AustLit

'You’re Doing it Wrong is an outrageous tour through the centuries of bonkers and bad advice handed down and foisted upon women, told as only Kaz Cooke can – with humour and rage, intelligence and wit.

'Come with Kaz on a laugh-out-loud frolic through centuries of terrible advice, from 14th-century clergy to the Kardashians (wear a dress made of arsenic, do some day-drinking, have sex with a billionaire biker, worry about your vagina wrinkles). It’s also a roar against injustice, a rallying cry for sisterhood and a way to free ourselves from ludicrous expectations and imposed perfectionism.

'Kaz’s own 30-year history of interest and experience in advice – from her newspaper etiquette column to best-selling books, including Up the Duff and the Girl Stuff series – and years of archives and research have culminated in a full-colour, exuberant shout of a book with hundreds of wacky and sobering historical photos of objects and instructions.

'You’re Doing It Wrong examines what we’re told to do (change shape, shoosh, do all the housework), and what we’re not supposed to do (frown, have pockets, lead a country). It covers sex & romance, paid work, fashion & beauty, health advice, housework, and a motherlode of mad parenting instructions – from witchcraft to beauty pageants, with a side of aviatrixes. Put the kettle on and settle in.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Kaz Cooke invites you to an audience with the amazing Ada. She's a showgirl and a story teller with a trunk full of stories and secrets. A funny, tender novel about an extraordinary woman who made the very best of everything life threw at her.

'‘It’s not every day a handsome young man appears on your doorstep to ask if you’re a respectable woman…’

'Miss Ada Delroy and her famous vaudeville troupe stormed five continents, enchanting royalty, miners and larrikins alike with her wit, illusions, and breathtaking dances.

'‘I had a diamond pendant near as big as an emu egg off the Maharajah of What's-His-Name. They named a racehorse after me, and a pigeon and a potato soup on an Orient steamship.'

'Under the costume made from 100 yards of billowing silk was a woman who couldn’t help being both fabulous and disreputable. Down on her luck in a rented room in Melbourne, morphia cocktail in hand, Ada receives a visitor. Is she ready to share her secrets?

'Inspired by photos of real 1890s vaudevillians, Kaz Cooke brings to life a forgotten world of cunning clairvoyants and trained cockatoos; of fierce loyalties and mixed lollies; the glamour of the stage and the muck of the road. Funny, inventive and lovingly researched, Ada is the story of an extraordinary woman in the toughest of times, with the courage to make herself the star.

'‘I’ll tell you what I loved about being a theatrical. You’re a custodian of magic, a purveyor of glamour, a repository of mystery. You’re someone.’' (Publication summary)