Book Review: Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales

Leigh Sales is a well-respected local journalist. I feel some affinity for her, as she’s grown up in Queensland and often comments on things from her childhood that I clearly remember, even though Leigh is younger than me. I was fascinated to read her book Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life.

I decided to read her book before I knew anything about it at all. I knew it was “Any Ordinary Day”. I hadn’t realized it was “Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life”, so it was quite an unexpected story for me.

You often (perhaps too often) hear about tragedies, terrorism outcomes, and disasters and about the people affected. What you don’t usually hear much about, is what happens after the events.

In the book, Leigh talks about the aftermath of these events. She starts with a discussion about the Lindt Cafe Seige in Sydney and then moves through many stories about what’s happened to people on the worst days of their lives, and what happens after.

I really appreciated the detail that Leigh went to in investigating the content for this book. She had really insightful interviews, not only with the survivors but also wonderful interviews with coroners, police, politicians, forensic counsellors, etc.

Leigh really peels back details that usually just aren’t discussed, and I found it really quite compelling.

Bottom line?

This book is quite fascinating and takes you into discussions and details that I’ve never seen in other books. Hopefully, you won’t be one of the people who have a similar story, but I suspect you’d be better prepared (if that’s possible) by reading this book. At the very least, you might know more about how to work with or relate to people who are in these situations.

Greg’s rating: 9 out of 10

2019-03-15