NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
The Pulling
Adele Dumont, Scribe, $29.99

Early on in this engrossing account of living with trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling), Adele Dumont aptly quotes D.H. Lawrence, for there is a compelling Lawrentian rawness to the way she depicts her condition and its possible origins. The chapters might be described as essays, but they are as much a kind of discontinuous memoir as well. She takes the reader into her family life, the fear and respect that defines her complex relationship with her mother, who was prone to outbursts of anger and moods, and her father, who ominously touched his hair when reading, and who often retreated into books. Among the many layers The Pulling contains, including her experience of therapy, is entwined with the shame and self-disgust her ambivalence about her condition, “a world of its own … destructive, but … creative”.

Pitfall
Christopher Pollon, UQP, $34.99

The conundrum that this study by Canadian investigative journalist Christopher Pollon seeks to address is if we are to achieve international climate goals such as net-zero by 2050 we are going to need more metals and minerals than ever before (for batteries alone).

But the mammoth global mining industry (the biggest being BHP, worth about $160 billion) that will dig these metals up is one of the greatest polluters on earth. Whether you call it a paradox or a Faustian pact, it’s a problem. Most of the mines may be in developing countries (so-called “sacrifice zones”) that the developed West rarely sees, but the damage affects us all. Mining, says Pollon, has to change. For a start, we don’t need to mine gold or diamonds. The mines do huge damage and they are of no use combating climate change.

Girl Friday
Kristine Philipp, Hardie Grant, $36.99

When Kristine Philipp landed her first job as a girl Friday at the age of 15 in 1975, she assumed that she would work one day a week. Forty years later, after working mostly in administration in universities and colleges, as well as being a masseuse, stand-up comedian and more, she knows a lot more about work and the way it defines us, especially the challenges for women in the workplace. Include a tough childhood, drug addiction and hep C (as well as an honours degree, against the odds), and what you get is a stand-and-deliver record of a complex, diverse, happy and sad life. Above all, it’s her strength of spirit that comes through, evidenced in her continual determination to reinvent herself, ultimately as a writer. This is not just a memoir of a working life, but a meditation on the way we so often value life in job-based, productive terms.

Seven Against Thebes
Stephen Dando-Collins, Turner Publishing, $32.99

Before the Magnificent Seven rode into film history, there was Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, the classical template it drew on, even if the film’s director didn’t acknowledge it. In this dramatisation of the ancient Greek tale, Stephen Dando-Collins starts with Oedipus, his eye-piercing moment of truth when he gives up the throne of Thebes to his two sons, and the aftermath: a hotbed of inter-family infamy that led to the formation of the original Seven, their quest being to overthrow the imposter King of Thebes. It’s an epic tale, and Dando-Collins, in his 46th book, recreates it with a thriller-like mix of drama, melodrama and theatrical dialogue. Whether it’s true or not, and he’s much concerned with this, suggesting that the Sphinx may actually have been a female highway robber, it’s a ripping, ancient blockbuster.

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