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Good Reading : April 2012
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woM word of mouth The Woman in the Mirror: How to stop confusing what you look like with who you are Cynthia M Bulik The discourse surrounding obesity, health and our bodies becomes more heated by the day, with governments and moralising media seeing it as their duty to dictate exactly how modern bodies should look. The Woman in the Mirror comes along as a timely reminder of what we all took for granted in more liberated times: that our bodies belong to us, and anyone else’s opinion on the way we might look is, or should be, largely irrelevant. Cynthia M Bulik’s wide-ranging study of the tyranny of body image identifies the roots of feelings of inferiority, going all the way back to schooldays, when girls are faced with stereotypes about female bodies that are largely removed from the realities of human diversity. Starting in infants school, the fat and otherwise physically different are stigmatised and excluded, and contemporary culture (including, worryingly, figures of authority) seems happy with this state of affairs. Old aesthetic prejudices have been dressed up as health and lifestyle advice, but with the same old outcome – women are told their bodies are aberrant, sick and just plain wrong. There is a refreshing chapter on the growing problems that boys face in this same area, and the author makes some interesting claims about the connections between body anxiety and the continued gaps between women and men in the workplace. A controversial and thought-provoking book. Bloomsbury $29.99 e Reviewed by Walter Mason Secrets of a Lazy French Cook Marie-Morgane Le Moël Thank goodness for biscuits sablés, la soupe à l’oignon, Tarte Provençale and galette des rois. Without them, this book would be the epitome of banality. The author, a French journalist now living in Australia, has written a memoir of her childhood, adolescence and young adulthood in France, but she doesn’t reach Australia until Chapter 14. None of the story of her life is particularly riveting, but at least each chapter ends with a recipe. The author admits to being a fairly average cook, and her philosophy is that one can be lazy and still cook wonderful meals. She grew up with a twin brother in the Lorraine region of France, but details of her childhood in that area and further studies in Dijon and Grenoble are not the stuff of a memorable memoir. Adolescent crushes and later love affairs in France and Australia play a major role in the book, along with the 24 recipes. After marriage to an Australian writer and five years in Australia, she realises that France and Australia each qualify as the most beautiful country in the world. I’m not persuaded she needed to write a fairly ordinary book to prove this, but I must admit that the Tarte Provençale I cooked from her recipe was delicious. HarperCollins $29.99 e Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville The Testimony Halina Wagowska In her dedication, the author quotes Aldous Huxley: ‘Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.’ It is this sentiment that for me best sums up this moving and inspiring memoir by an incredible woman who not only survived the death camps of the Holocaust but also went on to live a life of such generosity of spirit. The Testimony is the memoir of Halina Wagowska, a Polish refugee who came to Australia after the war having survived, albeit barely, the horror of the Auschwitz and Stutthof concentration camps. While the details of Halina’s wartime incarceration are horrific, she refuses to let these experiences define her. She shows a willingness to embrace life and takes the lessons from her wartime experiences and uses them to make a difference in peacetime for other for whom life is a struggle. The power and profundity of her observations are evident in their very simplicity. Halina Wagowska’s story is not just that of a survivor, but also that of a woman whose testimony about the worth of every human life is one that we should all sit up and take notice of. RG Hardie Grant $24.95 e Reviewed by Maryanne Hyde The Rules of Inheritance Claire Bidwell Smith Grief is an odd thing. There is no ‘correct’ way to grieve and this powerful memoir shows only too clearly that for some people it is a process that can be spread over many years. The US author’s mother died when she had just started tertiary studies in 1998 and her father when she was 25. For years she drank too much, lost herself in a relationship with a controlling and angry man and called on her late mother to help her in times of stress. She didn’t find herself on the other side of grief until she realised that nothing was ever going to bring them back. In the first few chapters, the book seemed in danger of becoming self-indulgent. But it gained integrity and understanding. Now happily married and with her own daughter, the author is a bereavement counsellor for a hospice, helping patients and families. In her opinion, the experience of dying, like birth, can be rewarded with preparation and presence of mind. Death is one of life’s certainties, so it’s a book we all should read. RG Text $29.95 e Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville WWW.GoodreadInGMaGazI ne.CoM Good ReadinG aprIL 2012 36 WOM_36_37_c.indd 36 7/3/12 9:15:05 PM
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