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Reviewed

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Books I have com­plet­ed and post­ed my thoughts about

The Ninth Life Of A Diamond Miner: A Memoir

Grace Tame has nev­er walked on mid­dle ground. From a young age, her life was defined by uncer­tain­ty — by trau­ma and strength, sad­ness and hope, ter­ri­ble lows and won­drous highs. As a teenag­er she found the courage to speak up after expe­ri­enc­ing awful and ongo­ing child sex­u­al abuse. This fight to find her voice would not be her last. In 2021 Grace stepped square­ly into the pub­lic eye as the Aus­tralian of the Year, and was the cat­a­lyst for a tidal wave of con­ver­sa­tion and action. Aus­tralians from all walks of life were inspired and moved by her fire and pas­sion. Here she was using her voice, and encour­ag­ing oth­ers to use theirs too. The Ninth Life of a Dia­mond Min­er is Grace’s sto­ry, in Grace’s words, on Grace’s terms. Like Grace, it is sharply intel­li­gent, deeply felt and often blis­ter­ing­ly fun­ny. And, as with all her work, it offers a con­struc­tive and opti­mistic vision for a bet­ter future for all of us.

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The Escape Artist

In April 1944 a teenag­er named Rudolf Vrba was plan­ning a dar­ing and unprece­dent­ed escape from Auschwitz. After hid­ing in a pile of tim­ber planks for three days while 3,000 SS men and their blood­hounds searched for him, Vrba and his fel­low escapee Fred Wet­zler would even­tu­al­ly cross Nazi-occu­pied Poland on foot, as pen­ni­less fugi­tives. Their mis­sion: to tell the world the truth of the Final Solu­tion. Vrba would pro­duce from mem­o­ry a breath­tak­ing report of more than thir­ty pages reveal­ing the true nature and scale of Auschwitz — a report that would find its way to Roo­sevelt, Churchill and the Pope, even­tu­al­ly sav­ing over 200,000 Jew­ish lives. A thrilling his­to­ry with enor­mous his­tor­i­cal impli­ca­tions, THE ESCAPE ARTIST is the extra­or­di­nary sto­ry of a com­plex man who would seek escape again and again: first from Auschwitz, then from his past, even from his own name. In telling his sto­ry, Jonathan Freed­land — the jour­nal­ist, broad­cast­er and acclaimed, mul­ti-mil­lion copy sell­ing author of the Sam Bourne nov­els — ensures that Rudolf Vrba’s hero­ic mis­sion will also escape oblivion.

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Syria’s Secret Library

The extra­or­di­nary sto­ry of how the besieged Syr­i­an town of Daraya found hope and inspi­ra­tion in a secret under­ground library. Daraya lies on the fringe of Dam­as­cus, just south west of the Syr­i­an Cap­i­tal. Yet it lives in anoth­er world. Besieged by Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment forces since 2011, its peo­ple were deprived of food, bom­bard­ed by bombs and mis­siles, and shot at by snipers. Its build­ings lay in ruins; office build­ings, shops and fam­i­ly homes shat­tered by the con­stant shelling from gov­ern­ment forces. But deep beneath this scene of fright­en­ing dev­as­ta­tion lay a secret library. No signs marked its pres­ence. While the streets above echoed with rifle fire and shelling, the secret world below was a haven of peace and tran­quil­li­ty. Books, long rows of them, lined almost every wall. Bloat­ed vol­umes with grand leather cov­ers. Tat­tered old tomes with bare­ly read­able spines. Pock­et sized guides to Syr­i­an poet­ry. Reli­gious works with gaudy gold-let­ter­ing and no-non­sense ref­er­ence books, all arranged in well-ordered lines. But this pre­cious horde of books was not bought from pub­lish­ers, book ware­hous­es, or loaned by oth­er libraries. Many peo­ple had risked their lives to save books from the dev­as­ta­tion of war. Because to them, the secret library was a sym­bol of hope — of their deter­mi­na­tion to lead a mean­ing­ful exis­tence and to rebuild their frac­tured soci­ety. This is the sto­ry of an extra­or­di­nary place and the peo­ple who made it hap­pen. It is also a book about human resilience and val­ues. And through it all is thread­ed the very won­der­ful, uni­ver­sal love for books and the hope they can bring.

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Shackleton

An author­i­ta­tive biog­ra­phy of Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton from polar adven­tur­er Ran­ulph Fiennes. In 1915, Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton’s attempt to tra­verse the Antarc­tic was cut short when his ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. The dis­as­ter left Shack­le­ton and his men alone at the frozen South Pole, fight­ing for their lives. Their sur­vival and escape is the most famous adven­ture in his­to­ry. Shack­le­ton is an engag­ing new account of the adven­tur­er, his life and his incred­i­ble lead­er­ship under the most extreme of cir­cum­stances. Writ­ten by polar adven­tur­er Sir Ran­ulph Fiennes who fol­lowed in Shack­le­ton’s foot­steps, he brings his own unique insights to bear on these infa­mous expe­di­tions. Shack­le­ton is both re-appraisal and a vale­dic­tion, sep­a­rat­ing the man from the myth he has become.

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Signs Of Life: To The Ends Of The Earth With A Doctor

In 2010 Stephen Fabes rode away from his career as an emer­gency doc­tor in Lon­don, on a jour­ney that would see him ride the length of six con­ti­nents; a cycling cir­cum­nav­i­ga­tion which took six years. Signs of Life is his sto­ry of a world of chal­lenges — from Tajik camel spi­ders to camp­ing on a frozen lake in Mon­go­lia, to coax­ing anoth­er few kilo­me­tres out of ‘Ol’ Patchy’ (his faith­ful inner tube), and of fas­ci­nat­ing inter­ac­tions with the peo­ple of sev­en­ty-five coun­tries; from hos­pitable nomads and curi­ous chil­dren to vin­dic­tive bor­der guards and gang­sters. It is also a sto­ry of med­i­cine call­ing Stephen back; he recalls his first pro­nounce­ment of death as he exam­ines the frozen body of a monk high in the Himalayas; he is drawn into treat­ing patients at a lep­rosy clin­ic; he helps refugees at The Jun­gle in Calais. All the while, he reflects on how soci­eties treat their most vul­ner­a­ble and draws com­par­isons with the lost souls he had treat­ed back home in Lon­don; peo­ple who he resolves to tru­ly lis­ten to, when he returns to his vocation.

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Nala’s World

Insta­gram phe­nom­e­non @1bike1world Dean Nichol­son reveals the full sto­ry of his life-chang­ing friend­ship with res­cue cat Nala and their inspir­ing adven­tures togeth­er on a bike jour­ney around the world. When 30-year-old Dean Nichol­son set off from Scot­land to cycle around the world, his aim was to learn as much as he could about our trou­bled plan­et. But he had­n’t bar­gained on the lessons he’d learn from his unlike­ly com­pan­ion. Three months after leav­ing home, on a remote road in the moun­tains between Mon­tene­gro and Bosnia, he came across an aban­doned kit­ten. Some­thing about the pierc­ing eyes and plain­tive meow­ing of the bedrag­gled lit­tle cat proved irre­sistible. He could­n’t leave her to her fate, so he put her on his bike and then, with the help of local vets, nursed her back to health. Soon on his trav­els with the cat he named Nala, they forged an unbreak­able bond — both curi­ous, inde­pen­dent, resilient and adven­tur­ous. The video of how they met has had 20 mil­lion views and their Insta­gram has grown to almost 750k fol­low­ers — and still count­ing! Expe­ri­enc­ing the kind­ness of strangers, vis­it­ing refugee camps, res­cu­ing ani­mals through Europe and Asia, Dean and Nala have already learned that the unex­pect­ed can be pret­ty amaz­ing. Togeth­er with Gar­ry Jenk­ins, writer with James Bowen of the best­selling A Street Cat Named Bob, Dean shares the extra­or­di­nary tale of his and Nala’s inspir­ing and heart-warm­ing adven­ture together.

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