As a young girl in a suburban neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America.

Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world.

Foreign Correspondence is available throughout the United States at all worthwhile bookstores or online at BookSense, Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Hardcover
ISBN: 067091021X

Paperback
ISBN: 0142001430

The Postman's Whistle

As a girl Geraldine Brooks made pen-friends all over the world from her home in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. At the same time, Australia was developing from a parochial migrant colony to a diverse international community.

Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey From Down Under to All Over is an immensely charming coming of age story of a young woman and her country, a rare treat of a memoir that speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world.

Bold Type features include the author reading from Foreign Correspondence as well as a print excerpt from the book, and an essay about snail mail's place in the age of electronic mail entitled "The Vanishing Pleasure of Awaiting a Letter."