Title: The Feel of Steel
Author: Helen Garner
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
ISBN: 978-0-330-36289-4
If you’re looking for a touch of escapism on a rainy Sunday, you’ll be hard pressed to find it here. Actually, you’ll be hard pressed to find a rainy Sunday in this city too, but this is a book review, not a weather report.
The Feel of Steel is a collection of Garner’s essays, previously published in various Australian newspapers and magazines, from The Age to the Woman’s Weekly.
It’s a little on the intellectual side for my liking. The prose is sparse in some parts, gets bogged down in detail in others, and mostly leads to no where in particular.
Or maybe I’m just not looking deeply enough for the meaning.
Garner is not the writer to be reading if you’re tired, however if you have 20 minutes to spare and want something wholesome to read with a flat white in a trendy locale, this book will have you looking the part.
It is thoughtful, but perhaps a little too much for me.
– Lauren Mitchell
