Sarah McDonald’s Holy Cow was the successor to Almost French in the women-go-travelling-and-find-themselves publishing explosion that was spearheaded by Random House a few years ago. Now Macdonald is back: back in Australia and back in the book market. This time she’s using her name as the attention-grabber for Come away with Me, a collection of short nonfiction tales from travel writers and other types.
Come away with Me (ed by Sarah Macdonald, Bantam, $22.95 pb, ISBN 1863254579, December) **
Sarah McDonald’s Holy Cow was the successor to Almost French in the women-go-travelling-and-find-themselves publishing explosion that was spearheaded by Random House a few years ago. Now Macdonald is back: back in Australia and back in the book market. This time she’s using her name as the attention-grabber for Come away with Me, a collection of short nonfiction tales from travel writers and other types. There are some terrific names assembled here—Nick Earls, Christopher Kremmer, Peter Moore—but unfortunately they do not save what I found to be a patchy collection of writing. The collection begins well with a great story about the saunas of Russia from Irris Makler, before descending into Nikki Gemmell’s self-indulgent tale of a trip to EuroDisney. It’s at this point that the book seems to turn into one for people that used to travel. The collection closes with a piece from Sarah Macdonald about moving back to Sydney to have her first child, which has echoes of the Gemmell piece. I’m sure this book will find a market, the cover design fits well with the genre and the names are recognisable to readers, but I would recommend it with caution. One small irritation: the author’s name across the headers of their pages would have been much more useful than the title of the story and the collection.
Eliza Metcalfe is AB&P’s editorial coordinator
This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2004, Thorpe-Bowker