I have been reading a number of books recently, in order to write reviews (one review has already been posted¹).  All four of these books deal with issues of public importance in the area of health.  They deal with electromagnetic radiation¹, mobile phones², vaccination³ and milk⁴.

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I came across an artefact some months back – a book.  I haven’t seen one of these, outside a museum, for more than thirty years.  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it at a recovery sale.  It was very old – mid-twentieth century – with a hard cover.  It took me back to my school days when we still learned to read.  I must say I struggled somewhat to make sense of it.  I have had no need to read for many years.  However, persevering has paid off and I started to enjoy the experience.

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Indignez-Vous!
Stéphane Hessel
(Bilingual edition) translated by Damion Searls
Scribe 2011
ISBN: 9781921844225
$9.95
64 pp

Be Indignant! This is the call to action from a veteran of the World War II French Resistance. This is not a voice coming to us from the past but the current voice of a now still-feisty 93-year-old writing less than a year ago.
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I see him shuffling past the café window from time to time.  Long, grey hair, a flannel shirt with buttons missing (summer or winter), corduroy trousers with the cuffs partly unravelled and hanging unevenly over his clean, black boots.  I notice they are boots, not shoes, and that they are always clean and shining.

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Essays on Muslims and Multiculturalism
Edited by Raimond Gaita
Text 2011
ISBN: 9781921656606
$26.95
192 pp

In some respects this is a timely book and at the same time it is a shame it was not available ten years ago, as it may have helped to inform the debate at a time that John Howard was trying to change the values we live by and the understanding we have of those values.

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In human societies we make laws based on a set of principles which express how we feel about personal autonomy, freedom, power, individual rights and responsibilities, honesty, integrity, access to food and shelter, health and wellbeing and about the value of life itself.  Why do we do this?

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