David Jobling
Worst of Days
:
Karen Kissane
Sunday February 7 marks the one-year anniversary of the tragic Black Saturday Bushfires that burnt through parts of Victoria. The worst bushfires in the nations history claimed 173 human lives, destroyed 2029 homes, killed countless animals, and burnt through over 45,000square-kilometres of land.
Karen Kissane takes us inside the Black Saturday Firestorm in Worst of Days in which she tells the dramatic story of the worst bushfires in living memory.
Karen Kissane is a senior writer with The Age newspaper and has been a journalist for 30 years. She has covered many large and complex stories, including the Benbrika terror trial and has won multiple awards. Most recently, she wrote about the immediate aftermath of this yearÃ's bushfires from the devastated town of Kinglake, where she interviewed fire-fighters and survivors. Now she is reporting daily for the paper on the investigations by the Bushfires Royal Commission for The Age. Her previous book, published in 2006 by Hachette Australia and re-issued in 2009, is Silent Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage, in which Karen examined the psychology of family violence, the laws of evidence and the legal defence of provocation and how they played out in a high-profile crime in Melbourne.
5 February 2010, Hachette Australia, $35, original paperback
From dawn, the bush was tinder dry, and hot winds grew and fed off the baked landscape, sucking out every last drop of moisture, whipping sparks from power lines, and stirring up menace and danger.
Worst of Days is the gripping behind-the-scenes story of the people who were inside Black Saturday's most deadly firestorm, the Kilmore blaze. It is a powerful and gripping narrative of disaster and resilience, of men and women and children facing the ultimate stress. It takes readers inside the ferocious, insatiable beast that was the Black Saturday inferno. It shows us the people who found themselves in its path, fighting and fleeing the flames.
This is the story of what we do at the very worst of times: from the man who braved the flames to help a mate, to another who refused to even cover the face of a dead man, saying, No mate, not my job. It is the story of officials' bungles and best efforts, towns and their heroes, of survivors, and lost souls.
Worst of Days is a great combination of stories of individuals and of the whole apparatus of the state in the grip of a natural disaster. The firestorm itself becomes one of the central characters in the book.
A gripping human story, told with the command of a senior journalist.
Helen Garner on Silent Death
Helen Garner on Silent Death
Karen Kissane takes us inside the Black Saturday Firestorm in Worst of Days in which she tells the dramatic story of the worst bushfires in living memory.
Karen Kissane is a senior writer with The Age newspaper and has been a journalist for 30 years. She has covered many large and complex stories, including the Benbrika terror trial and has won multiple awards. Most recently, she wrote about the immediate aftermath of this yearÃ's bushfires from the devastated town of Kinglake, where she interviewed fire-fighters and survivors. Now she is reporting daily for the paper on the investigations by the Bushfires Royal Commission for The Age. Her previous book, published in 2006 by Hachette Australia and re-issued in 2009, is Silent Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage, in which Karen examined the psychology of family violence, the laws of evidence and the legal defence of provocation and how they played out in a high-profile crime in Melbourne.
5 February 2010, Hachette Australia, $35, original paperback
From dawn, the bush was tinder dry, and hot winds grew and fed off the baked landscape, sucking out every last drop of moisture, whipping sparks from power lines, and stirring up menace and danger.
Worst of Days is the gripping behind-the-scenes story of the people who were inside Black Saturday's most deadly firestorm, the Kilmore blaze. It is a powerful and gripping narrative of disaster and resilience, of men and women and children facing the ultimate stress. It takes readers inside the ferocious, insatiable beast that was the Black Saturday inferno. It shows us the people who found themselves in its path, fighting and fleeing the flames.
This is the story of what we do at the very worst of times: from the man who braved the flames to help a mate, to another who refused to even cover the face of a dead man, saying, No mate, not my job. It is the story of officials' bungles and best efforts, towns and their heroes, of survivors, and lost souls.
Worst of Days is a great combination of stories of individuals and of the whole apparatus of the state in the grip of a natural disaster. The firestorm itself becomes one of the central characters in the book.
