A Day in the life of Australia

A Day In The Life

by Rick Smolan

Hardcover; published by Abrams in 1982. The first country to be profiled in the series of “A Day in the Life…” books.

Genres: Photography, Travel, Nonfiction, Australia

Hardcover

First published November 1, 1981

Reviews

[Bernhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

We had this book on our coffee table when I was a child, and it instantly catapulted Australia to the top of the list of countries I want to make sure I see before I die! It's not just a book of wallpaper images, and you can literally feel as if you were immersed in the country and its culture. A lovely book.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a coffee table pictorial style book. The problem with it is that it is now dated, being first published in about 1981. Having said that it is quite fascinating to look back at that time and reflect on how much things have changed. Things that struck me were the about of people smoking cigarettes, the treatment of Aboriginal people and ignorance of the effects of the sun and its link o skin cancers. This book will be very interesting to look at in about 100 years I would imagine.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real snapshot in time - this book was a favourite when I was a kid. I have always had a boundless fascination of what constitutes "ordinary", "everyday" life for different people and this book, and the concept in general, still plays right into that. Fascinating, homely, poignant --- *sigh*

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime and bizarre. A time capsule on paper.

[Alex Stanisis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best coffee table book going around- glorious insight into all the different pepperings of Australia's early 80's.

[AS · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this one after A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union, which I thought was just fascinating, and maybe my expectations were a little too high because of that. I thought this one was just okay.
I liked some things in this book, but I felt like there was an overload of photos that really could have been taken kind of anywhere, and that didn’t say much about what’s unique or typical in Australia.

Also, there were many photos where I wished they had devoted more of the page to pictures from the same place. For instance, there were a couple of ones taken at schools in remote areas, where it was just a corner of a scene, and I was really wondering what the whole room looked like, or the rest of the school, or something of the town where it was- but then it was the only photo from that place.

I felt like the emphasis was too much on getting a little bit from a lot of different photographers in a lot of different places, when that meant many of the things that seemed more interesting to me were shortchanged. The editors brag so much about the thousands of photos that were taken on this single day, and I kept thinking how I’d like to see more of one thing and less of another.

Also, too many photos didn’t have a location given, or had no caption. I think they improved on this with later books in the series, fortunately, but it got kind of frustrating with this one.

[Mick Maye · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picture book of one day in Australia.