Book Week

To coincide with Book Week in Australia, I hereby declare it to be Book Week in the Land of Meg as well.

I hold my parents accountable for my love of books, my mother especially. Not only is she a voracious reader of words, but a writer of them as well.

Her book about her mother's dementia, Alzheimer's: A Love Story, is due to be released in October. Her mother, my grandmother, was also a great lover of words, and one of the hardest things for her was to lose her grip on her language, something I think the cover evokes beautifully.

From the publisher's website:

When the last of Vivienne Ulman’s four children left home, she and her husband were poised to enjoy their freedom. Then her mother’s Alzheimer’s intervened.

In Alzheimer’s: a love story, Vivienne records with tender lyricism and searing honesty the progress of her mother’s Alzheimer’s, her own grief over the gradual loss of her beloved mother, and the way in which her parents’ enduring love for each other sustained them.

Into this she weaves an account of her family’s history, in particular her father’s rise from farm boy to confidant of prime ministers — achievements made possible by the loving strength of the woman by his side. In a reversal of roles, he now amply returns this support.

This inspiring Australian story is a tale for the sandwich generation, squeezed on one side by concerns for their children and on the other by anxiety about their parents. It is about illness, grief, and hardship, but it is also about love, determination, and joy.

I'm so proud of you, Mum. Happy book! And happy Book Week!