SOURCE: Porter, Peter. “A Month in the City.” Spectator 287, no. 9029 (25 August 2001): 35-6.

In the following review, Porter finds 30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account to be superficial and elitist, commenting that Carey focuses only on the trendier and more upscale areas of the city.

Love or hate Sydney; love and hate Sydney; love to hate Sydney—most Australians fit into the first two of these categories, while Melbournians are chiefly found in the third. But nobody is indifferent to this great city, one of the most mythologised in the modern world. Before writing about it—even when judging somebody else's view of it—you should declare your interest. My mother came from Sydney and looked on her Brisbane life as exile. I went there each Christmas in the Thirties, and ever since have regarded it as my authentic Babylon. I have lived there only briefly but visited...