Living Politics by Margaret Reynolds is her memoir of life-from grassroots activism to federal politics and United Nations human rights advocacy. Reynolds was born in Tasmania and after the early death of her father she knew her family situation was different because she was an only child with a single, working mother. Her early career working with students with disabilities led her to stumble into politics. She had ‘embarked on a course of trying to change the way we respond to those who are different.’’ This is an extraordinary story of a journey from young Tasmanian teacher, marriage to historian Henry Reynolds, life in Townsville and to Reynolds becoming the first Labor woman senator for Queensland. Living Politics is refreshing in its honesty; for example, Reynolds reveals she had been one of the first young woman in Hobart to be given the then revolutionary new contraceptive pill. Students and readers of Australian political history and women’s history will greatly enjoy this book. Reynolds shows us that politics is a way of living, thinking and acting. She wanted to change the world or at least her small part of it. Living Politics reveals that Reynolds has done this with warmth, intelligence, honesty and humour.

Fiona Stager is co-owner of Avid Reader Bookshop & Cafe, West End, Brisbane

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