http://homepage.mac.com/shawjonathan/...

This is a strange little book, neither an attractive collection of photographs to introduce the suburb to visitors nor a quick historical overview. It's got elements of both those, but is something more personal, less orderly than either; if it was even more personal, it might have been an extended prose poem, but it isn't quite that. Mary Haire leads walking tours, and the book has something of the serendipitous feel of such tours: here's a little girl walking to school; let me tell you about a boy that age who went to the same school a hundred years ago. I know more about my suburb's history having read it; some errors have been corrected, and some tantalising trails laid in my mind: Cardinal Freeman was born here, for instance, and the young woman at the florist's is a single mother. How can I put those two snippets in the same sentence, you ask? I plead that the book sets a precedent with its gloriously unconcerned pot-pourri approach to its subject. ( )