Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #863 The Book That Kylie Couldn't Put Down
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
- 0:07Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just once answers.
- 0:10Speaker 1: Now, it's been a while since we've done this book club, Kylie.
- 0:15Speaker 1: You've been reading books. I've been reading books.
- 0:17Speaker 3: And once a month or thereabouts we make a bit
- 0:19Speaker 3: of a departure from parenting and just share I don't know,
- 0:22Speaker 3: life stuff, the things that we're reading, the things that
- 0:25Speaker 3: we've been inspired by, all that we haven't because.
- 0:28Speaker 1: We know that everyone loves a good book, well almost
- 0:30Speaker 1: everyone loves a good book, so this is not going
- 0:33Speaker 1: to be a surprise to you. But I have about
- 0:34Speaker 1: seven books that I can talk about from the last month,
- 0:37Speaker 1: month and a half since we last recorded a book
- 0:39Speaker 1: club podcast. How many have you got for us?
- 0:41Speaker 2: I've been really slow the last couple of months. I
- 0:44Speaker 2: picked up a book. It was six hundred and twenty
- 0:46Speaker 2: eight pages.
- 0:46Speaker 1: I'm looking at the book that you've got on the desk.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Is that the one that you're going to talk about?
- 0:50Speaker 1: Is I don't know what the word is. It's a tone.
- 0:53Speaker 1: It looks like it's heavy.
- 0:57Speaker 2: And so I think that that may have had something
- 1:00Speaker 2: to do with that.
- 1:00Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. Not to mention the fact that we're
- 1:02Speaker 1: running a household with all these kids, and we've become grandparents.
- 1:06Speaker 2: I've got two this month.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Okay too, Well, why don't you go first and we'll go.
- 1:10Speaker 1: You me, you me. Let's hear about your first book.
- 1:13Speaker 1: So the first book I.
- 1:13Speaker 2: Read was Kate Morton's Homecoming. This was the six hundred
- 1:17Speaker 2: and twenty eight pages. It's like the Bible. It was massive,
- 1:21Speaker 2: and I was really excited to pick this book up. Yeah,
- 1:24Speaker 2: but I was also really daunted by just how big
- 1:26Speaker 2: it was. And to be honest, while Kate has actually
- 1:31Speaker 2: crafted a ridiculously enthralling and captivating story, her beginning was
- 1:38Speaker 2: actually quite confusing, and because of the space in my life,
- 1:44Speaker 2: not being able to read it with any level of
- 1:46Speaker 2: continuity or consistency meant that each time I picked it up,
- 1:50Speaker 2: I kind of had to read back over what I'd
- 1:52Speaker 2: read to kind of get a sense of where I
- 1:55Speaker 2: was at and where she was going.
- 1:57Speaker 1: Sometimes an author makes you work a bit harder than
- 1:59Speaker 1: you've got the capacity to work. It's not necessarily poor writing.
- 2:02Speaker 2: No, and I don't think it was. I think that literally,
- 2:05Speaker 2: normally I would have read every night, yea, but this
- 2:07Speaker 2: would often be you know, four or five days between.
- 2:11Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And if you're taking that big of a gap,
- 2:13Speaker 1: you kind of can't remember the names of the character
- 2:15Speaker 1: or who's related to who and how.
- 2:17Speaker 2: And there's lots of different perspectives that she's writing from,
- 2:20Speaker 2: so kind of taking it from all of those different
- 2:22Speaker 2: perspectives got a little bit confusing because of the length
- 2:26Speaker 2: of time span between each read. But in saying that,
- 2:31Speaker 2: by the time I got to kind of the crux,
- 2:35Speaker 2: once everything fell into place, I was so captivated. I
- 2:39Speaker 2: didn't want to eat, I didn't want to sleep. I
- 2:41Speaker 2: just wanted to read I love that and find out
- 2:44Speaker 2: what was happening. And not only that, she completely blew
- 2:48Speaker 2: me out of the water. Every conceivable outcome I had
- 2:52Speaker 2: thought I knew just went out the window and it
- 2:55Speaker 2: was none of them.
- 2:56Speaker 1: So in thirty seconds or less, what's the book about?
- 3:00Speaker 2: Book set in the Adelaide Hills in the nineteen late
- 3:03Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, and it's a small towel and there is
- 3:08Speaker 2: a family who was murdered on Christmas Eve and so.
- 3:13Speaker 1: Sounds kind of morbid. So this is like a true
- 3:15Speaker 1: crime kind of novel. Yeah, member, Maybe it's not a
- 3:17Speaker 1: true crime. Maybe it's a fiction crime. Yeah, but it's
- 3:20Speaker 1: a crime novel.
- 3:21Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's definite Obviously there's a dark side to
- 3:24Speaker 2: its sounds like it, but it's it's really a story
- 3:28Speaker 2: about family history and how march the relationships that you
- 3:34Speaker 2: have within your families determine your ability to want to
- 3:38Speaker 2: protect the people you love. So it's one of those
- 3:43Speaker 2: stories where it really kind of, I guess, taps into
- 3:47Speaker 2: your consciousness and your sense of what's right and wrong
- 3:51Speaker 2: and what you would do for the ones that you love.
- 3:54Speaker 1: Okay, now, you were telling me a bit about this
- 3:56Speaker 1: as we're going through it, and I think I'm going
- 3:58Speaker 1: to add it to my list ever expanding books to
- 4:01Speaker 1: read because it did sound really great. What are you
- 4:03Speaker 1: going to give it out of five?
- 4:04Speaker 2: Because it was so tricky Based on my personal experience,
- 4:08Speaker 2: I have to give it a three point five. I
- 4:10Speaker 2: want to give it more. This story was fantastic, but
- 4:13Speaker 2: it was just so hard for me to get into.
- 4:16Speaker 2: I don't actually think that's Kate's fold. I think it's mine,
- 4:18Speaker 2: but based on my personal experience, that's where I'm going.
- 4:21Speaker 1: Okay, my first book, So there are so many that
- 4:23Speaker 1: I want to talk about, but I'm not going to
- 4:25Speaker 1: talk about all seven or eight that I read. I'm
- 4:28Speaker 1: going to pick up on a book called Winner's Take All,
- 4:33Speaker 1: Winners Take All. It's by a guy with a surname
- 4:36Speaker 1: that I'm going to get wrong. Please forgive me for
- 4:38Speaker 1: being well, for not knowing how to say it. His
- 4:41Speaker 1: name is an und gerrit Arrodas. I think that I've
- 4:44Speaker 1: said that right, a nund Gerritaridas and Winners Take All
- 4:49Speaker 1: is a book that well, it was really challenging for me.
- 4:52Speaker 1: The subtitle is the Elite Charade of Changing the World.
- 4:57Speaker 1: So this was a book recommended to me by a
- 5:00Speaker 1: colleague who works at Oxford University, and he said, read
- 5:03Speaker 1: this book absolutely amazing. I read a review of it
- 5:06Speaker 1: recently with a quote from the Simpsons movie that really
- 5:09Speaker 1: sums up what this book is about. The quote is quote,
- 5:12Speaker 1: I'm a rich man and wanted to give something back,
- 5:16Speaker 1: not the money, but something. And essentially what goes on
- 5:21Speaker 1: here is nund Is a former McKinsey analyst. He's a
- 5:25Speaker 1: New York Times correspondent. He's been all over the news media.
- 5:29Speaker 1: He's been awarded this very very prestigious Henry Crown Fellowship
- 5:33Speaker 1: at Aspen. Gets invited onto private planes amid discussions of
- 5:38Speaker 1: drinking projects in Kenya and improved farm supply chains in India.
- 5:41Speaker 1: He's given two TED talks, and yet the whole time
- 5:45Speaker 1: he's living this life. He's basically saying there is something
- 5:48Speaker 1: the matter with this elite life, and essentially he's turning
- 5:53Speaker 1: on everyone who's made a big deal about him. He's
- 5:57Speaker 1: looking at philanthropy and the way the people who are
- 6:00Speaker 1: so wealthy, the multi multi multimillionaire and billionaire people across
- 6:03Speaker 1: the planet, and how they act like they're wonderfully generous
- 6:08Speaker 1: because they've got all this money in there trying to
- 6:10Speaker 1: get into philanthropy and do good and give back to
- 6:12Speaker 1: the world, but they're doing it in a way that
- 6:16Speaker 1: is a giant, sweet lipped lie. So he gets into
- 6:20Speaker 1: the heavy stuff, like he's talking about how when they
- 6:24Speaker 1: talk about giving money, they talk about alleviating poverty, but
- 6:29Speaker 1: they won't have conversations about inequality and the structures that
- 6:33Speaker 1: support inequality. In other words, I've got lots of money,
- 6:37Speaker 1: and so long as we don't change the power structure
- 6:39Speaker 1: that makes sure that I keep all my money, I'm
- 6:41Speaker 1: going to do everything that I need to do to
- 6:43Speaker 1: make it look like I'm being very generous, but of
- 6:45Speaker 1: course I'm maintaining the system and the structure that facilitates
- 6:49Speaker 1: my endless supply of huge sums of money so that
- 6:52Speaker 1: I can keep on bringing it in and then just
- 6:54Speaker 1: decide who I'm going to help, when I'm going to
- 6:55Speaker 1: help them, and how I'm going to help them. It's
- 6:57Speaker 1: a really heavy book.
- 6:59Speaker 2: So he's really talking about the fact that in order
- 7:02Speaker 2: for systemic change to take place, it actually we need
- 7:07Speaker 2: to look at the very system that yes creating the inequality.
- 7:11Speaker 1: Yeah, he's basically saying the system is wrong, the system
- 7:14Speaker 1: is rigged, and the elites at the top are keeping
- 7:17Speaker 1: it that way because they get to stay where they are.
- 7:19Speaker 1: It's a blistering critique of the elite class, the political class.
- 7:24Speaker 1: I'll give you an example of it. And this is
- 7:26Speaker 1: a really political thing for me to say, but I'm
- 7:28Speaker 1: very comfortable saying it. Just recently in the news, like
- 7:31Speaker 1: about a month ago, Anthony Albanese's son made headlines because
- 7:35Speaker 1: Alan Joyce, the CEO of Quantas, gave Albanese's son access
- 7:40Speaker 1: to the Chairman's Lounge, this invite only exclusive club the
- 7:45Speaker 1: frequent flyers, cherry picked, hand picked frequent flyers get to
- 7:49Speaker 1: go into. Now, I've got a friend who is in
- 7:52Speaker 1: the level below that, the highest level you can get,
- 7:54Speaker 1: and he got me into the lounge recently as he
- 7:57Speaker 1: was visiting the airport at the same time as me.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Instead of going into the virgin lounge that I normally
- 8:01Speaker 1: go to, I got to go into this, not the
- 8:03Speaker 1: Chairman's but the first class lounge that Quatus flies. Get
- 8:07Speaker 1: this friend of mine, he flies internationally business class and
- 8:10Speaker 1: first class all the time for work. That's his business
- 8:13Speaker 1: pays for it. And when I stepped in there there
- 8:16Speaker 1: was a chef waiting for my order. I got to
- 8:18Speaker 1: order the most incredible brisket with a side of whatever
- 8:22Speaker 1: I wanted. I mean. And I'm sitting there going this
- 8:24Speaker 1: is not like the virgin lounge that I'm used to
- 8:25Speaker 1: going into, and even that's kind of cool compared to
- 8:28Speaker 1: everyone else who flies cattle class, right, And so I'm
- 8:31Speaker 1: looking at this. You just called it cattle Well that's
- 8:33Speaker 1: what people have called it for decades. But this is
- 8:37Speaker 1: the crazy thing. The Prime Minister's son gets this exclusive
- 8:41Speaker 1: invitation into the Chairman's lounge, and there's no way he
- 8:44Speaker 1: gets it except that he's the son of the PM.
- 8:46Speaker 1: It's perks for the boys. It's that kind of idea.
- 8:50Speaker 1: And here's what's really rotten about it. Nobody else in
- 8:54Speaker 1: the political class made any noise about it, because they've
- 8:57Speaker 1: all got their noses in the trough. And if they
- 8:59Speaker 1: start pointing fingers at Albanese and his son for taking
- 9:01Speaker 1: advantage of a perk that this son did not earn
- 9:04Speaker 1: in any way, that would mean that when they get
- 9:07Speaker 1: an opportunity to be in power, they can't take those
- 9:10Speaker 1: perks for themselves in their own families. So this, like
- 9:14Speaker 1: I said, it's just this critique of the elite class
- 9:16Speaker 1: and how they seek to use their their wealth and
- 9:18Speaker 1: their position and their power to look good in their
- 9:20Speaker 1: philanthropy without changing the status quo. Really hard to read,
- 9:24Speaker 1: really challenging with its views, and also frustrating because there
- 9:27Speaker 1: was a lack of real solutions. But I'm really glad
- 9:30Speaker 1: that I read it, and I was really stretched by it.
- 9:33Speaker 1: So the book is called Winners Take All by Anangerodaradas.
- 9:36Speaker 1: I hope I pronounced the name correctly.
- 9:38Speaker 2: Give it.
- 9:38Speaker 1: I'd give it a four and a half out of five. No, actually,
- 9:41Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to give it a five
- 9:42Speaker 1: out of five. I loved the challenge and I loved
- 9:45Speaker 1: the critique. I thought it was good, good, good. Okay,
- 9:54Speaker 1: let's talk about your second book, Kylie.
- 9:56Speaker 2: Well, my second book is called The Secret Life of
- 9:59Speaker 2: You by ca Mary Sackville. Now, I wanted to love
- 10:03Speaker 2: this book, right, I really wanted to love it.
- 10:05Speaker 1: I've read a lot of Kerry Sackville stuff. She's all
- 10:07Speaker 1: over the internet, like, she publishes a lot, and she's
- 10:11Speaker 1: I guess you'd call her an opinion writer.
- 10:13Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, and so I guess that's probably where i'd start.
- 10:17Speaker 2: She wrote it like she was an expert yep in
- 10:20Speaker 2: the area, but she's actually just a person who's had
- 10:23Speaker 2: an experience, Okay. And so as I read it, there
- 10:26Speaker 2: were definitely things that I highlighted. There were definitely things
- 10:29Speaker 2: that stood out to me.
- 10:30Speaker 1: You kept on stopping me from reading my books and saying, hey,
- 10:32Speaker 1: I've got to read this to you, I've got to
- 10:34Speaker 1: read that to you. So obviously there were things there
- 10:36Speaker 1: that touched nerves for you and that you found useful.
- 10:38Speaker 2: Yeah. So her subtitle is how a bit of a
- 10:41Speaker 2: loone time can change your life, relationships, and maybe the world.
- 10:44Speaker 2: And so she came to a point in her life
- 10:45Speaker 2: where she recognized that she was living pretty much a
- 10:48Speaker 2: life of distraction, with your phone being such a constant
- 10:53Speaker 2: presence presence in your life and a constant draw of
- 10:56Speaker 2: your attention, right, she just realized that as a whole,
- 11:00Speaker 2: she was actually not comfortable in just doing nothing, like
- 11:04Speaker 2: to be able to sit we talk about mindfulness, to
- 11:08Speaker 2: be able to sit in that place for so many
- 11:09Speaker 2: of us is really uncomfortable. And as she started delving
- 11:12Speaker 2: into it more kind of on her social networks, she
- 11:15Speaker 2: realized that across the board, people were saying the things
- 11:17Speaker 2: like why would I spend time in my own head?
- 11:20Speaker 2: Like I don't want to know what's in there, or
- 11:22Speaker 2: that's a dark, scary place, I can't go there, or
- 11:26Speaker 2: you know, different things like that, and she just realized
- 11:28Speaker 2: how we're living in this society where we actually, in
- 11:34Speaker 2: so many cases, don't even know who we are, yeah,
- 11:38Speaker 2: because we're listening to other people's voices so much. We're
- 11:41Speaker 2: just kind of trouting off other people's opinions, other people's
- 11:44Speaker 2: thoughts around things, and we actually haven't taken the time
- 11:48Speaker 2: to do the deep thinking about who we are and
- 11:52Speaker 2: what we stand for and what we want out of
- 11:53Speaker 2: our lives. We just kind of just in the rat race.
- 11:56Speaker 1: I talk about doing the inner work, and it sounds
- 11:59Speaker 1: like what she's highlight is we live such busy lives
- 12:02Speaker 1: and so I guess so superficially on our screens that
- 12:06Speaker 1: we're not doing that in a work. That's what I'm
- 12:08Speaker 1: hearing you say.
- 12:09Speaker 2: Yeah, and we lack intension about how we do things.
- 12:13Speaker 1: Okay, So the Secret Life of You by Kerry Sackville,
- 12:16Speaker 1: what are you going to give it?
- 12:17Speaker 2: I'm going to give it a two and a half.
- 12:19Speaker 1: Oh. I was expecting a big score based on the
- 12:21Speaker 1: way you spoke about it, but it just didn't resonate
- 12:23Speaker 1: for you. Wasn't deep enough, wasn't strong enough.
- 12:26Speaker 3: No.
- 12:26Speaker 2: I think if she had written it as a memoir,
- 12:29Speaker 2: huh and kind of just shared her experience, I probably
- 12:31Speaker 2: would have enjoyed the process more. But I kind of
- 12:35Speaker 2: I just felt like she was trying to write from
- 12:39Speaker 2: a place of expertise.
- 12:41Speaker 1: You've been married to me too long.
- 12:43Speaker 2: Instead of just sharing her experienced And it just left
- 12:47Speaker 2: me wanting because having gone through this process for myself,
- 12:50Speaker 2: and I've spent nearly forty years of my life actually
- 12:55Speaker 2: being afraid to be alone. I didn't think I could
- 12:58Speaker 2: do it, and then finally challenging my own thought processes
- 13:03Speaker 2: and putting myself in that situation, have found such a
- 13:06Speaker 2: beautiful new lease in life and have come to know
- 13:10Speaker 2: myself in a totally different way. So I wanted her
- 13:13Speaker 2: to add to my story, but I don't think she did.
- 13:16Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well my last one. I'm going to
- 13:19Speaker 1: be really sneaky. I want to tell you about the
- 13:21Speaker 1: other books that I've read, but I'm only going to
- 13:22Speaker 1: pick one. So I read another book called The Ideas
- 13:24Speaker 1: Industry by Daniel Dresner. He's an academic. It's all about
- 13:27Speaker 1: political science, thought leadership, economics. I didn't understand it well.
- 13:30Speaker 1: I have to take the message in. It probably was
- 13:32Speaker 1: a five star book, but I only gave it three
- 13:33Speaker 1: because I really didn't understand what I read, and I
- 13:36Speaker 1: pushed through it for two weeks. It was such hard going.
- 13:39Speaker 1: But anyone who's into economics, political science, and thought leadership,
- 13:42Speaker 1: you might like The Ideas Industry one of my favorite books.
- 13:45Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Just recently I interviewed Madonna King on
- 13:48Speaker 1: the podcast. I don't know if you heard me talking
- 13:50Speaker 1: with her about her brand new book, Saving Our Kids.
- 13:52Speaker 2: That was a great podcast.
- 13:54Speaker 1: It was a great interview, definitely worth going back and
- 13:56Speaker 1: listening to it. But when we did the interview, I
- 13:59Speaker 1: hadn't had the opportunity to read the book. It only
- 14:01Speaker 1: arrived the day before and we were going to put
- 14:03Speaker 1: postpone it, but the book was coming out, and we
- 14:05Speaker 1: just I really wanted to support Madonna in her work.
- 14:08Speaker 1: I've now read the book. This book is the most
- 14:10Speaker 1: important book Madonna King has ever written. I just I've
- 14:14Speaker 1: got goosebumps talking about it. She's written Being Fourteen, She's
- 14:17Speaker 1: written Fathers and Daughters, She's written l players like I've
- 14:19Speaker 1: got so many of her books on my shelf because
- 14:21Speaker 1: she's prolific. But this book, Saving Our Kids is about
- 14:27Speaker 1: Task Force Argos and the devastating trade in children that
- 14:33Speaker 1: happens online. In terms of explicit content, She's got an
- 14:39Speaker 1: inside channel into what the police are doing to try
- 14:42Speaker 1: to stem the tide and capture predators, and this book
- 14:47Speaker 1: is all about that. It is devastating, it is terrifying.
- 14:53Speaker 1: It is so hard to read. But of all the
- 14:56Speaker 1: books that I've ever read of Madonna Kings, this one
- 14:58Speaker 1: will remain in my mind in ways that the others don't.
- 15:02Speaker 1: Not that the others weren't good, but this is just
- 15:04Speaker 1: this is her best by far from my perspective. Five stars, amazing, amazing.
- 15:11Speaker 1: A couple of others really quickly. Joe Prendergast. She's a
- 15:14Speaker 1: New Zealand psychiatrist. She's written a book called When Life Sucks.
- 15:17Speaker 1: It's really for parents of teens who are going through
- 15:20Speaker 1: all of the psychiatric kind of dramas. It was a
- 15:22Speaker 1: good book. She did a good job. I've got her
- 15:24Speaker 1: coming up on the podcast soon, so i won't say
- 15:25Speaker 1: anything more about the book for now. You can hear
- 15:27Speaker 1: her on the podcast soon. Last one that I'm going
- 15:30Speaker 1: to mention is Gene Twangy, Professor Gen Twangy. We had
- 15:33Speaker 1: her in the Smells Like Teen Spirit Summit and she
- 15:35Speaker 1: wrote a book called Generations. This is where we compare
- 15:39Speaker 1: the Boomers to Gen X to Gen Y or Jen
- 15:41Speaker 1: why is also known now as Minils if I'm remembering
- 15:44Speaker 1: the book correctly, Jen Z and the brand new Generation
- 15:47Speaker 1: Being Raised. This was a really compelling book. Now I'm
- 15:50Speaker 1: not into the whole generational thing. I keep on talking
- 15:52Speaker 1: about how there's so much diversity within each generation. And
- 15:54Speaker 1: how can you tar an entire generation with one broad brushstroke.
- 15:59Speaker 1: I'm chain tune after reading Gene Twagey's book. It is brilliant,
- 16:04Speaker 1: five stars generations. Absolutely loved it, And I can't wait
- 16:08Speaker 1: to tell you about the book that I'm reading right now.
- 16:10Speaker 1: It's so good. I'm going to get the author on
- 16:12Speaker 1: so that we can have him on the podcast. He
- 16:14Speaker 1: lost two of his kids in a car accident while
- 16:17Speaker 1: he and his wife were driving, and it's a book
- 16:18Speaker 1: about the grief and it is just profound. It's beautiful.
- 16:22Speaker 1: Can't wait to tell you more about that. Hey, we
- 16:25Speaker 1: really hope there's some books here that pique your interest
- 16:27Speaker 1: and drag you into the depths of enjoying everything that
- 16:32Speaker 1: books can be. We will include all the details about
- 16:35Speaker 1: them in the show notes. Thanks for listening. The Happy
- 16:36Speaker 1: Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.
- 16:39Speaker 1: Craig Bruces is our executive producer
- 16:41Speaker 3: And if you like morofo about the stuff we've talked about,
- 16:43Speaker 3: check the show notes or visit us at Happy families
- 16:46Speaker 3: dot com dot au for more about making your family happier.