Look After Your Feet

by Rosalie Ham

An irreverent look at the darkly funny experience of getting older from one of Australia's favourite authors.

This book is dedicated to feet, much maligned and underappreciated, but without which we would travel far less.

Rosalie Ham, the international bestselling author, burst onto the literary scene in 2000 with her novel The Dressmaker. After years of entertaining us with weird and wonderful older women characters adored by her readers, Rosalie now turns her trademark wit and shrewd observations to life itself.

Peppered with practical advice about all manner of things – cheese and wine for dinner is welcome and acceptable – Look After Your Feet is a brilliantly funny, painfully honest and insightful celebration of the wisdom that seems to accelerate as body parts deteriorate, and life* falls into place.

* Often just a little bit too late.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published March 31, 2026

About the author

Rosalie Ham was born, and raised in Jerilderie, NSW, Australia. She completed her secondary education at St Margaret's School, Berwick in 1972. After travelling and working at a variety of jobs (including aged care) for most of her twenties, Rosalie completed a Bachelor of Education majoring in Drama and Literature (Deakin University, 1989), and achieved a Master of Arts, Creative Writing (RMIT, Melbourne) in 2007. Rosalie lives in Brunswick, Melbourne, and when she is not writing, Rosalie teaches literature. Her novels have sold over 50,000 copies.

Reviews

[Essie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts I really liked. On the death of Ian, she says, "and the residue of Ian's unique presence still provides me with comfort." That really resonated with me. But these heartfelt reminisces were few and far between. Chapters and sub-sections felt disjointed and disparate. How can one go from F Troop to Antarctica on the turn of a page! I read on my iPad, so those annoying footnotes, tacked on at the end of a chapter, usually meant nothing! If you can't weave them into the writing, leave them out! Stick to fiction, Rose!

[Anna Wheaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosalie, the author, is in her 70s and this is a book aimed at readers approaching or around that age….so a fairly narrow demographic. It’s full of lots of short/small chapters which are observations about getting old, and reflections about when she was young. Definitely some good laughs but it does hop around a bit and is disjointed at times.
There are lots of footnotes and I found it ironic that it was hard to spot the symbols for each footnote as they were quite tiny…..a bit too small for her intended audience, with failing eyesight, to read.

[Jess Lomas]

Full review over at Books+Publishing but if you enjoyed Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck then there's plenty in here for you.

[Barbara Thomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this laugh out loud book!

[Jean Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book amusing at times but in general it was just a rambling piece of writing.