Book Review - Bad Hair Days by Pamela Bone

Well, this is one of those books that I was recommended when I was talking with a friend about books women have written when they are dying.

Pamela had myeloma and gives the reader a great understanding of what someone may go through when they (if they) are unfortunate enough to get this illness.  She doesn't spare the reader any detail.  Pamela's writing is very factual, even when talking about her own fear as she was going through the worst of the chemotherapy.

Pamela Bone is the columnist who became well known for declaring her support in the Iraq war. She spends a great deal of her book bouncing back and forth between illness and the current affairs - drawn to her passion, into the columnist style of writing.  She writes to correct or compel the reader into understanding the issues about the war, famine in Africa, and then as she progresses in her illness, into the issues surrounding euthanasia. She is a very knowledgeable woman who, it seems, has a desire to get the most important issues out in this book.  She knows that this will be the last chance that she has as the cancer is terminal.

This is not a pithy read of woman dying of cancer, but a woman who has been through a great deal, seen famine in Africa, war in Iraq, and slow death in public hospitals.  She takes the chance that she can to make her voice heard when she no longer has her position as leader in The Age.

Worth a read.