I have never not finished a book, but I was tempted to give this one away. Every second paragraph had a Australian name drop. Every page, there was a deviation that included, shopping item (explained for the non-Australian), street directions. I felt that the author was given a challange to include every Australian invention, every Australian sporting event, all the Australian owned food and cleaning products and any other invention, in her book. There was definately a cringe factor in this book. I would not recommend this to any one. It is not even worthy as a book to read on the train. I was given it as a present because I was a cat lover. I would not have bought this.

This book was published to mark the completion of the restoration of St Patrick's Cathedral in 1997. Unfortunately it's perhaps one of the most disappointing works of architecture/history I have ever read. The Author's constant air of superiority to the men & women who partitipated in the construction of the Cathedral and his perpetual practice of judging their actions & motivations acording to the criteria of our own day is a pesistent irritation and a very poor example historical writing. The book is peppered with minor errors and the architecural analysis and description is amateurish in the extreme. Sadly for a book marking the end of a programme of restoration it doen't even include many photographs of the restored building - for some reason out of date shots from the seventies & early eighties have been used instead. Advised against.