Relationships is a worthy book, scattered with sensible observations and reassuring comments, but locating them is like chewing through sawdust to find sultanas.

Terry Collings has splendid credentials. Clinical Director of the Marriage Guidance Council of NSW for the past seven years, he has taught family counselling to both professional and lay groups, and lectured in Britain and the US. His phone-in session, ‘City Extra’, is one of the ABC’s most popular programmes. He would undoubtedly be invaluable in a face-to-face or even a phone-to-phone encounter, but he has failed to adapt his experience and skills to print.