Sun Books

Rita Erlich states that Good Enough to Eat is ‘a guide to some of the best foods in Melbourne’. It is that indeed and a very good one – and fun to read as well. But it has much more than a provincial value. Since Australian Book Review is a national journal, it is worth stressing that this book gives invaluable advice that is applicable anywhere – how to shop, what to look for, how to judge this or that purveyor, above all what questions shoppers should ask not only of the sellers but of themselves.

‘What is a leader?’ asks the rather breath­less blurb on the back of W. J. Byrt’s Leaders and Leadership. ‘Is he the product of the situation in which he finds himself? Is he the possessor of definite character traits? Does he have an inherent charisma which elevates him above his fellows? Are the determining factors social, political, personal or intellectual or some mystical combination of them all?’ These are interesting questions: the answers to them would be still more interesting. However, the best the author is able to come up with, after 175 pages of fairly repetitious theorising and examplifying, is the following: ‘Leadership is a process whereby the behaviour of the led is influenced by a leader of leaders. The process depends on the leader being able, or being perceived to be able, to assist the led in achieving the satisfaction of certain needs within certain situations.’

Melbournians may be enchanted to learn that Conway regards Melbourne as the intellectual centre of Australia, even though he himself shows a nostalgia for the quieter backwaters of Hobart. More skilled at attack than defence, the writer shows the same capacity to come up with broadsides against the materialism and lack of general tenderness which he feels characterises the Australian character, and which also typified his earlier book, The Great Australian Stupor.