Reading for the New Year

I’m halfway through reading “Wifework” at the moment and am really enjoying it. It deals with the division of labour (both physical and emotional) within marriages from a sociological and evolutionary psychological framework. The author has been through a divorce or two so it’s important to take what she says with a grain of salt. Still, it’s a fantastic read and it’s really opening my eyes as to what I need to be doing to make my relationship with Cam more equitable.

I’ve been given Thomas (not Milton or Kinky) Friedman’s book “Hot, Flat and Crowded” which deals with the changing nature of the world and how we need a green revolution in our economics and public policy in order to stave off all sorts of threats. I’m looking forward to reading this one and I have a feeling it’ll be loaned out quite a lot.

I just finished Anne Summers’ “Gamble for Power” about the 1983 election and the gambles that both the ALP made in dumping Hayden for Hawke and the Liberals made in their pork-barrelling. It’s clear to see how the Libs’ 1983 campaign has shaped their recent campaigns and that’s no surprise really, given that Howard was Fraser’s Treasurer for so long.

I’m glad it was about the size of a short novel because it’s 25 years since the election, I wasn’t alive, it didn’t involve a constitutional crisis and it can simply be explained as a party finally supporting its fresh, new leader (Hawke) which gave the country the extra push to kick out a tired Prime Minister who’d been in the job for eight years. There’s probably a lot to be said about comparisons between 1983 and 2008 but Rudd’s no Hawke, even if he was more popular than Beazley’s Haydenesque character.

What are you reading? What are you planning to read?