cread | read & see

The ABC reports that the new school library in the remote north-west Queensland, mainly indigenous community of Doomadgee has "hardly any books". Resident Peta Jenkins is using social media to encourage people to donate books in an effort to make school more interesting for students and to boost literacy rates. She says despite the opening of the state school's new library earlier this year, books remain a rare sight. "Well you just can't buy books in Doomadgee," she said. "It would be a matter of buying them online - if what you're after could be purchased online - or going to a major centre like Cairns or Townsville or Mount Isa, all of which are of course hundreds of kilometres away. "With a bit of luck ... we'll be able to build up the school library with some good quality second-hand books but there's also a keen interest in the community in getting adult books out there ... you just don't see books here in

You would not be surprised to find Catcher in the Rye , Gone with the Wind , Huckleberry Finn or even Catch 22 on a definitive list of books that shaped America but the "Big Book" of Alcoholic's Anonymous would probably not have easily come to mind. The Books that Shaped America list was developed by the US Library of Congress for an on-site exhibition it is holding as part of its multi-year "Celebration of the Book". Alcoholics Anonymous, on reflection a very apt choice considering the devastation of addiction in US (and human) existence, was written by co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr Bob Smith to help people recover from alcoholism. It has spawned many other 12-step programs but they all can be traced to the original inspiration for Wilson and Smith - the Beatitudes of Jesus Christ recorded in Matthew 5 . Other interesting inclusions Christopher Colles' A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America (1789) and Amelia Simmons' American C