More October Reading

The Cane was a book club pick. I thought it would be terrible, as the cover was really junky looking. It's actually okay crime. A lot of different viewpoints of a girl that goes missing in the cane in Far North Queensland. It's set in the 1970s so I found the racism and the sexism and the attitudes a little hard going. I know it was the characters being offensive but it just made me recoil a bit when they used certain slurs or said gross things. Not saying that wasn't realistic, just not for me (and today's standards, and obviously the author was critical of those characters). Anyway, it was interesting enough. I thought it was better than The Dry which I didn't really like at all and worked out straight away, this one there were many suspects and it was unclear until the end.

Thought this book would be an interesting update - it's good if you are worried about HRT (It's called MRT now I believe). It has interesting personal stories littered throughout. I don't know the author but I gather she's famous. I still recommend Dr Jen Gunter's book over this for interest, history, sexism and medical advice but this might be more appealing to some. She did this weird bit about self esteem and included wearing matching underwear and I just found that so odd (especially when she implied everyone wore the same bra for three days - no one in Australia could ever do that! Too hot!) Small point but it really made me stop and wonder!

This Agatha Christie was a bit of fun. Hercule Poirot - it's funny how we have preference to the stories with certain detectives, even by the same author. In it is this wonderful bit where one of the racist  witnesses says they fought in the war so that everyone could go back to where they came from and stay there and Hercule comments to himself that he had learnt 'that every single individual had a different version of the theme "What did we fight the war for?" '. It was interesting to see all the 'migrants are criminals' and other tricks of racism that are being used today were also used in 1948 when the book was published.  This book also looks at the role of women and that many went off to join the Wrens to get away from marriage expectation and felt that they changed on their return but that those that stayed home did not. Both psychologically and societally, it has some interesting insights, even if the crime itself feels vaguely familiar to another of her works.

I went to the Writers Festival Talk on Feminism and the affect of pop culture on it. It was really interesting and while I hadn't intended to read the book, I think I will track it down. I think often about why we (I) didn't react to Sinead O'Conner or Monica Lewinsky more appropriately at the time. It sits very uncomfortably with me and who I was. I wonder how we were raised to never question a lot of sexism, or rather, to notice it was abnormal. So this book is added to my TBR list.

Love the panelling of the auditorium that cleverly looks like bookshelves!