by Chloe Hooper
Discussion to be led by KM
Some background links to get you started:
- Review by Robert Drewe in The Sydney Morning Herald
- Article by Brigid Delaney in The Guardian
- Review by Jack Cameron Stanton in Sydney Review of Books
- Hooper discusses the book with host Anna Krien at The Wheeler Centre (video)
- Publisher's page for the book (Penguin)
- Australian Story episode about the fires (video)
What we discussed about the book:
- the style of writing - did we find it read like a thriller (i.e. fiction)?
- Did the book meet/exceed our expectations of what it would be about?
- We wondered what happened with Brendan's family afterwards?
- Which characters (keeping in mind this is a work of non-fiction) were portrayed in a very likeable fashion? And vice versa?
- Was there ever a DSE ute in the area?
- The impact of the coal/electricity industries on the social demographics of towns in the area
And then we were distracted onto:
- Memories of Black Saturday - where we each were when we heard about the fires
- How do you determine whether something is done 'on purpose'?
- How fascinating the description of the work of wildfire investigators was
- What is the psychology of firestarting?
In other news:
- We discussed the prevalence of sequins in the shops at the moment - and the theory that sequins = pessimism in the economy
- We debriefed about various travels - Greece, Edinburgh Bookfest, Europe
Ratings
Range: 2 to 9
Average: 7.16
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