#Non-fiction Body Count

• Title: Body Count
• Author: Paddy Manning
• Genre: non-fiction  (pg 292)  (end notes pg 293-323)
  
• Published: 2020
• Trivia: Shortlist Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2021
• Trivia: Shortlist Walkley Award 2020

Introduction:

1. Suddenly, when Australia  caught fire,
2. …people realized what the government has not:
3. that climate change is killing us.

Strong point:

1. Prologue:   The Black Summer
2. Very good  introduction (hook) describing the
   
3. story about  Dick Lang and his son Clayton.
   
4. trapped in bushfires on Kangaroo Island.
   
5. I’ve added this link to so you can see some
6. “before and after” foto’s
   
7. Before and after fotos Kangaroo Island

Conclusion:

1. Unfortunately the rest of the book
2. did not live up  to my expectations.
3. I hoped to learn much more about the “Black Summer”
4. fires in Australia (Dec 2019-Jan 2020).
5. Instead Mr Manning has given me  his analysis
6. of articles  (2009 – 2020) found on websites of the
7. The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald,
8. medical journals, inquiries, inquests
9. …and royal commission reports.

1. The author highlights topics starting with Black Saturday
2. February 7 2009 and continues to  describe
3. the affect of heat, flood, disease, poor air quality,
4. drought and heat waves  have on Australians.
5. That is a lot to process in just  292 pages.
6. Mr Manning is  good at giving the
7. reader the broad ‘climate challenge’ picture
8. but expected more depth about the most current
9. disaster Black Summer 2019-2020.

Last thoughts:

1. So my score for this book (2 stars)
2. …is purely based on my opinion:
3. what I wanted and what I got.
4. It’s hard to dislike this book because
5. it is an important topic:
6. how climate change is injuring human health,
7. …but in my case it is even harder to defend it.