BOOK REVIEW: Reframe: How to Solve the World’s Trickiest Problems (Eric Knight, Black Inc.)
Eric Knight writes that instead of focussing on the details of a problem with a metaphorical magnifying glass, readers should step back and reframe the issue in order to see the bigger picture and all the complicated, contributing factors that are often overlooked. Knight’s blend of sociology, politics and economics forms the basis for this Freakonomics-style book. By reframing the issue, Knight attempts to untangle such thorny subjects as climate change scepticism, terrorism, the Global Financial Crisis and American immigration. Battling terrorism, argues Knight, is about much more than killing terrorists; it requires a strategy of counterinsurgency tactics to shift local alliances away from terrorists. Knight has worked as a lawyer and studied climate change at Oxford. His political ideology could be described as centrist, but he writes without bias in this well-researched book. Reframe seeks to educate readers by offering a broader understanding of the world and its seemingly irrational people. While Knight is an Australian writer, his book focuses on global rather than specifically Australian problems, but these can be used as a template for local issues. Reframe is written in a positive, fresh voice that is accessible to a wide audience, including those new to politics.
Andrew Wrathall is publishing assistant for Bookseller+Publisher. This review first appeared in the Summer issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.
Eric Knight is a former Rhodes scholar, who has worked as an economics consultant to the OECD, the UN and the World Bank, and has written for various Australian newspapers. Andrew Wrathall spoke to him about his first book Reframe: How to Solve the World’s Trickiest Problems (Black Inc.). (See the book review 
The gimmick behind Brian Thacker’s travel tale Tell Them to Get Lost is that his journey is inspired—and guided—by South East Asia on a Shoestring, the first guidebook by Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler, published in 1975. Beginning at Tony Wheeler’s desk in Melbourne, Thacker travels through East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Burma and Singapore, finishing his journey at the very hotel in which the Wheelers wrote their original guidebook. As a bonus, Tony Wheeler makes an appearance during the Indonesian leg of Thacker’s trip, roping him into a writers’ festival panel at Ubud. This story is very much a tribute to the Wheelers—in particular Tony Wheeler, who becomes Thacker’s role model and is imagined as a bell-bottomed hippy riding a motorcycle through the jungles of Asia. The story also takes a personal turn when Thacker meets a girl during the trip who agrees to travel with him, but is terrified of the bacteria in the substandard hotel beds. She later becomes his wife. Unsurprisingly, Thacker has trouble finding many of the hotels listed in the original guidebook, while those he does find are remarkably unchanged—in the sense that either they are still the quality institutions they were 25 years ago, or that their sheets haven’t been changed for 25 years. Quotes from the original guidebook and the 2010 edition are compared at the beginning of each chapter, and show—hilariously—what has changed and what has unfortunately remained the same. While this book reveals the effects of mass-tourism on a place, it is also interesting to note the effects of a lack of tourism on struggling communities in places such as East Timor, Burma and Samosir Island in Indonesia. This is a fun read from a well-travelled writer.
Meyer demonstrates how a shrunken head is worn—an act that is made less ghastly by the fact that he is holding a replica. Shrunken heads are rare today, he explains, because after a year the souls of the enemies were considered captured, and the heads were thrown away.
The Ghost of Annabel Spoon is the story of a group of townspeople who are horrified by a miserable ghost-girl called Annabel Spoon. Out of their wits with fear, the people of the village of Twee become hysterical. But then a little boy called Herbert Kettle steps forward and calmly suggests they speak to Annabel. When the Mayor rebuffs his idea as utter madness, Herbert takes the task upon himself. He walks though the forest and up to Annabel’s house, all the while growing increasingly frightened. He enters and comes face-to-face with the ghost-girl. As it turns out, Annabel is simply sad from loneliness as everyone is too frightened to become her friend. Aaron Blabey, author of the CBCA award-winning Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, has written a simple story that teaches children that they can overcome their fears—emphasising the importance of keeping calm and communicating. Blabey’s pastel-sketched illustrations have a thrilling ghostly style reminiscent of Edward Gorey’s macabre ink drawings in The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Written in sing-along rhyming-verse, this picture book is great for children aged five and up, particularly those who are a little shy.
Peking was the name of the city of Beijing, before Mao Zedong and the Communist Party introduced the modern standard of writing to China. The name conjures up the nostalgia of old China prior to the Cultural Revolution, a puzzle of controlled chaos and a place of superstition, fraught with danger, where Westerners could seek out adventure and gain riches from spice trade. In 1937, this was a city abandoned by Chiang Kai-shek, controlled by warlords, and on the brink of invasion by Japan.
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Eve Pownall Award for Information Books
