Ramona Koval

This is a book readers book, from a book reader. I loved it. Ramona's mother restricted her physically while growing up, but there was no such restriction with what she could read. The highlighter was often marking phrases like "Paley had an uncanny genius for containing a world within a sentence...", or marking possible book titles to add to the 'to-read' list.

Writer and broadcaster Ramona Koval recounts her childhood and teenage exposure to football culture from the perspective of a Jewish migrant living in St Kilda. Koval confesses she has never been to a football game or is ever likely to, but her observations on how football intruded upon her life are amusing and interesting.

This could have been a good essay or radio piece, but was rambling and disjointed as a book. Koval's search for her real father is motivated by hints and suggestions that seem very vague, but mostly by an underlying dislike of her supposed father. The writing is unfocussed and the story drifts along in a bunch of different directions without really pulling things together. There's some interesting stuff about memory and trauma in there, but the overall framework of the book really doesn't work.

Part autobiography and part jaunt through Koval's favourite books, this is a brief, easy read and leaves you charmed by the author and with a dozen more books added to your 'to-read' list.