Category Archives: Non Fiction

This House of Grief

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This house of grief – Helen Garner

About the Book

Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain. On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner‘s obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict. In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice. This House of Grief is a heartbreaking and unputdownable book by one of Australia’s most admired writers.

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Orange is the new black

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orange-is-the-new-blackOrange is the new black by Piper Kerman

 

Abstract

With her career, live-in boyfriend and loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the rebllious young woman who got mixed up with drug runners and delivered a suitcase of drug money to Europe over a decade ago. But when she least expexts it, her reckless past catches up with her; convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at an infamous women’s prison in Connecticut, Piper becomes inmate #1187-424. From her first strip search to her final release, she learns to navigate this trange world with its arbitrary rules and codes, its unpredictable, even dangerous relationships. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with tokens of generosity, hard truths and simple acts of acceptance. Now a major original televison series, Piper’s story is a fascinating, heartbreaking and often hilarious insight into life on the inside.

 

Comments

The United States has the highest number of people in prison in the whole world.

The author of the book was incarcerated for 15 months in a US prison after pleading guilty to drug0-related crime.

One reader was really surprised at how much she enjoyed the book. The insights into the US prison system were very interesting.

The book reviews were not good, but the book group found it a good read.

The writing is not in a classic style but it was easy to read and the group is glad to have read it.

 

Read by – The Second Tuesday Evening Book Group

 

The bush – a Book Group review

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9781926428215The bush – Don Watson

Comments –
Reader 1: Some parts tedious, others insightful, would have liked more time to read it, focuses on the dark sides of life in Australia.
Reader 2: Explored the ‘myth of mateship”, settlers treating the Aborigines as subhumans, treatment of  returned soldiers who were given poor blocks, degradation of land by settlers, sense of entitlement by many people on the land.
Reader 3: A lot of references that showed the flow of the book. Too much to read and absorb. Financial considerations for marmers is main consideration. Fails as an academic work.
Reader 4: Dealt with the grim realities of life on the land, acknowledges the role of the Aboriginal people in seasonal burning which encourages new growth whereas the settlers with their European  farmiong and grazing practices had negative impacts such as increased salinity and erosion.
Reader 5: Really liked the book, admired his depth of knowledge, speaks of personal experiences visiting country areas, didn’t blame early settlers for their practices. Interesting description of bush “characters” that he met.
Reader 6: Too long, too detailed in places. Interesting, learnt quite a lot. Shared personal experience of 1955 flood, mentioned in the book.

Read by – First Wednesday Book Club

 

Why does E=mc²? (and why should we care?) – A Book Club Review

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Why Does E=MC2? : (And Why Should We Care?) - Brian CoxWhy does E=mc²? (and why should we care?)

Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw

Summary

What does E=mc2 actually mean? Dr. Brian Cox and Professor Jeff Forshaw go on a journey to the frontier of twenty-first century science to unpack Einstein’s famous equation. Explaining and simplifying notions of energy, mass, and light–while exploding commonly held misconceptions–they demonstrate how the structure of nature itself is contained within this equation.

Along the way, we visit the site of one of the largest scientific experiments ever conducted: the now-famous Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic particle accelerator capable of re-creating conditions that existed fractions of a second after the Big Bang.

A collaboration between one of the youngest professors in the United Kingdom and a distinguished popular physicist, Why Does E=mc2? is one of the most exciting and accessible explanations of the theory of relativity.

Comments

  • Fascinating. Could not keep up. Could not understand some of the concepts. Don’t understand “gravity”. Difficult.
  • Difficult. Loved the book though. Love the author. Not meant to be simple, but not really simple enough for not having studied science. Love all this stuff – how the world works.
  • Difficult to  understand but enjoyable in parts.
  • Enjoyed the discussion. Better as a TV presentation. Unable to grasp concepts.

Read by: First Wednesday book Club.