After living in New York for ten years novelist Peter Carey returned home to Sydney with the idea of capturing its ebullient character via the four elements. ‘I would never seek to define Manhattan by asking my New York friends for stories of Earth and Air and Fire and Water,’ he writes, ‘but that is exactly what was in my mind as I walked through immigration at Kingsford Smith International Airport.’ But Carey’s friends turn out to be anarchic characters each of whom has had his own very individual ways of story-telling. Carey draws the reader helplessly into a wild and wonderful journey of discovery and re-discovery. Reading this book is a very physical experience, as bracing as the famous Southerly buster that sometimes batters Sydney’s beauteous shores. Famous visual extravaganzas such as Bondi Beach, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the Blue Mountains all take on a strange new intensity when exposed to the penetrating gaze of Peter and his friends. "Thirty Days In Sydney" offers the reader a private glimpse behind the glittering facades and the venetian blinds. It will exhilarate and enchant all who visit.