Ducks on the Pond by Anne Summers

I identified very heavily with Anne Summers as I read this book. She’s always been someone I admired, though my knowledge of her was pretty sketchy. This book is her autobiography, up until the mid 1970s. She grew up in Adelaide and it charts her difficult relationships with her family, in particular her father, her self doubt and her search for somewhere where she might fit in and do something with her life. It talks about her interest and involvement in politics and socialism, her brush with Marxism, and her very important role in the emergence of feminism. It’s hard to encapsulate such a moving and forthright story in a paragraph here and do it any kind of justice. Suffice to say her story must be familiar to many women my age. Reading it, I felt that we shared so many experiences that she might have been my sister – and I imagine she would say, that’s what the sisterhood is all about!