A Thousand and one Australians

Despite persistence, the format of this book just didn't sit well with me. It also appears to have dated badly. But, perhaps I have jumped ahead of myself here, and I should explain the book.

Jeanne Heal is British, and decides to make the short trip (only two days away... she explains) Australia, to meet her 1001 Australians. This book is primarily about people, but is organised geographically - mostly a chapter for each state. Then Heal writes a little about each person she meets - their name, their job, a little about them. This might be as short as a paragraph, or up to perhaps three paragraphs, seldom as much as a page. There is information about places, buildings etc, but really it just forms the background to the people.

This book was written in 1959, so at this point is 60 years old. While some of the people are famous enough to be known now (Dame Nellie Melba, Robert Menzies (maybe to some?) the vast majority are (no offense intended) not particularly special. What they demonstrate is a cross section of society, people of that era, their thoughts and their work, and often their generosity to a visitor.

For me, to have a paragraph each about 4 or 5 people per page doesn't engage me. Not enough information to build enough of a picture of the person, how they fit into society etc. A lot of the time also, the thoughts and comments are topical for the time - and therefore don't all seem very relevant now, giving a dated feel to the book.

Without enough to bind these paragraphs into an engaging narrative it becomes all too easy to start skimming, looking for key words of interest. While it is, of course, a travel a narrative, and the author does an excellent job of covering almost every square mile of Australia, it just didn't capture my interest enough to make it to three stars.

2 stars.