'Despite all the big talk and fancy press releases, let's face it, Swine Flu, you're more Babe than razorback. Twenty dead? Come on! More die choking on ham sandwiches every week. Sure, I won't be pashing any pigs for a while, but here's a tip from an old media hack: under-promise and over-deliver.'

Swine Flu. Financial meltdown. It's been a bad year for pigs and pigs in suits. The cure? A good stiff dose of Catherine Deveny, who each week in the Age puts everything in perspective with outrageous wit and disarming honesty.

Free to a Good Home includes her thoughts on gifted children and breakfast television, sexy billboards and the bill of rights. She reflects on her youngest child's first day at school, and on how to be happy in hard times.

Fearlessly funny and always provocative, Deveny is the perfect antidote to the modern world's ills.