Say When

by Catherine Deveny

At 2am., everything seems like a good idea ... In 2008 the Pope came to Sydney, petrol prices soared and Australia proudly became the fattest nation on earth. Big Brother got the chop, Sam Newman mauled a mannequin and the Logies were as wonderfully bad as ever. Thank goodness for Catherine Deveny. Always ready with a subversive aside or a provocative question, each week in the Age she brings her passionate, irreverent wit to bear on the big issues of the day. Say When collects Deveny's funniest, sharpest and most outrageous columns from the past year - and some unpublished work, as well. Whether taking on God, climate change or Kerri-Anne Kennerley, she is sure to leave you begging for more. ''We've won the battle of the fatties. Australia is now officially, according to some bunch of folk with clipboards in one hand and flab pinchers in the other, the world's fattest nation. Go, you good thing! Get stuck into those pies! Potato cakes? I'll have three. One for mum, one for dad and one for the country. Let's use our newfound status as the Tubby Country as a tourist pitch to attract chubby chasers and fat fetishists. Where the bloody hell am I? Down the shops, buying dim sims.'' -Catherine Deveny

306 pages, Paperback

Published March 28, 2017

About the author

Catherine Deveny is the author of The Happiness Show (2012), Free To A Good Home (2009), Say When (2008) and It’s Not My Fault They Print Them (2007).

Catherine is a television comedy writer, comedian, author, social commentator and broadcaster well known for her work as columnist with the Age newspaper and as an ABC regular. She cites her biggest influences as Bill Hicks, Richard Dawkins, Billy Bragg and Alice Miller. Deveny’s television work includes Network Seven’s Tonight Live with Steve Vizard, Full Frontal, ABC TV’s Good News Week, BackBerner and Q&A, Network 10’s Rove Live, The Wedge, skitHOUSE and The 7pm Project.

She performs regularly on radio and television and is a popular fill in broadcaster on 774 ABC Melbourne. Deveny has written for the Logie Awards, the Aria Music Awards and co-wrote the 2005 AFI Awards with Russell Crowe.

Reviews

[Louisa Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2013 I had a writing course with Catherine Deveny - and I loved it! She re-introduced me to writing, which I had really done all my life - but I'd never, by then, had any books published (yet I wrote magazine articles!).

Deveny gave each of us a personally signed copy of this book. The book broke it down to 'Men and Women', 'The Home Front', 'TV: the View from Here', 'Politics', 'Talking Points' and 'TV: the View from Over There' - and some of those I definitely enjoyed! I won't comment on what Deveny wrote in the 'Politics' section, but I could laugh. Read it!

The review on the back of the book says "Say When collects Deveny's funniest, sharpest and most outrageous columns from the past year... she is sure to leave you begging for more." Well Catherine, I certainly enjoyed it, but I have so much more to catch up on . I will get back to you in the near future!

[Sarah Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Say When" by Catherine Deveny is on of the author's earlier books. It is a collection of her columns from the opinion pages of The Age newspaper (before they sacked her for being controversial and rude - pretty sure they were exactly the reasons we enjoyed the column so much, but there you go). Always good for a laugh, "Say When" is honest, witty, funny and an all round good read.

[Pandora · Rating 3 out of 5]

CD rocks the Age with her mix of grumpy post -fem cred and bleeding heart leftiness. I have one issue with her and that's the 'changing your name is betraying the sisterhood' thing. No, having three kids is much worse for the human race actually Cath.