Brisbane author Dr Rosamond Siemon will discuss her new book The Eccentric Mr Wienholt at a Books and Brunch event at The University of Queensland on June 5.
Books and Brunch will be a quarterly Sunday morning gathering at Wordsmiths café (next door to the UQ Bookshop). For $10, guests will receive a classic Wordsmiths brunch and hear a University of Queensland Press author.
The Eccentric Mr Wienholt is Dr Siemon`s second book, a true story tracing the life of the man she describes as her hero, Arnold Wienholt.
Dr Siemon`s first book The Mayne Inheritance was a bestseller, which featured in the One Book One Brisbane campaign. The Eccentric Mr Wienholt, which will be published in June, took two years to research and is expected to be just as popular.
Dr Siemon said she was looking forward to meeting her readers and speaking about Mr Wienholt at the first Books and Brunch, to be held at 10am.
The Eccentric Mr Wienholt looks at the colourful life of a man who was a wealthy landowner, big-game hunter, intelligence scout, war hero and politician.
Dr Siemon said he was a larger-than-life adventurer who enjoyed the unorthodox and despite being mauled by lions, shot and captured in war and vilified in Australian politics, he forged the life he craved.
“I don`t think he ever knew fear,” she said.
“If you speak of Lawrence of Arabia, then Wienholt really was Wienholt of Africa.”
Dr Siemon joked that as an historian she was not interested in the careful plotting required to write fiction.
“Much of history is more exciting than fiction,” she said.
As a politician Mr Wienholt was both controversial and respected, fighting in four wars between 1899 and 1940.
Dr Siemon said the story almost wrote itself there was so much material.
“I admired the guy, he was different from everyone else and had the courage to be himself,” she said.
Born in Fassifern, Dr Siemon first saw Mr Wienholt when he awarded the sports day prizes at her school.
She said she had heard of his bravery and through her research had been able to probe the man and the myth.
Media: For more information, contact Eliza Kennedy at UQP (telephone 07 3365 2606, email: eliza@uqp.uq.edu.au) or Chris Saxby at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2479, email: c.saxby@uq.edu.au).
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