Kathryn's Inbox

Every heading in this book is a lie ... begins You're Doing It Wrong, a hilarious history of all of the terrible advice that women have been told for centuries. Cooke examines advice about health, sex, marriage, housework, work, motherhood, beauty, so-called ideal body shapes and clothing and gives it, well the answer it deserves, and the no-nonsense advice that everyone needed all along. There is also a lot of acknowledgement to have Indigenous Australian women have been treated since 1788--if white women were the victims of ridiculous advice, there was a whole other race whose lives were made a lot tougher based on truly ridiculous medial, patriarchal and truly racist ideas. Each section begins with a heading that is, as the opening line tells us, a lie. And some of those headings are truly hilarious. (Fantasise about men who order you around, for example. I truly love Cookes examination of modern erotic novels. She nails it.) This was an excellent read that had me laughing out ...

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  “You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help.” ~ Bill Watterson, via his famous comic, Calvin and Hobbes.

  Grapes explode if you put them in the microwave. 

Sophia Glock's graphic memoir Passport tells of an unusual childhood. Born in the United States, to American parents, she has spent most of her childhood living in various countries because of her parents jobs ... not that she knows what they do for a living, exactly. Her parents are the ultimate masters of deflecting and not answering direct questions, and they encourage their six children to do the same. By the time Sophia is in her teens, she and most of her family are living in Central America. It's a lonely life for Sophia, who finds herself being uprooted from schools constantly, and never really able to make friends. Things take a turn for the worse when her beloved older sister Julia leaves the family to go to college in the United States. Her current school is a drag, Sophia feels as though she is merely tolerated by the kids in her friendship group, who can be mean at times. Her parents have some strict rules, and seem bizarrely overprotective in some ways. And the b...

Fans of Adelaide's history following European settlement/invasion are almost certain to be delighted with this glossy, hardcover volume that documents the history of Adelaide's buildings from 1836 to 1886 in atmospheric black and white. Provided, of course, that they can find a copy, as this one was published by Oxford University Press in 1969 and is long out of print. There is something fascinating, and just a little heartbreaking about reading this one. Divided into two sections, it gives an insight into some of the earliest buildings located within the City of Adelaide, or the areas generally known as the the Adelaide CBD and North Adelaide (more on that, later,) and mourns the buildings that have already been demolished. A note in the jacket adds that just before the book went to print, a number of buildings featured in the book had also now suffered a similar fate. As is sadly typical of the era, there is no mention of the Kaurna people. Keep in mind that in 1969, First Na...

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