The Girl Booker

The Girl Booker

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Well, this is awkward...

I have been doing plenty of reading recently, but didn't quite feel like writing about any of it. I'm now in a bit of a quandary over whether or not I should mention these books on the blog at all, or just pretend the previous month never happened. The last time I was faced with a dilemma like this was the school swimming trip in year four. One of the teachers found a pair of underpants on the ground and waved them about like she was stranded on a desert island and trying to attract the attention of an overhead rescue plane. "Who do THESE belong to? Everyone? KIDS!! EVERYONE!!! I have found some undies and THEY MUST BELONG TO SOMEBODY!" *waves embarrassing underpants extremely vigorously from the end of excessively straight arm*

On that particular occasion, the humiliation of owning up was too great, so I kept quiet and went commando for the afternoon. TODAY I am a far more mature and together person so have decided on the nobler course of action. More importantly, the situation does not involve undergarments so I will give you a brief (ha ha. I am hilarious!) run down of what I have been reading lately.

Cooked; a Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan
Full of super fascinating facts and ideas. It inspired me to preserve some limes. Yesterday was three weeks from preserving day so I opened up the jar and was pleased to discover it worked! I shall now spend the next 12 months trying to think of recipes that could do with the addition of the world's saltiest ingredient. On a critical note, I felt he tried to force a structure on the material that didn't really work and that irritated me at times but not enough to stop reading.


Out of Shape; Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit by Mel Campbell
I felt this book asked a lot of great questions, but didn't really explore the answers to my satisfaction. So it certainly gave me a lot to think about and I think it was a great subject to tackle. I really enjyed reading it but did feel left wanting more.


(Quarterly Essay 50) Unfinished Business: Sex, Freedom and Misogyny by Anna Goldsworthy
Brilliant, spot on, thought provoking. I appreciate Goldsworthy's ability to look at situations in an unbiased, clear-headed manner, and draw thoroughly excellent conclusions from her material.