The book is definitive. It also blows the lid somewhat off the legend that is the relationship between Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. There definitely was a deep connection between the two and they had on screen charisma but like all good legends there is much embellishment. I am always somewhat disappointed to read that star,s are at their core, are attention seekers and this book points to the deep need that Hepburn had for adoration. The author William J Mann also reveals that Spencer Tracy grappled with homosexuality, which could have explained his alcoholism. I had never heard that before.

It’s a long read at 532 pages but a very comprehensive look at Hepburn’s life, especially her early years.

I have borrowed The African Queen and On Golden Pond from my grandfather to watch. I have never seen these films.

I have been reading but slower than I’d like and I haven’t updated here for a while. So…here’s what I have been reading.

Worst of Days by Karen Kissane – This is a fact-driven and includes harrowing accounts of the devastating Victorian Bushfires on February 7 last year known as Black Saturday. Kissane is a journalist I very much admire who is a senior writer for The Ageand this book comes from Kissane’s reporting of the Bushfires Royal Commission for that newspaper. 

After Etan by Lisa Cohen – This book is the definitive account of the case of Etan Patz, a six-year-old New York boy who went missing in 1979 and was never found, though authorities have a prime suspect for his disappearance and presumed murder.

What’s Happening to Our Girls by Maggie Hamilton – as the mum of two girls I am already worrying about the challenges they will face as they grow up (probably the same as I did and my mother too but we didn’t have mobile phones, Facebook and Pussycat Dolls to interfere with our development!). This book details the concerns of parents, teachers, psychologists in what they see as the increased vulnerability and oversexualisation of our girls.

Bennett’s monologues – performed for the BBC series by great British actors including Thora Hird, Julie Walters and Patricia Routledge – are funny, disturbing, sad and ovewhelmingly poignant.

My favourte is “Cream Cracker Under the Settee” where Doris’s obsessive cleaning leads to her demise – she is cleaning when she shouldn’t be and slips and falls on the floor. She is one of these prideful old women. The “stiff upper lip” generation of Brits who don’t want to make a fuss. Behind the stubborness is real sadness too. The comment about the stillbirth of her baby son are words that have stayed somewhere in my mind ever since I read them: “…the midwife said he wasn’t fit to be called anything and had we any newspaper?…I wanted to see him. Wrapping him in newspaper as if he was dirty…”

This book is geared at informing retailers how to tap into the powerful Gen Y market and what sales methods with resonate with them but it is also a really interesting social commentary.

I am at the tail-end of Gen X and for my generation (growing up in Australia, at least) the only fashion labels we owned were Country Road or Esprit and we wore Blundstone boots with floral dresses and flannelette shirts. In fact, the first time I had a real glimpse of labels that Gen Y covet (and own today!) was when I was first in Paris in 1999 and had my picture taken outside the boutiques like Chanel and Nina Ricci.

I am grateful that there was less pressure about fashion when I was going through my teen years (as well as less access to technology!) and I am a little fearful of what it will be like for my girls when they are tweens (I hate that term) and teens.

I will make damn sure that I own a Chanel purse before my daughters do!

It is about Derek Ernest Percy, a child killer who has been locked up for over 40 years and is also a person of interest in several other unsolved child murders and disappearances, including the most famous case in Australian history – the Beaumont Children who went missing in 1966 in Adelaide.

It is hard reading and Debi Marshall has done an excellent job, especially with the sources, including Percy’s mother and the relatives of the murdered and missing children.

Late last year (after book was published) an inquest was held into the disappearance and probable murder of seven-year-old Linda Stilwell in St Kilda in 1968. Percy’s lawyer objected to him giving evidence on the grounds of self incrimination and the coroner ruled it would not be in the public interest to grant a certificate for Percy to to give evidence without fear of prosecution.

This is officially the first book read for my 2010 challenge of reading 100+ books.

Soham: A Story of Our Times by Nicci Gerrard uses the 2002 murder of British girls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells as a narrative for the how and why society seems to have an over-emotional reaction to the deaths of people we do not even know, yet seem to be so out of touch with our own selves.

Nicci Gerrard is a former newspaper feature writer and with her husband Sean French, writes best-selling thrillers under the name Nicci French.

This book is not long – 126 pages – and is a gripping read in the sense that it gives an overview of the Soham case and also looks at the grief reactions from the public to events like these and the role of the media in encouraging it.

I arrived back in the UK to live in the August of 2002, when the girls had been missing for a few days (unbeknownst to everybody except their killer Ian Huntley, the girls were already dead) and it did seem like the whole country was gripped by the case. It was Summer and I can remember waking every morning, until they were found, immediately wanting news of what was happening to the girls known now to everyone by their first names.

I then followed, as did millions of others, the trial and media creation of Huntley’s girlfriend Maxine Carr (she had nothing to do with the murders but lied for him) as one of Britain’s “Most Evil” women.

The chapter I found most stirring in the book was when Gerrard details a crime and trial that happened the same year as Soham but barely made a ripple in Britain’s national newspapers. It was about the murder of a woman Lynn Burgess who was a close friend of Gerrard’s sister-in-law and the author’s personal knowledge and subsequent detailing of the case is gripping.

This is a really thought-provoking read that manages to cover several topics in a concise and accessible way.

The challenge is being hosted by J Kaye at her blog and you can still sign up should you feel inspired to read more in 2010.

1. Soham: A Story of Our Times by Nicci Gerrard

2. Lambs to the Slaughter by Debi Marshall

3. Gen Buy by Kit Yarrow and Jayne O’Donnell

4. Dreamgirl by Mary Wilson

5. Talking Heads by Alan Bennett

6. Worst of Days by Karen Kissane

7. After Etan by Lisa Cohen

8. What’s Happening to our Girls by Maggie Hamilton

9. Kate: The Woman who was Katharine Hepburn by William J. Mann