I couldn't get into this book. It didn't really interest me and I only made it halfway through. ( )

I wonder if I would still be rating this book 5 stars if I were reading it at a different time. So much of what was written resonated with me, and gave me hope.

“If you had asked me before… which of my friends were my favourites, I would have said the funny, charismatic ones: the ones who take you to dinner and make you howl so hard with laughter that it fills your emotional tank. Even when you wake up the next day, fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep and too much wine, you feel great. While I still love company like that, I’ve realised that by far the most valuable friends are the kind ones. They may not be the most sparkling guests at the dinner table or the most memorable makers of wedding speeches. But my god, they are the ones you want to sit with you at the worst of times. They are the ones who know the right things to say and do, because their hearts are empathetic. I’ve come to believe that amongst all the good human qualities, there is none greater than kindness.” ( )

Leigh Sales is a very well-known Australian television journalist, who hosts a daily current affairs program on ABCTV called “7:30”. It is considered one of the ABCTV’s flagship programs, and Sales has hosted it now for a number of years. What we don’t see as viewers is how much some of the stories on the program affect her. In reflecting on how news is presented, and how stories are dealt with over a period of time, she came to write this book.

In ‘Any Ordinary Day’ she takes us to meet a number of people who have been greatly affected by traumatic incidents. For some it is the sudden death of a loved one, for others a miraculous escape, and in some cases, both. She also speaks with some people whose job it is to offer support to people as they come through their trauma. There’s the Jesuit priest, for example, who teaches Sales to “accompany” the person. It’s not so important to say the right thing, apparently, but simply to be there. But the one who really struck me was the ‘Forensic Counsellor’, whose job it is take family into the morgue for a viewing of their loved one’s body. The process she works through, what she says and explains, and how she assists during the viewing I found to be profoundly moving. I just hope I never have to meet her professionally.

Life is random. Things happen. Sometimes, really bad things happen and there’s nothing one can do about it. It’s not punishment, and often can’t even be rationally explained; it just happens. How one manages life’s surprises (good and bad), and the horrific difficulties that are thrown at one, determines, perhaps, the direction of life post the trauma. Until the next one.

‘Any Ordinary Day’ is a surprisingly uplifting book, considering the despair that Sales’ subjects have been through. ( )

Odd that I should read two books by Australian authors on the grief of loss within a few weeks. Julia Baird’s “Phosphorescence” and this one, “Any Ordinary Day” by Leigh Sales. Quite different approaches, but equally lovely and insightful.

Sales is more journalistic than literary. She follows her journalistic instincts to tell stories of people who encounter loss on a day that is otherwise ordinary. She compliments these compelling and moving stories with research that frames our responses to grief in helpful theory. We get both the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. Readable, sad, uplifting and hopeful. Highly recommended. ( )

Unusual book covering disasters and people who have lived through them.
What makes them stronger.
Leigh reveals some of her life's challenges, and writing this book helped her through them.
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