Natural Born Keller by Amanda Keller

I felt after reading this book exactly the same as I did after reading Bonkers by Jennifer Saunders. Underwhelmed. So you’ve had a nice suburban life and then you grew up to be funny and pleasant. Some bumps along the way, nothing catastrophic. Some solid achievements in a male dominated field. You are human and I like you. The only point at which I was filled with the “bed shaking” laughter promised to me by my heroes Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb was Amanda’s dry recall that her husband’s porn name- the combination of your first pet and first street- was Carol Eastcote. I laughed and laughed and laughed at that.

In searching for a link to Jennifer Saunders’ autobiography I also discovered that there was an unauthorised biography written the same year. ~OooooOOOOOOohhhhh~. I’m sad that it’s not salacious, otherwise I would read that too. In the end she said it was “surprisingly kind and nice about me”. Boo.

The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland

When my mum said she was going to read this I teased her because the breathless back cover endorsement was "by the author of The Bachelor recaps on Mamamia". High praise indeed. Ew, I said. Mum reads Mamamia. I wasn't wrong but I wasn't exactly right, either. She did have a much tougher childhood that I could ever have imagined. Alcoholic and drug-using parents, no stability, then shipped off to boarding school paid for by distant rich relatives who loved her only enough to pay for her schooling, but not enough to let her live with them when she finished year 12. Ouch to it all. I am glad that she found the loving embrace of blogging to be helpful to her. I also fully support her title, because clearly, the fictional construct of the "cool girl" is one of the most loathsome beasts to have ever sprung from a male imagination. Like Dracula or Slender Man, it will feed on your soul until your dead. I'm happy for Rosie Waterland that she's not dead.

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

I do like Mindy Kaling. I too am someone who backs myself, in general, and it's comforting to know that there are others out there of approximately my age and conventional attractiveness-level who also back themselves. I mean, look how much I back myself! I have just now put myself on the same level as someone who wrote an award-wining Broadway play, won two Emmys for TV writing, runs her own TV show, and wrote two books. I am a university manager. My achievements have been, let's say, more muted. I think she's got solid points. I think the point that she makes, and one I have come to on my own as well, is something that I understand is also a part of cognitive behaviour therapy. If you start to freak out or doubt yourself, have a look at the evidence. Is there evidence to suggest that you are stupid, make mistakes, or lack professional judgement? There is not. (I mean, you do have to shore this up with good professional judgement, hard work and reliability). So go forth and make that call! Mindy and I want you to back yourself.


Here it is time to link to one of my favourite blogs of the moment: Ask A Manager. Excellent work advice.

Ducks on the Pond by Anne Summers

Last week I read 'Ducks on the Pond' by Anne Summers. I really admire radicals. I am way too repressed to just let everything go, but I love the idea of potentially doing that. Imagine the freedom to stop caring, just let your hair grow and wear no makeup and walk out on your marriage and advocate for things you think are righteous. Amazing. But I am too afraid of disappointing my parents, so no, I won't. But good for Anne Summers for doing just that. I also loved how Anne and her circle of radicals are just outside my own. Anne herself is good friends with my boss. Two of her co-conspirators, Gail Hambly and Daniela Torsh, are mothers of friends of mine. Another, Ann Curthoys, taught me history at uni. I suppose I should go back and read 'Dammed Whores and God's Police' now. Imagine how radical those thoughts were at the time! Thank you, second wave feminists.

Happy birthday

Happy birthday, me. I am 35. Shudder. I've decided to blog another year of reading, only this one will have a theme. My absolute favourite books to read are memoirs by women. Famous women, non-famous women, ones I like, ones I don't, the whole gamut. So, I'm doing a whole year where that's all I read.
I'm going to sneak in two early entrants that I read last week. Firstly, Forever Today by Deborah Wearing. Here is the outline: Deborah, then a young PR employee at London department store John Lewis joins the staff choir and falls in love with the conductor, Clive Wearing, a conductor and music producer for the BBC who is quite a bit older than her. They get married and about a year later he gets a virus that turns out to be herpes simplex which then infects his brain very, very badly. He has encephalitis and huge amounts of brain damage (apparently there are literal holes in his brain tissue) with the resulting effect that he has the worst case of amnesia ever recorded. His memory is about 20 or 30 seconds in total. Every 30 seconds he 'wakes up' confused, convinced that he's been in a coma that has lasted years and years. The only thing he can remember is Deborah, and music. She advocates and cares for him. She divorced and then remarried him some years later and it's all fascinating and horrifying.

I also read Body Lengths by Leisel Jones (and ghostwriter). It was extracted in the weekend Herald a month or so ago, which is why I picked it up. Insanely talented and dedicated swimmer, an Olympian at age 15, wins a million medals but then also gets depressed and tries to kill herself at high altitude training camp. I guess it's just interesting to hear her say that she thought things would be different when she won a gold medal; her friends would like her more, her boyfriend wouldn't cheat on her, she'd finally be happy with her body. Then she wins the gold and everything's the same. I think for some years I also lived my life as if I was waiting for one special thing to happen, and then everything would finally be good and I could actually start living. I try not to do that anymore. Me and Leisel.

I happened to read Body Lengths in the same few days as I read These Things Happen by Greg Fleet. It occurs to me that there are several points in that book where Fleety, a bald junkie with none of this own teeth left, reflects on his looks and decides that he's quite ok. No model, but you know, fine, he's good enough, never had a problem with the ladies. Meanwhile Leisel, tall, blonde, athletic, with 8 Olympic gold medals tried to kill herself because her coaches thought she was fat. Men, what's your self esteem secret? Oh yeah. Patriarchy.

Onwards to a years of other women's lives.