When is a travel book not really a travel book? When the traveller does not need to take time off from work and when he returns home at the end of each day to sleep in his own bed. A Month of Sundays is about one such traveller - James O'Loghlin - who, with his partner and young daughter sets out to explore the city in which he lives.

When their neighbours on both sides embark on building projects seemingly designed to cause maximum noise and disruption, O'Loghlin and his partner, Lucy, decide not to get mad, and not to get even either. Instead, they will leave home each day to escape the disturbance. They will use the time to explore the Sydney they live in, to get to know it more intimately. They will use the time to visit places they've never seen and to rediscover suburbs they thought they knew.

A Month of Sundays is a record of these travels, but it is more. It is also a record of O'Loglin's personal journey - both in the time-frame of the book and in the years before. It is a serious book, but it is also very witty. O'Loghlin's view of the world is both insightful and comic.

James O'Loghlin is a comedian who used to be a criminal lawyer. He is known as the face as the ABC's New Inventors and is also heard on ABC Radio. This is his second book. Readers will be grateful that he took the time to write it - and to live it.

Wonderful reading.

A Month of Sundays, by James O'Loghlin
Allen & Unwin, 2004

Other Great Nonfiction Reads

The Naked Man Festival, by Brian Thacker
The A-Z of the Best Jokes in the World, by Jason Ryder