a capital city’s amenities without the traffic, crowds and pollution. You can go to museums and art galleries; concerts and plays; historical tours and markets; and all of it tucked beside the charm of Constitution Dock and under the brooding majesty of Mt Wellington.

Peter Timms’ In Search of Hobart (2009) was the first contribution to the New South City Series; it was followed in due course by Brisbane by Matthew Condon and Sydney by Delia Falconer. I bought Melbourne by Sophie Cunningham when it came out in 2011 and Adelaide by Kerryn Goldsworthy in 2012. Others in the series are Canberra, Alice Springs, Perth and Darwin. My guess is that these books are very popular with tourists: they are compact reading, and can be read between cities on board the plane.

Timms’ is a recent convert to Hobart’s charms: he originally hails from Melbourne but has adopted Hobart as home and his affection for the city shows. Still, he has a criticism or two to offer, but he includes anecdotes and interviews with fellow-Hobartians so there is a diversity of opinion. His own background is as an art curator and critic of note, and – as you’d expect – he has some cross things to say about some of Hobart’s more recent architectural developments.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/02/18/in-search-of-hobart-by-peter-timms-read-by-d... ( )

http://shawjonathan.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/peter-timms-in-search-of-hobart/

in spite of a characteristically elegant foreword by Robert Dessaix, in which he ominously mentions that the author is his partner and describes the book as ‘a concatenation of views of Hobart’, I found it hard to be enthusiastic about this book. By page 15 the concatenated voices are complaining about the traffic, and before any of the beauties of the city have been evoked we’re treated to arguments about town planning such as emanate from local ginger groups in any modern city. A swipe at Kevin Rudd’s ‘working families’ mantra left me feeling not just that I was listening in on local fights, but that the fights were old.

On page 40, in a dip into colonial history, ‘Having staked their claim, the authorities in London promptly put the struggling settlement out of their minds,’ I decided to follow their example and put the book out of mine.