Golden

Golden by Jade Timms has been short-listed for the CBCA Awards, and it's immediately obvious that it's a cut above the average YA title. Eddy (Edwina) is dealing with untreated PTSD after the drowning death of her brother-in-law Jackson three years earlier; in fact, her entire family is still struggling with his loss. Eddy feels haunted, angry, miserable and very much alone. The story of Golden tracks her turning toward recovery.

I really liked the big cast of characters, mostly Eddy's teen cohort from her small coastal town, including her twin brother Pat. (Timms really likes unisex names -- as well as Eddy, we have girls called Stevie, Joss and George.) The cast is nicely diverse, too, and there's a satisfying web of cross-currents that link and divide the friends/boyfriends/girlfriends/ exes/wannabes. The adults are all pretty useless, though Eddy's dad is doing his best. I also enjoyed that Eddy didn't discover a miracle silver bullet to cure her trauma; it's the sum of a whole lot of different things that end up helping her, including messing with art (I feel as if this might have been intended to take up more of the story at one point, it fades away toward the end), running, friendship, finally talking about her experience, cooking, and first love all playing their part.

While it's not action packed, Golden is thoroughly engaging and kept me turning the pages. Eddy is appealing but plausibly flawed, and I kept wanting to make an appointment for her at a therapist (at the end of the novel, she's going to try therapy again); it was hard to believe that no one in her circle had recognised how badly she needs help in three years. But then, maybe I come from a therapy-positive background! I won't be surprised if Golden wins a medal to match its title.

The Body Keeps the Score

Apparently, trauma-informed care is all the rage in psychology at the moment, and a large part of that is probably due to this book by Bessel van der Kolk, which has become a word of mouth bestseller since its release twelve years ago. Clearly the message of The Body Keeps the Score has struck a chord with readers and practitioners, and it definitely struck a chord with me. I'm fortunate that I haven't experienced childhood trauma myself, but people close to me have, and so much of this book rang true as I read about people under stress reverting to childhood states of high arousal, fear and helplessness (of course, it can also manifest in anger, aggression or running away). 

The core of van der Kolk's work turns on the realisation that talking or medication alone can be inadequate to touch the deep, embodied memory of trauma (he began his trauma work mostly with returned soldiers suffering from PTSD, but the same conclusions also apply for sexual assaults, accidents or childhood abuse). Van der Kolk uses a variety of techniques to release the deeply held tension in his patients' bodies: breathing, yoga, theatre and singing, as well as quite theatrical role-playing therapy which might seem a little woo-woo to some but apparently can be very powerful in integrating traumatic experiences into a coherent sense of self.

Most intriguing to me is EMDR (Eye Movement Desenstisation and Reprocessing), which at first blush does seem completely woo-woo -- patients relive traumatic memories while watching the movement of the therapist's finger in front of their eyes -- but is in fact extremely effective. This does make sense when you consider that this process mimics the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, during which memories are integrated. A member of my family, who has had a lot of conventional talk therapy, swears by EMDR. 

The Body Keeps the Score is a gripping, lively and persuasive read, and I'm not surprised it's been such a huge success and so influential. 

Jilya

I can't remember where I heard about Tracy Westerman's book Jilya -- I think I might have seen a mention of it on Facebook (sometimes it is useful for some things!) Published in 2024, it's subtitled How one Indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology, and it is concerned with two of my favourite areas of interest: psychology and First Nations culture.

Jilya means 'my child,' and Westerman's focus is squarely on Aboriginal child suicides. The rates of children taking their own lives, especially in remote or disadvantaged First Nations communities, are truly horrific, and should be a huge mental health priority. Westerman has zeroed in on the shortage of psychological supports in these areas as a primary factor, as well as multi-generational trauma and multi-generational difficulties in forming secure childhood attachment.

Jilya outlines some fascinating differences between mainstream Western assumptions and Aboriginal culture -- for example, Aboriginal child-rearing practices that might look like 'neglect' to white, middle class social workers. There is a lot in this book about trauma, including everyday racism, deep grief and loss, and the legacy of familial disruption -- such a heavy burden for individuals, let alone whole communities to bear. But Jilya is also the story of Westerman's own life, and her decades of struggle to establish better data collection and protocols for dealing with Aboriginal communities. There is another whole story there about politics, trying to run a private business, and philanthropy, which I won't begin to try to untangle.

I found the middle sections of the book, about applying specific techniques and practices to First Nations individuals, families and communities, the most compelling, but the whole of Jilya is a riveting and powerful read. More power to Tracy Westerman's arm -- she is accomplishing some amazing work.
 

Your Name is Not Anxious

Anxiety sucks. I've been there, so have most of my family and some of my friends. It's not a place you want to dwell, or even visit for very long. Stephanie Dowrick, who has had her own mental health battles, has written a friendly, approachable guide for sufferers, reminding us that while anxiety can feel overwhelming, it is not our whole identity; that it's vital to treat ourselves with compassion and kindness, rather than blame and guilt; that anxiety is a whole-body experience, not just 'in our minds;' that there are emergency measures we can take in a moment of crisis (breathing techniques, cold water, reducing causes of stress (can be easier said than done!)).

It's all great advice, delivered in short, easily-digested chapters, and the book is designed for dipping in and out as needed, rather than being read cover to cover, which is what I did. Much of the material is reinforced in more than one place, which is helpful -- in my experience, these messages need repeating over and over, and even then they sometimes don't sink in. I can imagine Your Name is Not Anxious as a comforting bedside companion, to be used in times of crisis along with professional therapeutic help, exercise and medication if needed; I don't think it would be enough to pull you out of an episode on its own. There are also personal stories from others who have wrestled with OCD, body anxieties and addiction, and come out the other side, which is always a good reminder. The dark valley can seem like a long, deep crevasse at times, and it's helpful to remember that it can and does end.

Hour of the Heart

Irvin Yalom is well into his nineties, still writing and until relatively recently, still practising as a therapist. Hour of the Heart was published in 2024 with the assistance of his son Ben, who has a background in theatre but has now also trained as a therapist. Hour of the Heart was written after the death of Irvin's beloved wife Marilyn; he realised that with his unreliable memory and lowered energy levels, it was no longer possible for him to offer long term therapy to patients, but instead decided to try single sessions with a new client each day, often over Zoom. 

Hour of the Heart presents a score of stories from these sessions, which involved clients from all over the world (interestingly, there were a few from Melbourne, perhaps reflecting the high anxiety and distress caused by prolonged Covid lockdowns here). Yalom is upfront about the limitations of offering a single therapeutic session, just one hour, but he also recognises that with his vast experience and established authority, he can cut through more quickly than other therapists might. Sometimes this backfires, as patients are over-awed by his reputation or project father difficulties onto Irv and become tongue-tied, but Yalom finds some tricks to accelerate insights -- he reveals more of his weaknesses and fears to establish a quick rapport, and he turns the tables and invites clients to ask him questions. This techniques can produce some surprising results.

But finally, sadly, Dr Irv finds himself in a confronting conversation with a doctor who has begun to suffer the effects of dementia. To his horror, when he comes to write up the session, Yalom finds he has completely blanked out what they said to each other, perhaps because this subject matter brushed so close to his own anxieties about getting old and becoming incompetent. According to son Ben, this was the last session Yalom ever held with a patient. It's a sad ending to an extraordinary and generous career, but Hour of the Heart is also a wonderful testament to Yalom's willingness to keep learning and experimenting for as long as he possibly could (and apparently yet another book is in the works, this time the final, final work).
 

Notes to John

I felt quite conflicted about reading this book -- Notes to John is not even really a book, it's a collection of notes that Didion made after sessions with her psychiatrist, ostensibly addressed to her husband, John Dunne. Mostly Didion and Dr MacKinnon discuss Dunne and Didion's daughter Quintana, who was struggling with alcoholism, but they also talk about Didion's childhood and her own psychological battles. The material is extremely intimate and personal; was it ever intended to be read, let alone published? The papers were found in Didion's desk after her death.

However, Didion, Dunne, Quintana and Dr MacKinnon are all dead now; there's no one left to be hurt by any revelations. It's impossible to believe that Didion didn't discuss these sessions with Dunne as they were happening, in fact she says as much. So perhaps these papers were not really intended as letters or private communications, but functioned more as memory aids or journal entries. Does that make them fair game? I'm still not sure.

Ethical dilemmas aside, I found Notes to John absolutely gripping and very moving. I'm a sucker for anything about psychology or psychiatry sessions, though most of the books I've read have been fictionalised -- but I'm also thinking about Couples Therapy on SBS, which I am addicted to. There is so much here about love and family, dependence and independence, parenting and separating from parents, addiction and alcoholism. My elder daughter also found it irresistible, and terribly sad.
 

Becoming Myself

I've long been a fan of American psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, especially his two wise books about coming to term with death, Creatures of a Day and Staring at the Sun. In Becoming Myself, Yalom recounts his life story, and it's just as insightful, compassionate and insightful as his writing about his therapy clients (I haven't yet read Yalom's long fiction, but Becoming Myself has piqued my curiosity).

In many ways, and he admits this himself, Yalom has had a blessed life. He married his soul mate, Marilyn, early, they have four healthy children, he has taught and written and seen clients for many decades, he has travelled all over the world and spoken to huge and adoring audiences, and espeically in latter years, he has enjoyed enormous acclaim and popularity. At the time of writing Becoming Myself, he was 86; he's now 94 and still with us.

Yalom is cheerfully candid about his own luck and his failings and regrets -- he allowed Marilyn to shoulder the bulk of child rearing, though she's had a demanding academic career of her own; he made mistakes in handling some patients; he wishes he'd had more empathy toward his difficult mother. He freely discusses taking marijuana, opium, LSD and ecstasy, which didn't shock but did surprise me. He is such an engaging writer and so open about his experiences, Becoming Myself was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Next I'm going to read A Matter of Death and Life, written a few years later by Irvin and Marilyn together, after Marilyn's diagnosis of terminal cancer. Yalom is frank about his fear of losing Marilyn, and I wonder how they handled it together.

Demystifying Therapy

As well as being a sucker for books of popular science, I am a sucker for books of pop psychology, so I pounced on this intriguing-looking volume when it appeared on Brotherhood Books. Alas, this was not what I was expecting -- Ernesto Spinelli's Demystifying Therapy is aimed at practitioners of therapy, not laypersons or prospective or past clients. Which is not to say that it was uninteresting -- at the very beginning of the book, Spinelli poses the question, what is therapy? It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. And why does it work?

Uncontroversially (to me, anyway) Spinelli concludes that the most important element of therapy is the relationship between therapist and client, not the school of therapy to which the therapist adheres or the method they use. Well, der! Spinelli writes entertainingly about his own reaction of outrage and even anger when a client comes to a moment of insight on their own, rather than prompted by him -- I found this particularly interesting because I think I had a similar experience with a shrink once upon a time.

Demystifying Therapy was written over thirty years ago, long before the appearance of online or AI therapy services, but I couldn't help wondering, if Spinelli is right, and the relationship is the crucial thing that makes therapy work, how can AI possibly replicate that? Mind you, these days people are falling in love with AI companions, so what do I know.
 

A War of Nerves

A War of Nerves was an impulse buy about a year ago from Brotherhood Books, and it's taken me a long time to read it -- I'd read a chapter at a time in between my other non-fiction books, because it was pretty dense stuff, though fascinating. Ben Shephard traces the history of the military and the treatment of mental illness in soldiers, from the phenomenon of 'shakes' and shell shock in the First World War, all the way through to PTSD suffered by combatants in the Falklands War. He examines the influence of a handful of charismatic doctors and psychiatrists, who were able to promote their own favoured treatment method. Various theories and treatments swung in and out of fashion, from a brisk, robust talking-to by a senior officer, and encouragement not to let the other men down, all the way to elaborate, personalised therapy in a specialised setting, which in Shephard's view, made the soldiers see themselves as irreparably damaged.

Shephard seems quite averse to psychiatry in general, noting unfavourably the 'industry' that sprang up around Vietnam veterans and what he calls 'the culture of trauma,' where everyone who experienced combat was almost expected to be broken by it. Shephard prefers the matter-of-fact approach of earlier doctors, who pragmatically gave exhausted soldiers a chance to rest away from the front line, and then sent them back to the fray. He rightly points out the powerful effect of expectations on the way that soldiers cope with the horrors of battle, but it's telling that he ends the book with an anecdote where a boatload of sailors had to pick up a load of bodies and body parts and take them back to harbour, and they deal (apparently effectively) with this horrific experience by singing songs and having a stiff drink together. I'm not sure that I'm entirely convinced.
 

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Going back over some familiar ground here -- this is the third of Gabor Maté's books I've read, and I've come to greatly respect his insights. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts deals specifically with addiction. Maté has worked for many years among drug addicts in one of Canada's most deprived urban areas; he also (somewhat controversially) counts himself as an addict, though his personal addiction is not to a legal or illegal drug, but rather to overwork and to the compulsive purchase of classical music CDs.

There is some overlap between this book and Maté's previous work on ADHD -- many addicts are trying to soothe their restless minds with the help of illicit substances (as well as traditional drugs like alcohol and nicotine) -- but his central point is that all addicts are fundamentally seeking to calm minds disordered by trauma. Sometimes this trauma might be inter-generational oppression, or childhood sexual abuse, but it might be a deep inner disconnection caused by loving but distracted parenting -- anything that prevented the parent from closely bonding with their infant. Maté admits that he himself has often been a less than perfect parent, and that though his own parents were loving, he was born into the profound misery and dislocation of war, and was fostered out as a baby for his own safety.

The most moving sections of this long and scholarly book are the personal stories of the addicts with whom Maté has worked. Often difficult to deal with, unreliable, violent and bitter, Maté brings us close to their pain and their longing for connection. Maté's work makes a mockery of the simplistic solutions often proposed for dealing with drug addiction, or indeed for troubled youth or dispossessed minorities, or any number of 'problem' populations. Maté's compassion and reflection should be essential reading.
 

Woman of Substances

I read Jenny Valentish's Woman of Substances as research for my current work in progress (very much in the early stages). Part memoir, part non-fiction study of women and addiction, this was a fascinating and sometimes terrifying excursion into a part of life I know very little about. As someone who was too wussy to dip more than a toetip into the world of illicit substances, it made me feel queasy to read about Valentish's many brushes with physical danger, social humiliation and bitter regret. However, Valentish is deeply compassionate toward herself and others who turn to drugs, alcohol or other addictions for escape, comefort or self-medication, and it's clear that some kind of trauma is usually at the bottom of these choices.

Valentish examines the particular social and biological difficulties faced by women and the specific hurdles that can make it especially hard for them to access treatment. Hardly any rehab facilities accept children; there is confusion about whether it's preferable to treat pyschological trauma or substance abuse first, when the two are frequently intertwined; women are more vulnerable to food disorders because of the social pressure to be judged on looks.

Valentish's candid use of her own experience makes Woman of Substances a vivid and wrenching examination of vulnerability and strength, and while it's often raw and painful, it does offer realistic hope and encouragement for others in the same boat.

Scattered Minds

Even though it's twenty five years old now, Gabor Maté's Scattered Minds remains a clear and compelling explanation of ADHD and a useful guide to what to do about it. I have a vested interest in this topic because my family has informally diagnosed my husband with (mild, manageable) ADHD tendencies. Maté himself and all his children have been diagnosed with ADD and he is breathtakingly honest about his own shortcomings as a parent as a result of the disorder.

Maté's thesis is that ADHD is the result of the infant brain failing to fully develop self-regulation, leading to the distractability, impulsivity and restlessness that are characteristic of the disorder (Maté doesn't like the term 'disorder.') A good portion of the book is devoted to exploring the concepts of attunement and attachment in parenting, which Maté believes lies at the root of the hyper-sensitivity and failure to develop self-regulation. This is familiar territory, thanks to our long-ago family therapist who was very keen on attachment. There doesn't have to be dramatic trauma for parent-child attachment to be insecure; there are all kinds of reasons why a parent might be unable to respond completely to their baby (depression, illness, instability in their lives).

Scattered Minds is highly readable and packed with good advice for parents of ADHD kids, and adults with ADHD who are now able to parent themselves and fill that gap that formed in childhood. Maté also includes an even-handed discussion of medication and what it can and cannot do; though he has taken medication himself and supported his children doing the same, he is no Ritalin cheerleader and advises caution before prescribing.
 

Atomic Habits

I had James Clear's bestselling self-help book, Atomic Habits, on hold at the library for so long, I can't remember when or why I originally reserved it -- there were dozens of people in the queue ahead of me. But lo and behold, when my elder daughter saw me reading it, she said, 'You know I've got that book somewhere, Mum...' (Unfortunately, 'somewhere' means in storage on the other side of town, so not that useful after all.)

Various members of the family asked why I was reading it, as I'm notorious in this house as having any number of habits -- morning walks, crossword, Duolingo, yoga, tea, no TV before 6pm, no Candy Crush before 4pm. For someone who works flexibly at home, I actually have a pretty tight daily schedule. But perhaps that's not so paradoxical; it's easy to drift off track without guard rails.

Atomic Habits is a clear, easy read, and a lot of what Clear presents is common sense. He describes 'habit stacking' where you add a desired new habit to an existing one (eg take your meds at the same time as you make your morning cuppa). He points out that you want to try to make good habits easy, attractive, obvious and satisfying (put out your running gear the night before, reward yourself for sucess), while bad habits, the ones you want to lose, should be difficult, invisible, unsatisfying and unattractive (lock yourself out of social media and let a friend guard your passwords, put the naughty snacks at the back of the fridge and the healthy stuff at the front). And you need to be patient. Even the best daily habits won't bring results overnight.

I must admit that I borrowed Atomic Habits mostly so I could feel smug, and after finishing it, I do. It turns out I am pretty good at forming habits. But the difference between me and James Clear is that I'm not going to make a ten million dollar career out of it!
 

Grief Works

Julia Samuel's Grief Works was recommended at the back of With the End in Mind, though it deals with a slightly different angle on death. Samuel is a therapist, and there is possibly no genre of non-fiction writing I relish more than psychological case studies. Each chapter of Grief Works tells the story of one person's grief, divided into sections like death of a partner, death of a parent, death of a sibling, and, most shatteringly, death of a child.

Obviously a handful of individual stories can't possibly cover every facet of the grief experience, but it's nonetheless illuminating to see how different people approach their loss and learn to live with a new reality (while never 'recovering'). I have a Facebook friend who is in absolute anguish after the death of his partner, and another friend whose partner died over a year ago, and even from this tiny sample I can see how different their experiences have been, though the depth of their pain is very similar. The stories in Grief Works, though brief, are very moving. One interesting observation was that it was the generations before ours, who suffered through the immense losses of two world wars, who had to suppress their mass grief to enable society to keep functioning, and it's that suppression that's been transmitted unhealthily down to us.

The books finishes up with helpful advice both for the bereaved themselves and for their friends and family trying to support them. The main thrust of that advice is just to be there, and above all to listen, and to expect grief to last much longer than perhaps we believe it will. Fear of saying or doing the wrong thing often paralyses us, and we shouldn't allow it to -- not saying anything is far more hurtful than saying something that's not perfect. Grief Works was a sensitive, fascinating and valuable contribution to my death investigations.

Queen Bees and Wannabes

I can't remember where I picked up Rosalind Wiseman's classic 2002 book about teenage girls, Queen Bees and Wannabes, which informed the making of the equally classic movie Mean Girls. It might have been around the time that I was writing novels for the Girlfriend Fiction series; I'm pretty sure that my own daughters were not teenagers yet, and I wanted all the information I could lay my hands on.

Re-reading Queen Bees and Wannabes at least a decade later, my children have passed through the teen years (well, almost -- the younger one is still technically a teen for a few more weeks) and I can appreciate how much influence this book had, not just on my writing, but on my parenting. Even though it was written before the tsunami of social media crashed over us all, before the strains of lockdown life, and before new awareness of neurodiversity and gender fluidity, there is so much wisdom in these pages. The key messages -- like keeping lines of communication open, no matter what -- are just as helpful now as they ever were.

Much of the focus of Queen Bees is on helping your child to navigate the social hierarchy of high school, and some of it does have a particularly American slant. In this edition at least (I believe there is a revised version available now) there are some glaring gaps like the ones mentioned above, but the heart of the book hasn't changed much. Wiseman insists that the most important priorities are to build and maintain trust, establish boundaries, model the behaviour you want to see. She is realistic about the issues that teenage girls face and the limits of what parents can control. Better to equip your child to solve her own problems rather than march in and to fix everything for her.

It was a relief to put this book down and realise that, despite often stormy waters, maybe we didn't do such a bad job after all.

Stolen Focus

Johann Hari is an extremely readable writer. Coming from a background in journalism, that's not really surprising. I don't always agree with everything he says, but when he claims that the world is suffering from a global crisis of attention, it's hard to argue.

In Stolen Focus, Hari doesn't just blame screens and social media for our inability to focus; poor diet and pollution also play a role, along with general exhaustion and poor sleep. He also points out that it's not just personal weakness that makes us vulnerable to eternal scrolling and constant phone-checking; these technologies are being specifically designed to be addictive. I think Hari is being optimistic in calling for an end to 'surveillance captialism.' There is just too much money tied up in advertising, and though he admits that any solution will rely on government regulation, I honestly can't see that happening either, which is a bit depressing.

Hari also takes a couple of chapters to reflect on the way we are robbing our children of the chance for mind-wandering (my own childhood was basically reading and mind-wandering), by scheduling every minute of activity and removing free play from our education systems. As far as I know, things haven't gone quite so far here in Australia as they have in the US and UK, but we are certainly heading down the same road with a focus on competitive testing and a move away from unsupervised play.

Stolen Focus is a sobering read, but I was relieved to note that I'm already following a lot of Hari's advice. I make a lot of time for reading (books!), I don't spend much time mired in social media, I strive to achieve a 'flow state' while I'm working, I let my mind wander. But as he points out, individual efforts aren't enough to solve this social crisis, in a time when we need more deep thinking and imaginative solutions than ever before. I'm afraid it might be too late to go back.

Miss Pym Disposes

 There are SO many editions of this novel, but this is the one that I pinched (borrowed) from the Westgarth Aged Care library. I've read complaints online that the solution to the 'mystery' is too easy to predict, but I think this is missing the point of Miss Pym Disposes (1948), because it's really about character, and judgment, and justice, and guilt. The setting, in a physical training college, seemed bizarre, like something Tey had invented, but it turns out she actually trained as a PE teacher in a similar institution, so we must accept that the weird details (like bells waking everyone at 5.30am and the peculiar physical exercises they study) are accurate!

Miss Lucy Pym, author of an overnight psychology bestseller (boy, I'd love to read that), lands at the college at first as a guest speaker but finds herself staying on and getting to know the students and staff more intimately. The murder itself doesn't take place until deep into the novel, and while there is a twist at the very end, the meat of the story is Miss Pym wrestling with her unexpected position as arbiter of justice -- does she reveal the piece of evidence that she has discovered, and possibly ruin several lives, or hold her tongue and let justice go unserved?

Not surprisingly, Miss Pym Disposes is a distinctly old-fashioned novel, not just in its setting, though it was refreshing to read a book peopled almost entirely by female characters. The most old-fashioned element centres on Miss Pym's assessment of her new friends: character is immutable, a criminal is born bad, and your personality can be read in the features of your face! In fact, the book ends with Lucy planning a second book based on face-reading, though even she admits that it won't prove popular with the so-called experts. Hm, wonder why?

Late Bloomer

There was a very, very long queue waiting for this book at the library -- lots of people keen to understand How an Autism Diagnosis Changed My Life. Late Bloomer by Melbourne writer Clem Bastow is a very personal account of her childhood and youth, and how being diagnosed with autism at the age of almost forty made sense of so much in her experience. Bastow was always a 'quirky' kid who was blessed with supportive and flexible parents who accommodated her preferences and never tried to shame her into behaving 'properly.' However, Bastow is critical of a school system that failed to follow up on her difficulties, which might have led to an earlier diagnosis and more help.

Interestingly, Bastow feel that the greatest benefit of diagnosis for her has been greater self-understanding -- oh, this habit is not because I'm weird or broken or a failure, it's because I'm Autistic. As the mother of a child who suspects themselves of Autism, but has struggled to see the point of an expensive diagnosis, I've found this a persuasive argument. Certainly some elements of Bastow's story struck a chord -- her insistence on eating the same meal every day, for example -- though there were also many aspects that didn't. Of course, as Bastow points out, if you've met one Autistic person, you've met one Autistic person: you can't generalise (Bastow prefers identity-first language rather than person-first).

Late Bloomer also raised some doubts in my mind about the benefits of very early intervention, which seems designed to train a young child out of their Autistic traits (like stimming) which are regarded as socially undesirable; apparently there are young Autistic people now expressing just how painful this process was for them. It was interesting to note that gender dysphoria is more common among Autistic people -- more research required.

Late Bloomer is a thoroughly engaging, often funny and sometimes disturbing story of one person's journey to identity.

Catch Up

 

Okay, I'm not sure how this happened, but I've got terribly behind in my posting. So I'm going to lump together a whole lot of books in one hit.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason -- borrowed from one of my book group ladies (I'm not actually sure who it belongs to, it's been passed around!). This is such a marvellous novel, a funny and dry story about mental illness -- not just what it's like to suffer from it, but what it's like for the support crew of the sufferer. Brilliantly written, moving, sad, clever but also often laugh out loud funny. Ooh, I've just discovered that despite this book being set in the UK, Mason is an Australian author. Yay! I need to read more of her work.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman -- as you know, I am a sucker for pop psych nonsense like this, but in this case (I always say this) I believe there is a grain of truth to the idea behind it. It's another weirdly Christian self-help book for couples with the emphasis on sticking it out no matter what, which I found very uncomfortable in one chapter in particular where the wife (why is it always the wife??) is advised to basically love-bomb her unresponsive and unpleasant husband in his preferred 'love language' until his 'love tank' fills up and he begins to reciprocate. She has to do this for six months before she has permission to give up! Apparently it worked, but it left a sour taste in my mouth. Having said that, I do think that people express and receive love in different ways and it's just as well to be aware of whether those in your life prefer 'acts of service,' 'words of affirmation,' 'physical touch.' 'quality time' or 'receiving gifts.' I know I am definitely NOT in the last category.

The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney. I bought this funny little book for my Dad who is a cloudspotter from way back. Written by the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society (don't laugh, it has over 50,000 members in 120 countries), this is a clear and simple guide to the basic cloud types, explaining the science behind their formation and including plenty of whimsical trivia along the way. The best chapter is the last, in which the author travels to remote outback Queensland to experience the Morning Glory, a truly magnificent cloud phenomenon which glider pilots can surf like a breaker. Look it up.

Knight's Castle by Edward Eager -- it occurred to me that this book, by one of my old favourite children's authors, might have some King Arthur content. Alas, it was more Ivanhoe-centred than King Arthur. Not one of Eager's strongest titles, I'm not surprised I couldn't remember much, or indeed anything, about it, and it owes a huge, and acknowledged, debt to E. Nesbit's The Magic City.

The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller -- another category of book I have a weakness for, the reading diary, reading self-help book, reading memoir, call it what you will, but this one was better than I expected (my edition has a particularly dull cover). Miller was in a stagnant period of his life when he decided to use his work commute for reading rather than Sodoku, resolving to knock over those classic novels he always claimed to have read but never had. Achieving this goal kicked off an examination of his whole life, with diversions into his reading childhood, his career, his marriage, a bizarre passionate rant about an obscure book on German rock which captures the peculiar euphoria of the book written for you. A strong example of the genre.

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch -- the most recent installment of the Rivers of London series. I have given up trying to keep track of continuity in this series, and Aaronovitch seems compelled to add more new characters with each volume, which means less and less screen time for the old favourites. Personally I would be quite happy with a story that featured only Peter, Nightingale and Beverly, but hey, it's not my world. I raced through Amongst Our Weapons and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Goldengrove Unleaving by Jill Paton Walsh -- a somewhat problematic book by my new favourite writer. Tracking down this volume (in fact two companion novels) has been my quest for some time and I was so thrilled to find it, both books in one volume. Originally published as young adult, I think they are properly adult novels, though they centre on teenagers. Clearly Paton Walsh felt a strong attachment to the St Ives area in Cornwall, because these books are also set there (like The Serpentine Cave) and her descriptions of the sea and the coast are beautiful. I did wonder, in the second book, just how so many bodies could be crammed, with apparent ease, into this one old house! And I had a massive problem with the way the character of Molly, a young girl with Down Syndrome, was portrayed, to the point where it interfered with my enjoyment of the book. I suspect this element might be the reason why a book described by the New York Times Book Review as 'a beautiful novel and an enduring one' has been so difficult to find. There was a lot of philosophical debate in Unleaving, which reminded me of Knowledge of Angels, written twenty years later. I'm left with mixed feelings.

What I Read on My Holiday

Dear reader, I had a holiday. First time since 2016. And I gloried in READING for a whole week (as well as swimming and walking along beaches and through rainforest, eating yummy food and spending quality time with my mates and my husband (and dealing remotely with various disasters unfolding at home, but that's enough of that!)). I read beside the pool, I read beside the sea, I read on the deck of the rainforest retreat, I read in an air conditioned room we dubbed 'the Singapore Sling Room' for its cane furniture. And I also read on the plane and in the airport.

I quickly whipped through the three books I'd brought with me. First up was Merlin's Harp by anne Eliot Compton, a King Arthur tale from the refreshing point of view of Fey woman Nivienne, whose life intersects with Arthur's at crucial moments. Like The Mists of Avalon, this novel puts women's experience front and centre, with the added twist of Nivienne's Fey powers giving her extra insight -- she can see auras, and scry the future in water and flame. At times there were odd repetitions that gave the feeling that the story had been written over a long period of time and the author had lost track of the joins, but this was a fresh and lyrical take on the Arthur story that I very much enjoyed.

Next I finished Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, by American surgeon Atul Gawande. This is his first book, though I read Being Mortal first. Complications is more of a collection of essays on various medical topics -- weight, nausea, mistakes, mysterious cures -- and Gawande takes us behind the Staff Only doors to witness the pressure, the care, the ambition, the stress and the glories of a doctor's daily routine. Gawande's clear, calm, engaging voice makes him an ideal companion through this difficult terrain, and I hope he keeps on writing.

My third book was a re-read of an old favourite that I found in a street library but weirdly didn't own already: Dorothy L. Sayers' Clouds of Witness. This is a relatively early Lord Peter Wimsey novel, about his brother being accused of murder, set before Peter meets Harriet, but it was hugely fun to read. It was odd to reflect that it's almost exactly a hundred years old, and that Wimsey flying back across the Atlantic with vital evidence was a feat of death-defying courage, not a routine commute!

Time for a visit to a secondhand bookshop (luckily Cairns has several), where I picked up the haul you can see in the photo above. I rapidly finished off Personality Plus for Couples by Florence Littaeur and spent the next couple of days telling my holiday companions whether they were Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholy or Choleric. Littaeur's books are very heavy on Jesus, and God's plan (which seems to be that all couples should stay together no matter what, which I cannot endorse) but if you can get past that, I actually think the personality stuff is spot on!

Next was the second of Jill Paton Walsh's Imogen Quy (rhymes with why) mysteries, A Piece of Justice. I settled happily into this Cambridge-set cosy mystery, centred on a residential college in the 1990s and featuring quilting, which was a nice feminist twist! I immediately bought the first volume in the four book series, The Wyndham Case, on my Kindle, and read almost all of it on the plane on the way home (sob). Another good thing about Imogen Quy books is that they are nice and short. I can definitely see why Jill Paton Walsh was the right person to take up Dorothy L. Sayers' mantle and finish Peter and Harriet's story.

Finally I hoed into Kevin Crossley-Holland's retelling of Norse legends with Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings. I don't know much about the Norse gods and I've only watched one Thor movie, but Crossley-Holland's versions are wonderfully resonant, well researched and conjure up an entire vanished world. Each myth comes with a detailed note explaining which sources the author drew upon, and how he sees the myths fitting together (they are often wildly contradictory). I can see now why Thor, Odin and Loki made such appealing characters for blockbusters -- there is a lot to work with!

And thus I returned home, having read seven books in six days. Perfect!