Here, collected in one volume, are Afferbeck Lauder's groundbreaking studies of Australian speech, Let Stalk Strine and Nose Tone Unturned. Also included are Fraffly Well Spoken and Fraffly Suite, Lauder's guide to the strangled dialect of the English upper class.
Reproduced with Al Terego's original illustrations, these classic books are full of mare chick momence. They are essential reading for air fridge Strines and new Strines alike?indeed, for anyone interested in our wire flife - Tiger look and start torgon Strine!
Strine - The Complete Works of Professor Afferbeck Lauder - 9781921520853
The proof of a cook book is in the eating. Last week Katie Caldesi showed us how easy it was to make great Italian food from her own book by knocking up lunch, while I asked her impertinent questions and generally got in the way. So impressive was her demo that an elderly gentleman who had wandered into the Caldesi kitchen, presumably under the impression it was open house, looked, listened, smelt and then picked a show copy of her book off the shelf and bought it on the spot.
Katie and husband Giancarlo Caldesi own and run Caffe Caldesi in Marylebone and Caldesi in Campagna in Bray. Katie also runs the La Cucina Caldesi cookery school, so who better to create a definitive cookbook and course for Italian food?
This is weighty book, not just in the way it makes my IKEA ?invisible support' shelf adopt a distinct downward incline, but also in the weight of knowledge inside it. Katie spent three years travelling all over Italy to talk to chefs, old ladies, producers and other experts in food fields to put it all together.
The Italian Cookery Course - Katie Caldesi - 9781856267793
Half the world is stuffed, half of it is starved. How can this be? With a world food crisis going on, food policy expert, journalist, and author Raj Patel traces the causes from farm to fork, revealing startling truths about a greatly flawed food system that is dominated by a few, but powerful, major corporations.
Author of the international bestseller Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Patel exposes how the food market is structured between consumers, farmers, and a handful of corporations in-between. Ultimately, it is the power of these modern food giants that influence the environmental, social, and economic factors that determine how food ends up on tables throughout the world.
Intelligent and thought-provoking, Patel follows our food from seed to store to plate. Examining the scope of hunger and globalization, he explains the steps necessary to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance. Taking aim at supermarkets and financial institutions that perpetuate these inequalities, he suggests ways we can bypass the industrial food system and get back in touch with what we eat and the people who produce it.
This book has been a long ime in gestation. Goddard has a great pedigree on this subject (Songs That Saved Your Life), and the omens were good for this exhaustive tome - you will not be disappointed. Truly, truly. Astounding.
He draws all possible recordings, unreleased material, influences, and, for the first time, an in-depth look at all Morrissey's solo output. I kept looking to see "I wonder if he's got that bit in?", looking for obscure references - and every time, the answer was yes. There's stuff in here for the beginner, the knowledgeable fan, the absolute know-it-all. And still more. This book will, for years to come, be the most authoritative and insightful book on the subject of Morrissey & The Smiths. Oh, and it's a quality, well-put-together, stylish book. A stunning piece of work.
In the fifth of the 13 "secret" lives of buildings he relates, that of Gloucester cathedral, Hollis raises the strange case of the death and burial of Edward II. Had the deposed Plantagenet king of England been cruelly put to death with a red-hot poker at Berkeley Castle and then buried in the filigree gothic tomb erected in his memory in the cathedral? Or had he escaped over the Alps to Lombardy, where he lies buried in "a simple tomb in the mountain hermitage at Cecima, a quiet place where nothing has changed for centuries"?
Hollis goes uncharacteristically quiet at this point. He has, I presume, not been to the Hermitage of Sant'Albano di Burtrio to see for himself. I haven't, either, which is why in a book of tales of familiar buildings ranging from the Parthenon through the Alhambra and Notre Dame to Jerusalem's Western Wall, I wanted so very much to know more. What secrets does the hermitage at Cecima hold? Was this, as I think it might well have been, a romantic Victorian story got up with faked medieval correspondence and set about with tantalising if fictional clues?
The story of Edward II and Cecima would make a fascinating book in its own right, and Hollis, an architect who has restored follies and who teaches interior design at Edinburgh College of Art, would be a perfect author for such a serpentine and gothic tale. The Secret Lives of Buildings is a beautifully wrought book: a kind of illuminated manuscript with words taking the place of pictures of which, for a book about architecture, there are precious few, although the production is otherwise handsome.
The Secret Lives of Buildings - Edward Hollis - 9781846271274
Viggo Mortensen has been a longtime admirer of novelist Cormac McCarthy, so when he received the script for the movie adaptation of McCarthy's "The Road," he says he jumped at the chance to play the character known only as the Man.
"I talked to McCarthy on the phone before we started filming," Mortensen says in a recent telephone interview, discussing his role as a father who sets out on a journey with his son in a post-apocalyptic world. "We talked about how the book is really about being a dad. And he came to the set in Oregon for the filming of the scene where I swim out to sea, headed for a boat, in search of food."
After meeting the author, Mortensen says, he came away with the impression that McCarthy is "quite thoughtful, although he plays his cards close to the vest. He's a realist, and his books have an interesting balance of scientific knowledge and meticulous description, while still being very much poetic."
Mortensen says it was interesting "to see him interact with his son," whom McCarthy brought to the set. "The boy called him 'papa,' just like in the book."
The vast majority of the new movie, which opened Wednesday, centers on the bond between a father and a son (a character simply known as the Boy), played by Australian newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee.
The protagonist of The Shipping News (for he could assuredly not be called a "hero") is Quoyle, a big man with a huge chin who is an established loser. Unappealing in appearance and uninspiring in personality, Quoyle is pegged as a wretch from day one by everybody, including his parents.
At 36, he's a college dropout and a third-rate newspaperman who is caught in an endless cycle of firing and rehiring, forced to take demeaning temporary jobs at his editor's whim. He is married to an unashamedly philandering woman who has borne him two children she almost never sees, a heartless bawd who never misses work but brings her boyfriends home to have sex with them in the living room while Quoyle listens, silently weeping, in their bedroom. At the head of Chapter One, Proulx defines "quoyle" as "a coil of rope," and proceeds to quote The Ashley Book of Knots:
"A Flemish flake is a spiral coil of one layer only. It is made on deck, so that it may be walked on if necessary."
It it the perfect introduction to Quoyle; he is, in more familiar terms, a doormat.
Quoyle's life is suddenly and forever changed by a rapid succession of momentous events. His parents, both diagnosed with cancer, commit suicide -- his father leaves a final announcement of the decision on Quoyle's answering machine in his last conscious moments. Quoyle's editor again informs him that he is fired, but that this time it is likely permanent. His wife, after taking and selling their two girls, dies in a car crash while running away to Florida with her latest boyfriend. And Quoyle finally meets his Aunt Agnis, who convinces him that the best thing would be to relocate to his family's ancestral home in Newfoundland. An old (and only) friend of Quoyle's secures him a job writing the shipping news for a paper there, and Quoyle packs up his recovered daughters, his aunt and her dog, and leaves New York for Newfoundland.
'A great mate is one of those things most Aussie blokes take for granted - until he's not there.'
I don't quite know how it all happened. One moment I was laughing with my teenage surfing buddy Stevo as he got hammered by the suckiest waves on the Sunshine Coast, the next I was grinning next to him in my best man's suit at his wedding in Oregon.
Stevo was my mate. We would go camping, hang out at the beach and his family's wildlife park, play sport, and act like silly buggers. Then our friendship deepened as we trusted each other with our lives catching wild crocs in remote Queensland.
My Mate Steve Irwinoffers never before seen photos and untold stories of the bloke, the conservationist, the reptile lover, the life of the party, the hard worker, the mate. My mate, who was more crocodile whisperer than hunter.
This is a heartfelt memoir and boy's own adventure story about growing up with Steve Irwin, by one of his mates, Tony Frisby.
About the authors
Tony Frisby is now a parks ranger based at Yeppoon in Queensland. His early friendship with Steve Irwin sparked three decades of saving wildlife, from joining Steve and Bob Irwin on reptile-catching trips in remote bush to becoming one of the early curators at the Irwins' reptile and fauna park (now Australia Zoo).
Julie Gatehouse is a Sunshine Coast-based journalist with 19 years' experience in newspapers and magazines. She worked with Tony to write this book.
As the first criminal prosecutions from last year's sex-and-bribes-for-development scandal at Wollongong Council begin to roll through the courts, the council's former general manager, Rod Oxley, has popped up with a tell-all book.
In a case of fortunate timing, the distributor, Pan Macmillan Australia, has just begun promoting Named and Shamed, an account from Oxley's perspective of the Independent Commission Against Corruption's investigation, which found Oxley had engaged in corrupt conduct. Written by a former communications officer at the council, Neryl East, the book, which is due out on December 1, is described as ''a story of corruption, greed, politics and the powers of the ICAC.'' As if that wasn't enough, it also seems to be pitching it as a must-read for anyone who finds themselves on the wrong side of the corruption watchdog's surveillance techniques. ''There are some interesting lessons for people in leadership, and for public servants who might find themselves under the ICAC spotlight,'' it promises.
In May 1960, government scientists in New Zealand picked up signals of a catastrophic earthquake in Chile, and warned of a seismogenic tsunami or tidal wave that could destroy the coastal towns of the low-lying Bay of Plenty, thousands of miles across the Pacific. As the New Zealand Herald's district reporter for Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty, I jumped into my little Morris 1000 and drove to the coast.
There was a tsunami, but it missed New Zealand. It raced northwards and slammed into Hilo in Hawaii, where it killed 61 people who had misunderstood or ignored the warnings - or even deliberately headed for the shore to watch the great wave. It also badly injured 282 people, washed away whole streets that had been rebuilt after a catastrophic tsunami in 1946, and in all caused an estimated $50m of damage. The tsunami carried on across the ocean at the speed of a jet plane and the next morning claimed 140 lives in Japan.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning System, the first of its kind in the world, had failed but, says Richard Hamblyn in this compelling book, the real problems were not technological, but psychological. "People were simply not scared enough of tsunamis, in spite of the islands' well-documented history of regular seismic assault."
That is the thread that runs through this thoughtful account of four famous episodes of natural disaster. People were either so scared they didn't know what to do, or not scared enough, or they ran in the wrong direction, or they were terrified by the wrong agency. Each event was the trigger for another advance in the understanding of planetary machinery, but although societies learned from each episode, they didn't learn enough.
Roberto Bolano was the type of writer most writers want to be or think they already are: stylistically bold, thematically engaging, readable and re-readable; in other words, undeniably exceptional. Bolańo, who died in 2003, was a writer whose style is deceptively simple yet whose books and characters take hold of one's brain-all or most or perhaps some small unguarded part of it-and frequently return to one's thoughts, living and breathing and growing.
Amulet is his most recent novel to be translated into English. It's a slim book, though that should not confuse it with "slight" or "minor." It's a major accomplishment, narrated by and the story of one of his greatest characters: a woman named Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan living illegally in Mexico. She finds herself in the bathroom during the Mexican army's occupation of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the days preceding the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, the incident in which Mexican president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz brutally suppressed a growing student rebellion by ordering police to fire wildly into a large protest in Mexico City's Plaza of Three Cultures. As the only person still on campus, she holes up in her stall with a book of poems. As the violence in Mexico City escalates outside of the safety of her women's room stall, poetry becomes her nourishment and lifeforce.
Comedian Tony Martin returns with another collection of tales from his life outside show business. Outrageous coincidences, disgraceful errors of judgement, ancient family disputes and misguided attempts to impress women are just part of the story.
You'll be both amused and appalled as Martin establishes his own junior detective agency, discovers that his parents are censoring bare breasts from the National Geographic, has his braces repossessed by the government, ruins several plays in an attempt to find a girlfriend, gets caught two-timing his local video shop, mars an awards night with a burst of foul language, attends a racist dinner at an Indian restaurant, allows cameras to enter his every bodily orifice, and returns to his hometown to discover that his grandfather is not the man he thought he was. A Nest of Occasionals is a series of super-size set pieces from a life lived in miniature. But what does the title mean? There's only one way to find out.
A Nest of Occasionals - Tony Martin - 9780330425230
Charlotte Roche was born in High Wycombe and brought up in Germany. She grew up to become a cool young television presenter who is usually photographed peeping demurely from beneath a fringe, a German Amélie. Often, she is wearing puff-sleeves. Do not be misled.
Wetlands is Roche's first book. The opening sentence concerns haemorrhoids: it is relatively tame. By page two, the heroine is reminiscing about anal sex. When the novel was launched in Germany, audience members reportedly fainted at readings. (In fact, people faint quite a lot at readings, but this is usually less to do with titillation and more to do with long passages of landscape description.) And yet, despite all this, for a time last year Wetlands was the number one bestseller in the world.
Although its title conjures up the poetic Fens (it is possible to see why the British publishers avoided the more accurate translation "Moist Areas"), Wetlands takes place entirely in a German hospital room. This room is occupied by Helen Memel, the novel's 18-year-old narrator, who has been admitted with a self-inflicted injury. In the course of shaving her less talkative end, she managed to cut her anus with a razor. The wound festered and now she needs an operation.
Laid out on a hospital bed, bottom bare to the breeze, Helen ruminates at length on her body and its products. Occasionally, some oafish doctor comes in and says something oafish (this part is quite believable). Otherwise, not very much happens. Sometimes, Helen is in pain and sometimes she is hungry. But mostly, she thinks, in the great German tradition. Where Musil had a Man Without Qualities, Roche brings us a Woman without Pants.
The novel's basic premise is that Helen has had sex, feels great about that, and is generally at home and easy with human fluids in a way that the rest of us are not. She likes to smell and eat her "smegma". She is in love with her copious "slime". She broods on her "well-trained pelvic muscles'" and her "very successful" experiences of anal sex. She is fascinated by masturbation, which she appears to believe she invented. "I think a lot of women still don't masturbate, simply because they don't know how to talk about it," Roche told an interviewer. Helen is not one of those women. She molests barbecue tongs and avocado pits. And the shower attachment, of course. (Sometimes, I feel like the only woman in the world who uses the shower attachment for washing my hair.) While masturbating, Helen likes to hum Amazing Grace, which does go to illustrate the incredible diversity of human sexuality.
But Helen doesn't just want to celebrate novel ways with boiled eggs. Her story is also a manifesto against prissy Anglo-American hygiene habits: against a culture that peddles lavatory fresheners and vaginal deodorants ("Take that, American tampon industry!" as she says at one point). In this respect - in its stress on the naturalness of bodies - Wetlands is quite German, just as The Sexual Life of Catherine M's obsessive deconstruction of the author's desire for rough sex with lorry drivers was quite French, and Secret Diary of a Call Girl's focus on "shagging" was quite British. Disturbingly, this would suggest we are most our national selves when naked.
For Roche's novel to work, we have to believe several things. One is that her heroine's body - and its products - are somehow shocking. Another is that people are primarily concerned with niceness in their pursuit of sexual fulfilment. I don't know if I'm the best person to judge this any more, because I work in a hospital, which alters your outlook. Doctors are forever peering into covered dishes and devising stool charts. Bodies are not disgusting. And nothing is shocking. Stand too close to a colorectal surgeon and they'll inevitably show you a picture of some object they've "delivered". (Last week: a mobile phone photograph of a dildo shaped like an aubergine.)
Roche also feels that women struggle with self-expression. As she has described it: "I was really jealous of the fact that men have this whole range of different names for their sexual organs - beautifully detailing what state of arousal they're in - while us women still don't really have a language for our lust." Perhaps in German there are lots of lovely words for penises, but this isn't so in English. If it were, the immortal phrase "party equipment" would never have been invented. Surely both genders are equally tongue-tied when it comes to sex. We are stuck with porn, slang and biology. I'm not sure Roche has solved the problem here. It's a difficult road to freedom, but is calling one's labia "ladyfingers" truly a leap forward? Is "snail-tail" really an advance on "clitoris"? Some of this may be down to the translation: the translator also works as an editor on Playboy, which perhaps explains the pussy count. "Pearl-trunk", on the other hand, would probably get him fired.
Long steeped in secrecy, the doors to Sydney's Red Lantern restaurant have been flung open, revealing more than just what's in the mysterious stock pot.
When I first heard of the Vietnamese restaurant in Surry Hills, courtesy of a TV documentary, it was tales of their master stock which peaked my interest. The image of chef Luke Nguyen tending to the ten-year-old brew at 3am in the morning, guarding his father's secret recipe, intrigued and enticed.
Now, in Secrets of the Red Lantern, the master stock recipe is exposed, along with so much more. These are not only the recipes that made Red Lantern successful, handed down by generations, but also the memoirs of the Nguyen family.
Pauline Nguyen shares the account of her family's escape from post-war Vietnam, their eventual settlement in Australia and the struggle to remain united when cultures collide.
Secrets of the Red Lantern is a moving book filled with wonderful Vietnamese recipes and an inspiring passion for food and kinship from a family who have added much to Sydney's eating scene.
Secrets of the Red Lantern - Pauline Nguyen - 9781740459044
A mysterious high-profile homicide in the nation's capital collides with the dark side of national security in David Baldacci's new, heart-stopping thriller, True Blue.
Mason "Mace" Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything, her badge, her career, her freedom, and spent two years in prison. Now she's back on the outside and is focused on one mission: to be a cop once more.
Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: a vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send her back behind bars.
Then Roy Kingman enters her life.
Roy Kingman is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm.
Their investigation into the lawyer's death reveals surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation's capital, and what began as a fairly routine homicide investigation takes a terrifying and unexpected turn into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal.
Smalltown is a view of the Australia we politely ignore.
In this rich and austere collaboration, photographer Marin Mischkulnig has joined writer Tim Winton to produce a meditation on the peculiar collision of beauty and ugliness that characterises our far-flung towns.
Without pulling any punches, this is an affectionate, exasperated take on 'fugliness and the smalltown shambolic' where both photographer and writer crate a stark beauty, despite the sad conviction that 'there is nothing so bleak and forbidding in country Australia as the places humans have built there'.
By showing us the bizarre and funny and sometimes stubborn hope of people who live in desolate circumstances, they invite us to wonder about what we build and how it affects our communities.What does it say about us that we build places 'just' to live or work in?Is beauty a luxury we don't believe we can afford?Is hardiness enough to sustain people, or does it finally limit the imagination?
Smalltown is a beautiful book about ugliness. It might change the way you see Australia.
Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick, with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, should help persuade mainstream readers that the late SF author was no "mere" genre writer. Fans of the Spielberg film Minority Report will find Dick's original, "The Minority Report," along with 20 other masterful tales.
This volume is another consequence of the respectability Dick won posthumously with the classy movie Blade Runner, based on a novel of his. Besides the source of the new movie Minority Report, two more of his stories that were filmed--"Second Variety," lensed as Screamers, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," which became Total Recall --appear here.
Also on hand are the very early "Beyond Lies the Wub" and "Roog"; "The King of the Elves," a rare excursion into fantasy, more Borges than Tolkien; "The Days of Perky Pat" and "Faith of Our Fathers," which explore themes later developed in novels; and 13 others. The stories show him reaching out to the dark sides of American society--and of himself.
When he was alive, his work fell between the stools of mainstream disdain for any science fiction and the sf subculture's disdain for anybody who tried to "write mainstream." Justice done a dead man is better than no justice at all, especially when it involves giving such distinctive short fiction renewed currency.
The Philip K Dick Collection Box Set - 9781598530490
Set in Wyalkatchem in the West Australian wheat belt, this is a fictional tale about Gin and Toad and 2 Italian prisoners of war who came to work on their farm as labourers in 1944. She has captured the harshness of the country and the deprivation of the times and given us the character of Gin Toad.
Married to Toad to escape a mental institution she survives the heat and dirt of the farm and gives up her ladylike ways as she becomes immune to the lack of music and lover in her outback life. Then she meets Antonio and becomes infamous as the traitor who helped an Italian POW to escape. This story is haunting, gritty and sad but it has a wonderful style of language which captures the atmosphere of the times and life on the land.
42 atheist celebrities, comedians, scientists and writers give their funny and serious tips for enjoying the Christmas season.
Last year, Guardian journalist Ariane Sherine launched the Atheist Bus Campaign and ended up raising over GBP150,000, enough to place the advert 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life' on 800 UK buses in January 2009.
Now Ariane and dozens of other atheist writers, comedians and scientists are joining together to raise money for a very different cause. The Atheist's Guide to Christmas is a funny, thoughtful handbook all about enjoying Christmas, from 42 of the world's most entertaining atheists. It features everything from an atheist Christmas miracle to a guide to the best Christmas pop hits, and contributors include Richard Dawkins, Charlie Brooker, Derren Brown, Ben Goldacre, Jenny Colgan, David Baddiel, Simon Singh, AC Grayling, Brian Cox and Richard Herring. The full book advance and all royalties will go to the UK HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust.
The Atheists' Guide To Christmas by Ariane Sherine - 9780007322619
Through an extraordinary selection of outstanding images, along with revelatory interviews, PHOTOWISDOM: Master Photographers on Their Art provides an unrivalled exploration of the richness of contemporary photographic practice.
The purpose and the technique of photography is explained and discussed with many of the greatest photographers of our time. They share their visions, their challenges, their motivations and their methods, as we are taken inside the work and behind the lens through original and highly accessible 'in-their-own-words' commentaries.
The photographers featured range from award-winning photojournalists to celebrity shooters; from politicised environmentalists to elusive artists; from timeless veterans to new visionaries; and from great storytellers to the makers of lasting icons.
BBC Books have released the cover and details about the upcoming Doctor Who Files Collectors Edition. It will include the following Doctor Who Files: The Doctor, Rose, The Slitheen, The Sycorax, Mickey, K9, The Daleks, The Cybermen, Martha, Captain Jack, The Cult of Skaro, The TARDIS, The Sontarans and The Ood. The Doctor Who Files Collectors Edition contains 496 pages of old and new material.
The Doctor Who Files Collectors Edition - 9781405906050
Robert Forster was a founding member of The Go-Betweens and is currently the music critic for the Monthly magazine. His first book The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll is an exhilarating trip through the past and present of popular music - from Bob Dylan, AC/DC and Nana Mouskouri through to Cat Power, Franz Ferdinand and Delta Goodrem.
You were first known as a songwriter and musician, how did you come to be a music writer, and was it something that had always interested you?
I was asked to be a music writer by Christian Ryan who was the first editor of the Monthly. Music journalism was something that always interested me but only as a reader. I thought about music and I would almost run ideas through my head when I listened to a record or saw a concert, but I never put any of thoughts to paper. I needed some impetus to do that, and that eventually came from Christian's request.
Are there particular music writers whose work you admire, and have they influenced your own writing in any way?
I admire the following people but you may not see any of their influence in what I do. And there has been no overriding person whom I have wished to be with my writing. No one example. But I like or have liked Nick Kent, Robert Christgau, Ann Powers, Bernard Zuel, Victoria Segal. There are many others.
What 2009 album have you enjoyed most this year?
Sarah Blasko's As Day Follows Night.
The bands and albums that you write about are diverse, what are some of your most loved albums?
Hunky Dory by David Bowie. Blood On The Tracks by Bob Dylan. Marquee Moon by Television, If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle and Sebastian.
What are some of the best and most memorable gigs that you've been to?
Talking Heads, at Festival Hall in Brisbane in 1979, Orange Juice at Glasgow Technical College in 1980, The John Steel Singers at Trobador(sic) Club Brisbane in 2009, and The Beach Boys at Festival Hall in Brisbane in 1978.
The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll. Collected Music Writings / 2005-09 - Robert Forster - 9781863954501
One year ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage like a comet. Yet even now, few Americans know who this remarkable woman really is.
On September 3, 2008 Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention that electrified the nation and instantly made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.
As chief executive of America's largest state, she had built a record as a reformer who cast aside politics-as-usual and pushed through changes other politicians only talked about: Energy independence. Ethics reform. And the biggest private sector infrastructure project in U.S. history. And while revitalizing public school funding and ensuring the state met its responsibilities to seniors and Alaska Native populations, Palin also beat the political "good ol' boys club" at their own game and brought Big Oil to heel.
Like her GOP running mate, John McCain, Palin wasn't a packaged and over-produced candidate. She was a Main Street American woman: a working mom, wife of a blue-collar union man, and mother of five children, the eldest of whom is serving his country in Iraq and the youngest, an infant with special needs. Palin's hometown story touched a populist nerve, rallying hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to the GOP ticket.
But as the campaign unfolded, Palin became a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. Supporters called her "refreshing" and "honest," a kitchen-table public servant they felt would fight for their interests. Opponents derided her as a wide-eyed Pollyanna unprepared for national leadership. But none of them knew the real Sarah Palin.
In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Palin paints an intimate portrait of growing up in the wilds of Alaska; meeting her lifelong love; her decision to enter politics; the importance of faith and family; and the unique joys and trials of life as a high-profile working mother. She also opens up for the first time about the 2008 presidential race, providing a rare, mom's-eye view of high-stakes national politics, from patriots dedicated to "Country First" to slick politicos bent on winning at any cost.
Going Rogue - An American Life - Sarah Palin - 9780061939891
Cadel Evans is arguably Australia's greatest cyclist, but he is by no means a typical sporting hero. Born in Katherine, north of the central desert in the Northern Territory, he became one of the best mountain bike riders in the world. A master of one of the most solitary sports, Cadel has contested the most sophisticated cycling team sport in the world, finishing second by less than a minute in the 2007 and 2008 editions of the Tour de France.
Co-written by Rob Arnold, Cadel: close to flying is the story of an Australian athlete who by his own confession, was physically completely unsuitable for almost all Australian school sports.As an only child raised by a single parent, Cadel practised alone on the road for hours a day throughout his childhood.
Uncomfortable with media attention throughout his extraordinary career, Cadel nevertheless became an ambassador for his sport and helped inspire the new popularity of cycling in Australia. He was targetted by media for his impatient outbursts at people, including policemen on motorcycles who got in his way. He also dared to make statements about Tibetan politics and aboriginal rights, before the media of the world.
In his first ever book, Cadel talks candidly and philosophically about his sport. He speaks with love, respect and also frustration at its imperfections including his many rivals caught on drugs. With Cadel, what you get is what you see. His drive and focus and frustrations are as candid as are his love of his sport and his belief in charities and political causes.
Co-author details: Rob Arnold is the publisher of RIDE Cycling Review, a quarterly magazine about competitive cycling. He has written the English content of the Official Tour de France website since 1998. Rob has followed the career of Cadel Evans since his amateur days as a mountain biker in the early-1990s through to his four top-10 finishes in each attempt at the Tour de France.
Ever wondered what happens if scientists were to break free?
The latest book from New Scientist delves into the strange and wonderful things that happen when scientists are let loose: anything from producing a fireproof umbrella that doubles as a parachute to using "glow-in-the-dark" toothpaste to reflect the headlights of oncoming cars.
How to Make a Tornado is an extraordinary collection of scientific endeavour and is a brilliant reminder that even at its most misguided, science is intensely creative, often hilarious, and can fire imagination like nothing else!
How to Make a Tornado by New Scientist - 9781846682872
An Englishman's continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea . .
Arthur Dent's accidental association with that wholly remarkable book The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has not been entirely without incident.
Arthur has travelled the length, breadth and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forwards and backwards through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released and colourfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And of course he has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
Arthur has, though, finally made it home to Earth. But that does not mean he has escaped his fate.
For Arthur's chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa are evaporating along with the world's oceans. Because no sooner has he arrived than he finds out that Earth is about to be blown up...again.
And Another Thing . is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Eoin Colfer. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favourite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer and at least one very large slab of cheese.
And Another Thing...: Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Part Six of Three - Eoin Colfer - 9780718155148
Here is something to read - or maybe not - when you are next on Qantas. Matthew Benns, an Australian investigative journalist, has written a book allegedly exposing everything that the airline did not want exposed.
According to the promotional material: "This book is the account of the Qantas story that every airline passenger needs to read: the full and frank history of Australia's national airline. It takes you into the boardroom, where golden parachutes are signed off, and onto the hangar floor, where engineers battle accounting cuts to keep planes flying safely. It takes you back to the foundation of the airline to disprove the line that Qantas never crashes.
"This is the warts and all history the Qantas PR department does not want you to read ... but you can bet they'll be reading it too!"
For the record, Qantas spokesman Simon Rushton has been quoted by several newspapers denying many of Benns' allegations. And as for the title, well, I did not know Qantas had died!
The Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns - 9781741668919
"I never saw so many fine and beautiful bodies. The French and English wept together at such a horrible loss of life." (As reported in London's The Standard, 1 September 1833)
In August 1833, the Amphitrite, a small convict ship bound for the colonies of Australia, was wrecked in a terrible storm on the coast of France. She carried 102 female prisoners, 12 of their children, along with the captain, the crew, a medical officer and one passenger - the medical officer's wife. Only three people survived. '
It was the convict era's first major shipwreck. The death of so many women and children, largely due to the incompetence and blind bigotry of those responsible for their safety, was a scandal that threatened to rock the very foundations of the transportation system. The reaction of the British Government was to cover it up, refusing to release even the names of the dead, depriving those tragic women and children of their very identity, even in death.
Gerald Stone, bestselling author and acclaimed journalist, has written a brilliant narrative recreation of the voyage and its disastrous end that brings these lost women back to life, revealing the world they lived in, their crimes, their loves, their hopes, their fears, and their final tragedy. Beautiful Bodies is a masterful and compelling work of living, breathing history.
Posthumous works by literary legends of the 20th century dominate the "It" lists this November. A final novel from Michael Crichton, Pirate Latitudes; a collection of short fiction from Kurt Vonnegut; and most controversially, Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novel, The Original of Laura. Nabokov asked that his manuscript (handwritten on 138 index cards) be destroyed, but his family opted to preserve it instead. Here are some other noteworthy titles that have been racing up our most popular charts this month.
Generation A - Douglas Coupland The latest pop-culture satire from the author of Generation X is set in the near future when bees are extinct. When five people in five different countries are stung, Coupland rotates these voices to reveal an eerie dystopia in which people worldwide are handicapped by a culture of isolation. Linetteschut says, "It's a hauntingly almost believable story, with incredible commentary on the power of storytelling itself."
New Moon Board game Test your knowledge of New Moon with your friends. Face challenges from the Quileutes to the Volturi. Travel the board, answer questions, be the first player to collect all 8 scenes from New Moon, and reunite Bella and Edward to win.
Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer Novelist Safran Foer veers into nonfiction with an exploration of why we eat meat and makes his case for ethical vegetarianism. Maren says the author's conversational approach "allows someone like me?someone who has eaten and enjoyed meat my entire life?to feel the full force of his argument without being attacked. It was hard not to be genuinely moved by it. I can't say that I'll ever go back to eating meat again."
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel Winner of the Man Booker Prize, Wolf Hall chronicles the life of Thomas Cromwell, a commoner who rose to become King Henry VIII's right-hand man. Cromwell plays a murky political game, crossing Thomas More, plotting for (and against) Anne Boleyn, and masterminding the English Reformation. Aarti says, "Mantel writes so lyrically, so adeptly...giving [her characters] flesh and blood where history only gives them wooden portraits."
Food Safari - Maeve O'Meara
Offering simple foolproof recipes that anyone can cook at home it is a delicious journey into new worlds, making delicious discoveries. Food Safari takes you on a culinary globetrot with Maeve O'Meara, who has spent most of her life seeking out great food, recipes and the clever people who make simple ingredients sing.
Battlelines - Tony Abbott Parliamentary pugilist and senior Liberal party figure Tony Abbott offers a lively and frank examination of the way forward for the Liberal party. Here he reveals insider moments and draws lessons from the dying days of the Howard Government, and offers colourful insights about his contemporaries on both sides of politics.
When expatriate novelist Nikki Gemmell had her children in London, she chose to give them Aussie citizenship over British. This Is Why.
Why you are Australian is an examination of our country thirty years ago and today: all the glory of its sun and water - and all the darkness of tall poppies and Cronulla. How does our land look from way over there, and from right up close?
A treatise about what it means to be Australian right now. Honest, moving, provocative, uplifting - an exile's story, a mother's story, an Australian's story.
Why you are Australian for anyone who needs reminding.
'Achingly I want you to know what it is to be Aussie kids. Where playing barefoot is a signifier of freedom not impoverishment. Where a backyard's a given not a luxury. Where sunshine and fresh food grow children tall. Where you know what a rash shirt is and a nipper, a Paddle Pop and a Boogie Board.'
Why You Are Australian - Nikki Gemmell - A Letter to My Children - 9780732289591
Not one to shy away from confronting issues, Emily Maguire's latest novel 'Smoke In The Room' strays into the dark territory of mental illness.
Set in Sydney, Maguire brings together three unlikely housemates who, despite being completely different, all share a profound grief. Katie is 23-years-old with bipolar and appears incapable of living with a male housemate without sleeping with him. Trying to prevent this from happening again, protecting Katie against the unnecessary hurt of rejection, her young grandmother suggests a solution in the form of introducing her to a docile non-drinking American Mormon and a gentle middle-aged refugee caseworker.
With walls of sadness between them, the new housemates ultimately realise these surprising friendships will provide them with a sense of healing. 'Smoke In The Room' is a brave and intelligent novel that stresses "nobody is safe" but that at the same "nobody is doomed".
Ohmygiddygodspyjamas! The tenth marvy book in the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson is here!
Get ready to laugh like a loon on loon tablets. It's the FINAL instalment of Georgia's fab and hilarious diary! Does Georgia escape the cakeshop of luuurve? Can there be more heartbreaknosity in store? Will the Sex God pop up again unexpectedly (oo-er)! And what about the supreme accidental snogmaster Dave the Laugh? Will she FINALLY choose her only one and only? So many boys, so little time!
Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me - Louise Rennison - 9780007277339
The second darkly brilliant Edwardian mystery featuring author-sleuth Denton
When American novelist Denton receives a letter from a young woman, Mary Thomason, saying she's in danger and needs his help, he doubts if there's anything he can do. As famous writer with a well-documented past as a lawman in the American west, Denton is used to having mysteries laid at his door, but the letter is months old and was only forwarded to him when the buyer of a painting found it stuck behind the frame.
Presumably whatever Mary Thomason was frightened of has already happened. So why did she hide the note behind this particular painting, instead of sending it? The search for answers leads Denton into the heart of Bohemian London - the world of artists and their models, a world of brilliance and depravity, of unconventional morals and shifting sexual identities, where the border between genius and madness is hard to discern but easy to cross.
And before he has learned the shocking truth, Denton will discover what it's like to be the object of a lethal obsession and endure a terrifying confrontation with his own demons.
I am not working on Midnight Sun now. I don't have a plan for when I'll get to it; I don't know now what the right time for it will be.
In your questions, there were some erroneous conclusions about the situation which I'll try to set straight. First, Midnight Sun is not finished and locked in a safe, waiting for me to be done angsting over the leak. If it were done, I would be throwing it on the bookstore shelves myself. I'd love to be able to give it to all the people who are anxiously waiting for it. Second, I am not upset about the leak. I haven't been for a long time; I was over it after about three weeks. Third, and most important, I am not trying to punish anyone. Not the persons who leaked it, not the people who read the leak, nobody. As I said, it would make me very happy to be able to give it to anyone who wants it.
So why the hold up? Because it's not finished and lying in a safe. It's not done, and finishing it is not a simple matter of sitting down in front of my computer and typing out the words; the words have to be there in my head to type out, and right now, they're not. I have to be in the zone to write any story, and trying to force myself into that zone is a waste of time, I've found. I'll get back to Midnight Sun when the story is compelling to me again. Just because people want it so badly does not make it more write-able; kind of the opposite, actually. I need to be alone with a story to write, and Midnight Sun feels really crowded, if you know what I mean.
"This is my twelfth novel", says John Irving. "Only once before in The World According to Garp which was my fourth novel have I been able to insert the title of the novel into the last sentence. I don't always try to do that; I don't force it. But its usually an idea in the back of my mind, and if it works, I don't hesitate to do it".
..."I always begin with a last sentence; then I work my way backwards, through the plot, to where the story should begin. The last sentence I began with this time is as follows: He felt that the great adventure of his life was just beginning as his father must have felt, in the throes and dire circumstances of his last night in Twisted River. And theres the title, waiting for you at the end of the story Last Night in Twisted River".
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving - 9781408802144
When Clarissa Dickson Wright first clambered into the sidecar of Jennifer Paterson's Triumph Thunderbird motorbike, she embarked on a journey that would transform her into a national treasure (or national monster, depending on whether or not you agree with her views on blood-sports, Labour politicians, saturated fats and factory farming).
Long before she became famous, Clarissa's life was filled with drama. In her autobiography, Spilling The Beans, she described her wealthy but abusive upbringing in a household dominated by her father, an alcoholic surgeon, who regularly beat his Australian heiress wife, Molly, and Clarissa, his youngest daughter.
Lapsing into alcoholism after her mother's death, Clarissa eventually found sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous and followed the success of Two Fat Ladies by becoming the poster girl for hunting, shooting, fishing and hare coursing.
Earlier this month, she and the racing trainer Sir Mark Prescott pleaded guilty to attending a hare-coursing event in Yorkshire and were given an absolute discharge. She takes a characteristically robust line ('Preposterous!') on the private prosecution in her new book, Rifling Through My Drawers.
This is billed by its publisher as 'further adventures from the much-loved author of Spilling The Beans', which makes it sound like a second volume of autobiography, but actually it is more of a salmagundi - a mixed salad of whatever odd and disparate ingredients happen to come to hand: fish, flesh, fowl or good red herring.
In the print edition of the October issue of The Monthly Sebastian Smee reviews Edmund Capon's I Blame Duchamp: My life's Adventures in Art
In one of the chapters Capon lines up Marcel Duchamp for the current state of contemporary art, especially conceptual art. Duchamp and his Fountain--- a ready-made sculpture as a ordinary manufactured objects designated by the artist as works of art are fingered for the second-rate in art today, which is devoid of beauty and sometimes a concept.
The reason given is that this ready made does not meet Capon's definition of art and so it is a version of the end of art thesis. I'm reading contemporary art as different from modern art in the sense that much contemporary art is no longer modern art in a stylistic sense. The non art--in Capon's sense--is an anti art in that these reject prior definitions of art and question art in general.
The end of art thesis, in the form of Arthur Danto's argument, Warhol's discovery that anything, including a commonplace Brillo Box for Danto could become art is described by Danto as the end point but also as the high point of that revolutionary period. After this discovery, there were no boundaries anymore to cross and hence no further steps to take towards greater artistic self-understanding.
Artworks continued to be made, but the history of art came to a definitive halt---ie., the developmental history of art is over.Danto welcomes the unlimited diversity of art since the art world is a model of a pluralistic society, in which all disfiguringbarriers and boundaries have been thrown down.
The end of art then is where the word "art" ceases to be a meaningful term because it refers to nothing or everything.
I Blame Duchamp - Edmund Capon - My Life Adventures In Art - 9781920989620
Jonathon Payne and David Jones are back in the fray in this page-turning, blockbusting new instalment from Chris Kuzneski, bestselling author of Sword of God, Sign of the Cross and The Lost Throne.
When the prophetic writings of sixteenth-century apothecary Nostradamus begin to ring alarmingly true, Payne and Jones find themselves in a life-or-death race across the world to stop those who would use the French seer's predictions for their own dark purposes.
It's summer in Shanghai. The city's 18 million residents continue their hurtling progress toward modernisation. Three men carrying blueprints appear outside homicide detective Zhong Fong's apartment: his building is being redeveloped, and he may soon have nowhere to live.
Fong is jolted from these worries by a midnight phone call from the Shanghai Theatre Company. His old rival has been found dead, hanging from a rope at the centre of the stage, an apparent suicide.
But from the moment Fong sees the crime scene, his instincts tell him two things. First, this was no suicide. Second, the search for the killer will lead him to dark places and unwanted revelations.
"Superb" ?The New Brunswick Reader
"Rotenberg has a real talent for characterisation and place, taking readers right into the urban heart of Shanghai." ?The Globe & Mail
"This delightful series gets better with each new novel." ?The Halifax Chronicle Herald
David Rotenberg is the author of four other Zhong Fong mysteries, as well as the novel Shanghai. He is one of Canada's foremost directors and acting teachers and has directed plays on Broadway and in Canada, South Africa and China.
Lynda Bennett and Trish Stewart are two health care professionals who have worked in aged care for many years. After witnessing the distress of people trying and failing to find information for themselves, their mother or their father about aged care, they realised the need for a guide that helped navigate care for the elderly and let people know what they could do.
This book was produced because we were frustrated with a lack of concise literature and information about coping with ageing issues. As health care professionals (Trish is a registered nurse and Lynda a physiotherapist), we found that we too were asking the same questions when it came to the care of our own families. People in need of care, carers of the elderly, family and friends need to access a wide range of information and services to be able to make informed choices.
They wrote this book to provide a much-needed, comprehensive and up-to-date reference for anyone looking for answers to their aged care questions.
This book was a lot of fun. I don't think it is to be taken super-seriously, however there is a lot here that is on the level of the most popular self-help books in terms of solid advice. With the demise of a recent fairly young pop star (ie, Michael Jackson), and people asking how Keith outlived him, well, if you read this book, you might understand.
There's so much philosophy and attitude to what has kept him going and being the archetypal survivor. There's some history, one recipe, lots of facts, some self-help advice from Keith, and mostly, there's lots of quotes, set up according to subject, just like in a typical Daily Affirmations book, on subjects from Courage to Addiction to Survival and Nutrition, plus some insults. Fun and recommended, most definitely for rock n roll fans.
THE WIRE has been widely hailed as the greatest television series of all time.
It portrays the war of attrition between Baltimore's hardened police force and its drug dealers, and the blurring of good and evil, justice and injustice, right and wrong. The Wire: Truth Be Told takes the reader inside the world of THE WIRE, detailing many of the real-life incidents and personalities that have inspired the show's storylines and characters. Packed with photographs and featuring an introduction by series creator and executive producer David Simon, as well as essays by acclaimed authors George Pelecanos, Ed Burns, Richard Price, Laura Lipmann, Denis Lehane, it covers all five series in glorious detail.
The opening sentence of the book is "She made up things." Some facts about Coco Chanel's life may vary, depending on which biography you read, or what interview you saw, but Alex Madsen listed close to 100 references for the contents of this book, and does mention, in some cases, severaldifferent variations of incidents, conversations, and misc. details. One thing is certain. Coco Chanel was a fascinating woman, and one of the most influential women to ever work in the fashion industry.
Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel was born in a "poorhouse hospice". Her mother died when Coco was 12 years old, and her father abandoned the family, leaving Coco and her siblings to be raised by nuns and extended family. Chanel tells the incredible story of Coco's meager childhood, her self-discovery of an innate sense of what looks good on women, and her successful career capitalizing on that information: hats, sportswear, the first use of jersey in everyday clothes, the first bathing suit, furs, animal prints, pearls, the "suit", a crisp white shirt, the little black dress, a revolutionary still popular perfume, and much more. She believed in sophisticated simplicity. In the 1920's Coco Chanel said, "Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only; fashion is something in the air....it's in the wind.... you feel it coming, you smell it. Fashion is in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."
She mixed with royalty (Churchill and members of the Romanov family), famed artists (Picasso) and musicians (an affair with Igor Stravinsky), and the Hollywood elite. Some of her many acquaintances were models for Proust's characters in his series In Search of Lost Time.
At the peak of her career, when very few women even had careers, she employed 3000 seamstresses, and was worth over $1,000,000,000 (yes 1 billion) when she died.
The book follows Fanning's extraordinary journey to become world champion in 2007, a title he looks set to score again this year.
He's currently ranked number one in the world and with one event left on the ASP tour, he looks sure to reclaim the title he lost to Kelly Slater last year.
But the book also offers a more personal insight into the surfer who has had various injuries and health problems over the years as well as losing his brother in a car accident in 1998.
Says editor Tim Baker: "Mick tells his life story candidly - in turns funny, sensitive, thoughtful, self-deprecating - while providing intimate insights into the personal lessons gained along the way - with practical tips on surfing technique, fitness, nutrition, board design, travel, competitive strategies and mental clarity."
Kevin Carey slammed his son's new tell-all book, The Truth Hurts, in which the former footy star said his father was so violent his terrified mother and brother devised a plot to murder him.
The former boxer and rugby league player, who has a criminal record dating to 1957, said he was penning his own book that would expose his son as a liar.
"I know all about it. I don't care what he says," Mr Carey said.
"I'll be coming back against all that. I'm writing a book of me own. So f--- off," he said.
Son Wayne's book reveals his terrified mum and brother devised a plot to murder him by waiting at the front door with a rifle.
But Kevin did not come home that night - and it saved his life.
He describes how his father bashed, stabbed and shot at his terrified mother.
And yet Wayne Carey says he loved his philandering father as a young boy and wanted nothing more than a "normal family".
"One night, Dad put a serrated knife into Mum's nose and slit her nostril open," Wayne Carey says in the book.
"The wound left a scar, which she still carries today.
"Another time, he broke her cheekbone with a punch."
Excerpt:...From across the aisle Harry Bosch looked into his partner's cubicle and watched him conduct his daily ritual of straightening the corners on his stacks of files, clearing the paperwork from the center of his desk and finally placing his rinsed out coffee cup in a desk drawer. Bosch checked his watch and saw it was only three-forty.
It seemed that each day, Ignacio Ferras began the ritual a minute or two earlier than the day before. It was only Tuesday, the day after Labor Day weekend and the start of a short week, and already he was edging toward the early exit. This routine was always prompted by a phone call from home. There was a wife waiting there with a with a toddler and a brand new set of twins. She watched the clock like the owner of a candy store watches the fat kids. She needed the break and she needed her husband home to deliver it. Even across the aisle from his partner, and with the four foot sound walls separating workspaces in the new squad room, Bosch could usually hear both sides of the call. It always began with; "When are you coming home?"
The Silent Country is a vast and beautiful wilderness, a place which holds secrets and stories that are rarely spoken. TV producer Veronica Anderson travels to the Northern Territory to retrace the journey of an expedition that had set out 50 years earlier to film the outback, but which mysteriously ended in tragedy.
Of the group, led by the eccentric Maxim Topov, few are still alive and they are reluctant to talk about the intriguing events.
It is through the help of local NT Park Ranger, Jamie McIntosh, that Veronica begins to piece together the puzzle and discover the answers.
These answers break the silence and change her life.
Author Information
Di Morrissey is one of Australia's most popular female novelists. Di's previous novels, The Islands, Monsoon, The Valley, The Reef, Barra Creek, Kimberley Sun, The Bay, Blaze, Scatter the Stars, The Songmaster, When the Singing Stops, Tears of the Moon, The Last Mile Home, Follow the Morning Star, The Last Rose of Summer and Heart of the Dreaming have all been bestsellers. Di divides her time between Byron Bay and the Manning Valley in NSW.
We know what is good, but we don't do it. In Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, and then has to cope with the consequences: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. But she must question her own motives. Is she acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? Most shamefully, has she taken over simply because she wants the baby for her own?
What do we owe in this life, and what do we deserve? This compassionate, funny, and fiercely intelligent novel looks at life and death through grocery-store reading glasses: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance on the precipice.
'Good to a Fault is a wise and searching novel about the fine line between being useful and being used.' - Elizabeth Hay Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Canada & Carribean section)
Janelle Bloom knows the great pleasure to be received from sharing a beautiful home-cooked meal with family and friends. What can be better than exclamations of delight when you serve up the food you have cooked, apart from maybe the requests for further helpings, the cleared plates and the satisfied sighs?
FAB FOOD FOR FAMILY & FRIENDS presents one hundred irresistible recipes from the popular TV cook, Janelle Bloom. One thing is guaranteed: these recipes will wow everyone who eats them. Janelle has a special knack of creating appealing and do-able recipes that are simply the most delicious you have ever tried. You will be surprised at how easy and straightforward cooking can be; and when it's time to eat, be ready for huge praise for very little effort.
Janelle Bloom is a cook, a recipe writer, a food editor and stylist. She appears on the popular cooking show in Network 10, Ready Steady, Cook. Before her TV gig she was editor at Super Foods Ideas. Janelle worked for Sharp as their microwave expert for several years and knows how to use the speed and efficiency of the microwave to achieve spectacular results.
Fab Food For Family and Friends - Janelle Bloom - 9781741669282
From the creators of the bestselling books Dragonology, Egyptology, Piratelogy, and others, this is a never-before-seen glimpse into the world of Christopher Paolini's Inheritance cycle.
Alagaėsia comes alive in a lush and detailed look at an unforgettable magical land. From elves, dwarves, Urgals, humans, and dragons, to the natural landscape and the magic it contains, Eragon himself offers the reader an unsurpassed tour.
This oversized, full-color book provides 15 spreads chock full of spectacular artwork, engaging novelty elements, and fascinating insights into Eragon's home. With gorgeous jewels adorning the cover and pages filled with envelopes, gatefolds, samples of dragon skin, and more, Eragon's Guide to Alagaėsia is sure to appeal to the legions of fans of Christopher Paolini's bestselling Inheritance cycle.
Talented, gorgeous, and just as desirable as his on-screen alter egos Edward Cullen and Cedric Diggory, Robert Pattinson has won himself millions of devoted fans. With this full-length biography of the silver screen sensation, fans can learn everything there is to know about Robert?from his childhood in London, his private school education, and his early success with the Barnes Theatre Company to his modeling career and current star status. Intimately exploring Robert's life, this book includes his expert musicianship (he plays the guitar and piano), his inspirations and ambitions, and the inside story of his other film roles. Lifting the lid on the life of one of Britain's most popular exports, this book has the inside scoop fans are thirsting for.
Virginia Blackburn is a journalist and the author of more than 20 celebrity biographies, including David Beckham: The Great Betrayal, Kylie: Story of a Survivor, and Robbie's Secrets. She will be interviewed in the forthcoming documentary Robsessed, timed to coincide with the release of New Moon.
From an international career in movies and television, one of Australia's favourite personalities, Paul Mercurio, turns his attention to another of his passions - food.
Mercurio's Menu differs from other cooking series, because destinations share the spotlight with regional cuisines.
Paul is tour host and resident cook as he escorts viewers around Australia. Food production in all of its diversity will feature in the series as Paul visits farms and producers of fresh food.
?It has long been a dream of mine to travel Australia in search of regional produce and to share the wonderful variety of cuisines which have developed in this country' says Paul.
Paul's other great love is beer, in particular home brewing, undoubtedly a feature within his new show. Whereas most foodie shows may have a leaning towards wine, Paul is more inclined to favour beer as a food accompaniment and also as an ingredient with some of his recipes.
His program welcomes some of the nation's top men and women of the kitchen as they join the host on location.
Paul believes the series will motivate food lovers to go out and visit the regions and to source the produce as featured in his programs.
Join us on a journey through space and time . . . This autumn Canongate invites you to join Howard Moon, Vince Noir, Naboo, Bollo, Bob Fossil, Old Gregg, the Moon and all your other favourite characters on a unique journey in to the world of The Mighty Boosh.
Incredibly funny, visually dynamic, surreal, musical, wildly creative . . . 'The Mighty Boosh' is unlike anything else on television, and this beautifully illustrated Christmas humour book promises to be the same.
Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt conceived of The Mighty Boosh whilst working together in a show called ?King Dong vs Moby Dick' in which they played a giant penis and a whale respectively. They took The Mighty Boosh to the Edinburgh Festival in 1998, and won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer. They followed this triumph with two further shows, Arctic Boosh and Autoboosh, both of which came to the Melbourne Comedy Festival, where they played to packed houses and achieved cult status. They were commissioned to write a radio play for BBC Radio 4 and later made the transition from radio to television. In 2008 they toured the UK, and they are now busy writing a full-length film for the BBC.
The Pocket Book of Boosh - Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding - 9781921520891
Big booksellers vowed darkly to continue the fight against parallel import restrictions on books, following the Federal Government's announcement yesterday that it would not lift the ban.
The decision, announced by Dr Craig Emerson, Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs, disregarded the flawed recommendations of the Productivity Commission, the Government's economic advisory body.
Parallel import restrictions exist to protect the copyright of publishers and authors by preventing booksellers from selling foreign editions of books which have been published in Australia providing they are available for sale within 30 days of being released overseas.
Author Sean Williams - who sits on the executive body of the Australian Society of Authors - said he was pleased and relieved at the decision. "Every starving writer in the country earning far below the average salary will be relieved that their Australian royalties won't be ripped out from under them," he said, adding the rider, "for now". As well he might.
Dymocks chief executive Don Grover, who leads the so called 'Coalition for Cheaper Books' - made up of Dymocks, Coles, Woolworths, Target and Kmart - said he would convene a summit of book retailers and launch petitions through its more than 90 shops around the country. Grover purports to represent all Australian booksellers but in reality he can only speak for the Dymocks franchisee's and the major discount variety stores.
The simple fact is that the majority of Australian Booksellers, including major chains like Collins, A&R and Borders Australia, along with the majority of independents actually reject the claims made by Grover and advocate for the retention of the import restrictions.
Grover went on to say "More and more booklovers will be forced to buy cheaper books online, as so-called local publishers - most owned by multinationals - continue to inflate prices by more than a third for Australian consumers," he said.
What Grover neglects to mention is that Dymocks themselves are an Australian online retailer. As he stated in March this year "Today we have one of the strongest domestic websites in the country with some very significant plans to grow that business much more internationally".
Given that even the Productivity Commission has said that there is no evidence the removal of import rstrictions will reduce the price of books in Australia, one has to wonder why the big end of town is so determined to push ahead with this quasi reform. It seems to me that bigger profits rather than cheaper books appears to be the motivating factor for the coalition of cheaper books.
Michaela Andreyev from Adelaide publishing house East Street was "elated" at the decision. we can now sell rights to our authors' books overseas with a clear conscience that they are not going to get done out of their royalties."
MONICA TRAPAGA knew exactly what to do when her daughter Lil announced she was leaving home:present her with a collection of tried-and-tested family recipes and stories.
Drawing on her Spanish heritage, crazy family history and vast well of creativity, Monica gives us a recipe book replete with love and humour, along with ninety seriously good recipes, from the classics (roast beef, bolognese and brownies) to the exotic (paella, san choi bao and gazpacho).
Beautifully illustrated with drawings from artist MEREDITH GASTON and Monica's own collages, this precious manual of culinary inspiration and sound practical advice is a must-have for any girl about to embark on her own life journey.
'Polished, stylish starkly observant and studded with insights. A fascinating read.'
'Naparstek knows exactly how to pitch a story. He has a finely honed ability to write a profile - usually in about 2000 words - which is a critical evaluation of a career, a neat explanation of why the subject is worth interviewing and a sharp sketch of the individual larded with pithy quotes that illuminate the writer's work for both the casual reader and the expert ... In short, he is a very fine colour feature writer. ... that this is an exceptional introduction to the best modern writers.'
In Conversation by Ben Naparstek - Encounters With 39 Great Writers - 9781921640117
Wally Lewis will forever be known to rugby league fans as 'The King'. He could do what appeared to be impossible on the field and yet unbeknown to those around him including his family and closest friends he managed to perform at the most elite level while hiding a secret.
When he finally revealed to a stunned public that he'd been living with epilepsy for years he did so just prior to undergoing life-saving brain surgery for the neurological disorder. Wally talks of the difficulty he had in facing major surgery and the emotional and physical impact of his deteriorating condition including a dramatic virtual 'blackout' on air in 2006. Interestingly Wally dealt with his only daughter's deafness publicly all the while keeping his own crisis so profoundly private.
Following a successful procedure Wally has gone on to work with epilepsy organisations to raise awareness about the disorder helping de-stigmatise the condition and inspiring others to live positively with epilepsy.
In 2008 he was included in the Australian and Queensland teams of the century during the Centenary Year of the League.
Deadlier than the Mafia, the Camorra never forget, and never forgive. She is an Italian accountancy student in London, and her boyfriend Eddie teaches at a language school. But the prime reason Immacolata Borelli came to Britain was to look after her gangster brother, wanted for multiple murders back home in Naples.
For the Borelli clan are major players in the Camorra, a crime network more close-knit and ruthless than the Sicilian Mafia. Mario Castrolami is a senior Carabinieri investigator of the Camorra, his career dedicated to destroying the corruption and violence of the clans. When Immacolata calls from London to say she is prepared to collaborate with justice - to betray her own family - he knows she is setting in motion a terrifying and unpredictable series of events. The Borellis will not lose their criminal empire without a vicious fight. They will use anything and anyone to prevent her from giving evidence against them. Even Eddie, and Eddie's life.
Tarmon Gai'don, the Last Battle, looms. And mankind is not ready. The final volume of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light, was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan's editor&mdash-his wife, Harriet McDougal&mdash-to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so Tor proudly presents The Gathering Storm as the first of three novels that will make up A Memory of Light.
This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era. In this epic novel, Robert Jordan's international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. As he attempts to halt the Seanchan encroachment northward&mdash-wishing he could form at least a temporary truce with the invaders&mdash-his allies watch in terror the shadow that seems to be growing within the heart of the Dragon Reborn himself.
Egwene al'Vere, the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, is a captive of the White Tower and subject to the whims of their tyrannical leader. As days tick toward the Seanchan attack she knows is imminent, Egwene works to hold together the disparate factions of Aes Sedai while providing leadership in the face of increasing uncertainty and despair. Her fight will prove the mettle of the Aes Sedai, and her conflict will decide the future of the White Tower&mdash-and possibly the world itself. The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time V12 - 9781841492414
When she disappeared in 1937 over a shark-infested sea, Amelia Earhart had lived up to her wish - internationally famous, a daring and pioneering aviator, and ambassador extraordinary for the United States. Married to a man with a genius for publicity, her life was crowded, demanding and adventurous.
Mary S Lovell's superb biography examines a legend to reveal the pressures and influences that drove Amelia, and shows how her life, career and manner of death foreshadowed the tragedies and excesses of a media-dominated age.
Amelia Earhart - Sound of Wings by Mary S Lovell - 9780349121765
It is now abundantly clear that we have at our fingertips all of the tools we need to solve the climate crisis. The only missing ingredient is collective will.
Properly understood, the climate crisis is an unparalleled opportunity to finally and effectively address many persistent causes of suffering and misery that have long been neglected, and to transform the prospects of future generations, giving them a chance to live healthier, more prosperous lives as they continue their pursuit of happiness.
Our Choice gathers in one place all of the most effective solutions that are available now and that, together, will solve this crisis. It is meant to depoliticize the issue as much as possible and inspire readers to take action ? not only on an individual basis, but as participants in the political processes by which every country, and the world as a whole, makes the choice that now confronts us.
There is an old African proverb that says, "If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." We have to go far, quickly.
We can solve the climate crisis. It will be hard, to be sure, but if we can make the choice to solve it, I have no doubt whatsoever that we can and will succeed.
- AL GORE, from the introduction
Our Choice - Al Gore - A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis - 9780747590989
No matter how packed the Australian cricket teams schedule in 2008-09 it featured tours to India and South Africa as part of an almost constant stream of Tests, Twenty20 and one-day internationals - one series always stands out ... The Ashes!
In 2005, Ricky Pontings side lost to England for the first time in almost 20 years, after one of the most famous battles in cricket history. The Ashes were regained in Australia 18 months later, but true redemption would not be achieved until the Poms were beaten on their own turf. In 2009, Ponting returned to the UK without many of his former champions - no Warne, no McGrath, no Gilchrist - but with a new army of young guns bent on setting the record straight. CAPTAINS DIARY 2009 provides the inside account of this memorable confrontation, the climax of another tough, exciting and dramatic year in the life of one of Australias most popular and successful cricketers.
Captains Diary 2009 - Ricky Ponting - From The Fields Of India To The Fight For The Ashes - 9780732289577
Presidential reading lists have a tendency to set Washington abuzz.
Last month, when the Wall Street Journal reported that President Barack Obama was reading Gordon Goldstein's "Lessons in Disaster," pundits wondered if the book about the mistakes of the Vietnam War might hold clues to the president's thinking on his Afghanistan strategy.
Yesterday, during a Reuters interview, when Obama asked what I was reading with my 12-year-old son ("Great Expectations"), he revealed that he was reading the best-selling fantasy-adventure book "Life of Pi."
His 11-year-old daughter, Malia, is reading it on her own and Obama, who read the Harry Potter series to her when she was younger, finds it compelling too.
"It's a wonderful book," Obama said of the prize-winning novel by Yann Martel about an Indian boy cast adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan.
"There are whole.chapters that really have to do with talking about Hinduism and Christianity and comparing it . there's a lot of philosophical stuff in there," Obama said. "But for some reason she's hanging in there."
Without revealing the ending, Obama may be in for a nasty surprise.
Stephen King's latest supernatural horror novel, "Under the Dome," is set in the small town of Chester's Mill, Maine, which is surrounded by a dangerous force field. The town's residents cope with the impending ecological crisis in different ways. The local politician, Big Jim Rennie, hopes to lord over a remote population. The opposing camp, which includes an Iraq War veteran, a newspaper editor and a bunch of teenage skateboarders, wants to solve the mystery of the dome.
HE MOVED here from New Zealand decades ago, but Tony Martin still has an accent: a Malvern accent.
"What?" he exclaims, feigning offence, before leaping into an anecdote about Glenferrie Rd. The road is near the scene of one of many tales in his latest memoir, A Nest of Occasionals. All we can say is, if you live in Barkly Ave, Armadale, Martin says: check your balcony struts.
Like any decent memoir, A Nest of Occasionals delves deeply into the author's memory and identity. The latter has concerned Martin over the years, such as when Equity asked he change his name. "It was suggested Tony Martin (of Wildside and E Street) hadn't been getting royalty cheques," Martin said. "And I'm going, ?Hang on! Are you suggesting I'm living it up on Reverend Bob money?"? And when the two Martins appeared in the same episode of Kiwi comic John Clarke's The Games, "I did toy with changing my name to ?The Other Tony Martin' for a while," he said.
"There's a whole bunch of them, though. I don't know anything about sports, but there's a German cyclist called Tony Martin who's doing really well. "I often put SBS cycling on around my house so I can walk past the telly and hear ?Tony Martin's done it again!', which is quite affirming." Common as his name may be, it's his gift for finding the funny in the everyday that sets him apart.
As a child, "I was probably more a fan of radio than television because the comedy on TV, we weren't allowed to watch and most of it felt like comedy for our parents," he said. "On radio there was Kenny Everett with Captain Kremmen and The Goon Show and they were amazing." It inspired a love of sound effects and "three voices passed off as a range of impressions". He credits that remark to former Triple M Get This co-host Ed Kavalee with a hoot of laughter.
While Australian comedy's new guard salutes Martin and his D-Gen cohorts from The Late Show, he says he's a big fan of The Chaser. "Every generation that comes along is much more comfortable being on television. "The Chaser is a much faster, slicker and in many ways better version of what we were doing. "My advice for young people doing comedy is: Don't make a comedy show in the era of acid wash. "If I'd known it was going to be on DVD, I would have worn less embarrassing clothes."
A Nest of Occasionals - Tony Martin - 9780330425230
My food evolved out of necessity, the need to modify recipes, design and prepare dishes that would work consistently in the outdoors, from a four wheel drive trailer modified into an Outback kitchen, to a backpack on the summit of a mountain peak. The recipes in my book OUTBACK - recipes and stories from the campfire are those that I have prepared time and time again in the wilderness. They simply work. In today's busy world, many people don't have the time to go to great lengths preparing complex dishes. They need something that comes together quickly, is nutritious, has plenty of flavour, and doesn't require the skills of a three star chef to succeed, so these recipes work in the home kitchen as well. In order to appreciate this, I need to explain my background and how that influenced the evolution of my food.
I grew up in Melbourne in the sixties - all patriotism aside, a culinary wilderness. When Ave Gardner came to film ?On the Beach', she dryly referred to 1959 Melbourne as ?the ideal place to film the end of the world'. Dinner parties were popular because there were so few restaurants. They generally involved plenty of liquor but not much wine. Everyone smoked lots of cigarettes. The hors d'oeuvres were invariably ?devils on horseback' - bacon wrapped prunes, or brightly colored cocktail onions and cubes of tasteless cheddar on toothpicks. The favored entrée was seafood cocktail - bite size pieces of fish plus one prawn served in a cocktail glass on a piece of iceberg lettuce with a dollop of Thousand Island dressing.
Dessert was usually chocolate mousse. My parents were very keen sailors, so my sister and I were lucky and ate a lot of delicious fresh fish, mainly flathead caught in Port Phillip Bay.. They're not the brightest of fish: my father once caught one using a cigarette butt for bait. Red meat was cheap and plentiful, so we regularly enjoyed roasts, chops and steaks. On Thursday nights our parents would take us to Rigoletto, a small Italian Restaurant in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond where I could order Oysters Mornay and enjoy a glass of red wine. On the occasional Sunday we would be treated to an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord in the Mayfair Room at the Southern Cross - for years Melbourne's premier hotel. Even the Beatles stayed there!
Oceans: Recipes and Stories from Australia's Coastline - Andrew Dwyer - 9780522856224
RAY Martin has revealed he never saw his father from the age of 11 after domestic violence forced his mother to leave the marriage.
In a new autobiography to be launched today, Ray: Stories of My Life, Martin has told of how his father George Grace became a violent drinker who would beat his wife, three daughters and son. Grace died in 1984.
The book reveals on one occasion in Tumut, after a drinking bout, Grace came home late. Martin's mother told him off. Grace cornered her, hitting her in the face and cutting her lip.
"When mum snatched a bread knife from the bench, the old man peeled off, saying he was going to get his shotgun," Martin writes. "That's when we headed for the hills."
They heard Grace "slam the back door, shout a few expletives in our direction and then fire the shotgun".
Grace continued to be abusive. The final straw came when Martin was 11 and the family was living in Jannali in Sydney's south. Grace kicked his son for not feeding the family dog.
Martin's mother reported the incident to police.
Weeks later, she executed a "great escape" from the marriage after her husband went bush for a week's work. She took the kids to Adelaide, and changed her stated surname to Martin, as Grace had threatened to kill her if she ever left him. She later formalised the name change by deed poll.
Martin has told The Daily Telegraph he never saw his father after the escape, but Grace had once tried to see him, in 1979. The father had heard Martin, Ian Leslie and George Negus were launching 60 Minutes: "He came to the (Channel 9) gatehouse and left a number. I never called. It would have been a slap in the face for mum, who was well and truly alive at the time."
Grace died of emphysema at 73 in 1984. Ms Martin died in the late 1990s.
Martin has also detailed a childhood in which he lived in 13 places in three states before he reached high school. The book tells of his close encounters with the legendary Kerry Packer. Martin spoke yesterday of one occasion where he asked the media mogul what his future was, not long after one of his heart attacks: "He bellowed back: 'I don't know what my f...ing future is'."
Martin disputes claims by Paul Barry in his new biography of James Packer that he did not love Kerry: "It's just rubbish. It made good copy, but anyone who knew how difficult Kerry was also knows how close the father and son relationship was."
Ray - Stories of My Life - Ray Martin - 9781741667820
In Barbara Kingsolver's new novel The Lacuna we follow Harrisson W. Shepherd, from 1929 when he is thirteen and living in Mexico until his adult years in America in 1951. With him we meet great historical figures like the painter Frida Kahlo and Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky and we experience events like World War II and the second Red Scare through his eyes. In America, Shepherd becomes a successful novelist before falling victim to the communist hunters of the late forties.
The story isn't told in the traditional way, but we get to know Shepherd through pieces of his diaries, letters he wrote and received, news paper clippings and notes by his stenographer, who also acts as the archivist for all those different types of documents.
Kingsolver is the author of thirteen books, mostly novels, including Pigs in Heaven and The Poisonwood Bible, which I both loved. Her strength lies in her ability to create real people with real emotions. You believe in her characters and more importantly, you start to love them.
This is Don Burke's guide to growing organic food. Step-by-step instructions, case studies and photographs cover everything you need to know to start and cultivate your own vegetable garden including composting, pests and diseases, growing conditions, harvesting, what to buy and when. Don discusses techniques for pots, small gardens, city and country plots. Includes a lift-out calendar planting guide.
Charley Boorman as a pure travel writer is up there with the likes of Michael Palin and Victoria Woods with his interesting and at times very amusing descriptions of the countries he visits and the people he meets.
For the 'petrol head'his sheer joy of riding any motor bike comes over in his descriptions of pulling wheelies, riding in driving rain, and even falling off demonstrate his lifetime enthusiasm for bikes.
However, a part of travel writing rarely touched on by other writers is the very honest sharing of his homesickness for his wife and daughters, & his black moods when the frustrations due to the delays to the journey darken his normal cheerful narrative .
If you love travel and all things mechanical, this is for you. Excellent read well up to the high standard we have come to expect from charley boorman and the team that work and travel with him can't wait for the next adventure.
Right to the Edge - Charley Boorman - Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means - 9781847443526
INVISIBLE, Paul Auster's fifteenth novel, features eclectic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent, alluring girlfriend, Margot. Together, Born and Margot ensnare young Adam Walker in a shocking and intriguing tale of sex and violence. The highly imaginative story runs from 1967 to 2007, taking the reader from Morningside Heights to Paris and to the Caribbean.
Auster also narrates, with a performance that demonstrates the benefits and dangers of an author at the microphone. Because the story is told by three narrators, it would have benefited from a more versatile reader, or three separate readers. While Auster's reading is precise, at times it seems understated, and almost distracted. As a result, rather than focusing on Auster's dialogue and plot, the listener hungers for greater intensity and emotion. In sum, INVISIBLE is highly entertaining.
"For a hot young writer to train his sights on a subject as unpalatable as meat production and consumption takes raw nerve. What makes Eating Animals so unusual is vegetarian Foer's empathy for human meat eaters, his willingness to let both factory farmers and food reform activists speak for themselves, and his talent for using humor to sweeten a sour argument." (O, The Oprah Magazine )
"The everyday horrors of factory farming are evoked so vividly, and the case against the people who run the system presented so convincingly, that anyone who, after reading Foer's book, continues to consume the industry's products must be without a heart, or impervious to reason, or both." (J.M. Coetzee )
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting. Marked by Foer's profound moral ferocity and unvarying generosity, as well as the vibrant style and creativity that made his previous books, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, widely loved, Eating Animals is a celebration and a reckoning, a story about the stories we've told-and the stories we now need to tell.
The world renowned journalist, author and film-maker John Pilger will be awarded the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize at a gala dinner this week on Wednesday, 4 November.
Sydney Peace Foundation Director Professor Stuart Rees comments: "John Pilger arrives in the middle of the demeaning debate in Canberra about the Tamil asylum seekers, so it's opportune that he's here. John Pilger will show that the claims about the threat from illegal migrants are false, that the war on terror is a hoax against humanity and that the massive increase in Australia's military spending fosters the illusion that people's 'security' depends on massive military expenditure.
"Since announcing John Pilger as this year's Sydney Peace Prize recipient we've been inundated with messages of thanks from people who applaud his courage in speaking out while others are silent.
"From his work uncovering undue secrecy about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to his consistent efforts to show the realities of the decades of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, to his film Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia, depicting the horrors faced by the Khmer people under the Pol Pot regime, John's career has been marked by risk taking, courage and using his superb investigative skills to break silences around the world."
The Sydney Peace Prize is Australia's only international prize for peace. Previous recipients include Nobel recipients Professor Muhammad Yunus and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Indian author and human rights campaigner Arundhati Roy and, last year, the Aboriginal leader and 'father of reconciliation' Patrick Dodson.
From the two-time Booker Prize-winning author: an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early-nineteenth-century America.
Olivier, an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville, is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English engraver. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be joined by an enigmatic one-armed marquis.
When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States, ostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution, Parrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier.
As the narrative shifts between Parrot and Olivier, their adventures in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands, a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the adventure of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness, and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, story, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.
About the Author
Peter Carey is the author of ten previous novels and has twice received the Booker Prize. His other honors include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Born in Australia, he has lived in New York City for twenty years.
Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey - 9781926428147
John Dies at the End is a hilariously frightening and frighteningly hilarious genre-bending book by author David Wong. It is a blend of comedy, horror and sci-fi that manages to mix alternate realities, creepy monsters and dick and fart jokes seamlessly!
There is so much going on in the book that I hardly know where to start with the synopsis. Basically, David and John are just two slackers until they become entangled in this weird, otherworldly drug called Soy Sauce. Most people who take it end up dead, but the side effects for John and David are much stranger. They start seeing things other people can't see and get glimpses of other worlds. They find they have a special talent for solving "weird" cases like hauntings, monsters and other paranormal activity. David and John then realize that the strange things that have been happening to them (not just battling monsters and such, but loss of time and changes in reality) are all connected to someone (or something) named Korrok. They must figure out a way to stop this thing called Korrok before the floodgates to Hell are opened right under their little town. Throw in a meat monster, a giant, floating sea creature, lots of glowing eyes, a dog who can drive and a girl with a missing hand and you've got a vague idea of John Dies at the End.
This book was absolutely wild! From the moment I began reading I could not put the book down! (No, seriously, I think it was like stuck to my hand or something.) Wong tells his crazy story in first person narrative through David's perspective. David has been contacted by a reporter named Arnie who wants to do a feature on him and John in regards to their paranormal investigations. So David relays his entire strange story, from beginning to end, to the reporter. The resulting narrative kept my interest throughout the entire novel and there wasn't a second where I wasn't entertained.
The tone of the book is very lighthearted and comedic, though some truly horrific events occur. David and John take these events in stride, even casually, which just makes the story even more amusing. Despite all the jokiness, there is some seriously disturbing and scary stuff lurking within John Dies at the End. Images of strange beasts and monstrous entities will probably haunt your nightmares after reading this book.
It's also true what I said about so much going on in the book.it is packed to its slimy and otherworldly gills with a levitating, drug-dealing Jamaican, a Morgan Freeman-lookalike detective, a Mall of the Dead, a man made of roaches, crashing a Las Vegas séance, exploding body parts, Shadow People, other dimensions, portals to Hell, time travel, J.-Lo, a very odd dog and many, many hideous monsters. In other words, if you're looking for something random, say, like a gigantic gorilla-arachnid hybrid, this book probably has it.
John Dies at the End is an action-packed and horror-filled book that spews hilarious and inappropriate humor at every turn. The book could be compared to an acid trip, without having to actually suffer the side effects (ok, I lied; you'll probably suffer nightmares). Besides wrapping humor and horror up together with a nice bow, John Dies at the End is a mind-bending and mind-enhancing book. Like the Soy Sauce, it'll open up your eyes to a whole new world.
In the 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin's landmark book, "On the Origin of Species," researchers have accrued massive amounts of evidence in support of evolution and the mechanics behind the process. Yet today only 4 in 10 Americans believe that evolution occurred.
British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, an eminent scholar and outspoken atheist, has for decades written best-selling books on evolutionary processes and has repeatedly called for rational public thinking on the matter. In his latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" (Free Press, 2009), he provides an illustrated primer on how it all works.
Dawkins' deep admiration and reverence for scientific processes are evident. He covers the gamut: the power that lies in biology, the delicacy and perfection of natural selection, how everything once lived in the sea, and why Darwin loved orchids.
In a rapid round of questions, Dawkins talked about the book and the ongoing argument about evolution.
Unlike your previous book "The God Delusion," which argues that belief in a personal god is not only incorrect but irrational, your latest seems to be more of an educational text -- providing proof and explaining scientific processes. Was that your aim? Yes, that was my intention. But it is not a textbook. It's a book for lay people.
Throughout the book, you seem to have a deep respect, almost a love, as if you are in awe of the process. Is evolution your religion? Well, I don't want to say that. I quite like how you say I am in awe of the process though.
As biology and biological processes go, would you say that life is complicated or a simple process? Life is very complicated. But the process that gives rise to it is very simple.
In the preface, you explain that evidence for evolution grows by the day and has never been stronger. What recent evidence do you believe has been the strongest? I think probably evidence from molecular genetics which is pretty recent. I describe the very excellent work of Richard Lenski at Michigan State on bacterial evolution. [Lenski's long-term experiment, underway since 1988, has tracked the genetic changes that have evolved in 12 populations of originally identical E. coli bacteria.]
In the first chapter, you draw an analogy between history teachers trying to teach about World War II and the Holocaust and getting derailed by Holocaust deniers. You say science teachers today face the same situation with groups that don't want them to teach evolution. Do you think this is uniquely an American problem? No. I don't. It's a problem in Britain as well. In Britain, I think it is because of the growing Islamic population in schools. It's a problem in some other European countries; I've heard rather unpleasant stories from the Netherlands and Belgium.
How can science teachers persevere in teaching the topic of evolution? It's very difficult for them and I sympathize with them. They need a certain amount of courage. I'd like to help in any way I can.
You write: "It's plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips." Do you think that is what is hard for humans to accept -- that I am related to things lesser than me? Yes. I think that it is difficult. It is somewhat arrogant to say things "lesser than me." Though in Victorian times, apes and monkeys were considered comic characters, not cousins.
You describe breeding and conditioning the gene pool for certain outcomes. In our lifetime, do you think we'll begin to see humans shape the clay of our own genetics? Bioengineering for a master race? I doubt it. We could have done this any time in the last thousand years. As we made greyhounds and bulldogs and roses and so on. We could have done that for humans. Why would we start doing bioengineering on them now?
What is the least known or most misunderstood fact about evolution out there? That it is a matter or chance. That it's unguided. People believe the only alternative to randomness is intelligent design.
Do you think evolution is the most important science lesson for people to understand? I do think there's a lot to be said for that. It's exciting and relatively easy to understand.
If everyone, everywhere finally digested evolution correctly, do you think that the world would be a better place? I think the world's always a better place if people are filled with understanding.
You mention intelligent pastors, preachers, and religious leaders who say they know that Adam and Eve never really existed. Can you talk about that a bit? Yes, they are quite clear: Of course they don't believe in Adam and Eve! And they know that it is figurative. But many of their congregations take their sermons literally.
If there was one thing you'd want to get across to the scientific community about this book and evolution, what is it? I think: Stop calling it a theory -- that confuses people. Start calling it a fact.
Ever since Twilight made author Stephanie Meyer a millionaire, it seems as if the publishing industry has caught teen angst/fantasy/horror fever. Naturally, the fever spread to Hollywood where new movies about teenage werewolves, vampires, and various other classic movie monsters are appearing at an alarming rate. According to Variety, the most recent fantasy franchise to make the jump to the big screen will be Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instrumentsseries.
For those unfamiliar with The Mortal Instruments, here's a quick update: "The Story revolves around teenager Clary Fray's search for her missing mother, which leads her to a city filled with mysterious fairies, raucous warlocks, vampires and other demons." Collectively, The Mortal Instruments series of books have spent 28 weeks on the New York TimesBest Sellers List.
The Mortal Instruments film, which will compile the first three books of the four-book series, is being produced by Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne of Unique Features. Constantin Film will also play a role in producing the film. For the screenplay, Unique has signed screenwriter Jessica Postigo, who wrote the still unreleased Operation Checkmate, which details the hostage of Colombian-French politician Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio.
The Mortal Instruments - Cassandra Clare - City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass - 9781416997856
A dark and shocking reworking of the Snow White and Rose Red fairytale by Australian author Margo Lanagan has won the World Fantasy award for best novel.
Lanagan's young adult title Tender Morsels was this weekend named joint winner of the best novel prize with Jeffrey Ford's The Shadow Year, a sinister tale of small-town boyhood in the 1960s. Tender Morsels has drawn praise and condemnation alike for its challenging opening, which sees the 15-year-old Liga go through gang-rape, miscarriage and sexual abuse at the hands of her father, before escaping to a dream world where she brings up her two children.
Lanagan said she was "delighted" that Tender Morsels, described as "sordid wretchedness" in the Daily Mail but as "funny, tragic, wise, tender and beautifully written" in the Guardian, had won the award at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, California on Sunday. "This is a strong endorsement from the fantasy reading, writing, publishing and reviewing community, which is just as important to me as the children's and young adult literature community," she said. "To have both audiences respond so positively to what is undeniably a strange, dark novel is a joy to me and an affirmation that when I write from the deepest part of me, there are people out there who get it."
She hit out at the articles claiming young adults are unable to handle the themes of her book. "There's this assumption that all children have the luxury of a childhood where their innocence is always respected and their main occupation is pleasant play - at the age of 18, or 21, they are then thrust into the real world and shown its uglier side, but not before," she said. "How on earth do people imagine we equip children for life, if we never show them the sorts of issues other people encounter, if we never talk through with them how they might deal with difficulty, or violence, or unexpected shocks and surprises?"
Lanagan also pointed to the current "fashion for vampires and all things gothic", which she said showed the appetite for "dark themes, sinister characters, and horrific events against which the kinder and sweeter aspects of human nature, when they do show, can shine even more brightly".
She was inspired to write Tender Morsels, she said, "when something down in my guts responded to the way the Grimm brothers had changed Caroline Stahl's story when they rewrote it". "I was annoyed with the moral message they forced the story to carry," she said. "Although my novel doesn't necessarily offer any more hope for the women characters than theirs does, at least it's less adamant than Snow White and Rose Red that the women's oppression is a good and necessary thing."
A book, she believes, is "perhaps the safest, the least confronting form" in which to explore tough stories, as it is much easier to decide to put down or take up an uncomfortable tale in a book, than it is to reject one on television or in a cinema. "If a young person (or an adult) is not ready, or not 'in the mood', for a particular story, or they need to pause in the reading, or even stop altogether, with a book they can pause, or stop, and no one else need see, know or comment," she said.
The Infinite Magic of Horses by Candida Baker - 9781742371009
Have a pony lover in your house? Experienced horse-aholic Candida Baker has compiled a lovely collection of heart-warming, true horse stories from around the world, showcasing a deep love for all things equine. In the style of a gift book, this paperback is peppered with quotes and adages that will make any girl sigh.
The book features a beautifully designed layout older readers will appreciate, as well as lovely sepia photographs. Being short stories, younger readers will love dipping in and delighting in stories on race horses, ponies, farm horses, Shetlands, foals, even an Arab stallion.
One dollar from the sale of every book goes to Horse Rescue Australia, a registered charity which rehabilitates abused horses.
Griffiths has a talent for storytelling and humour that clearly explains his phenomenal worldwide success as a children's author. In Robot Riot, part of the Schooling Around series, the author comes through again with the return of a great set of characters headed up by the irrepressible Henry McThrottle.
When new girl Roberta Flywheel joins Northwest Southeast Central School, Henry becomes suspicious when a series of events (no doubt given momentum by the diary he ?accidentally' reads) clearly reveal Roberta ain't what she appears to be. Yes, all signs point to ?robot', and Henry takes it upon himself to not only convince his friends Roberta the Robot is a threat to all mankind, but that they must help Henry in his quest to save the school.
Kids will love this whacky tale, which builds nicely to a riotous ending that will even satisfy adults for a quick cup-of-tea read. Fabulous pace, kooky characters, delicious plot and lots of belly giggles.
Old Possums Book of Practical Cats by T S Eliot - 9780571240616
So lovely when a classic is dusted off and brought out into the bright and shiny future to enchant our own children. Of course, T.S. Eliot is a world-renowned poet and playwright whose collection of light verse has been engagingly captured in this gorgeous hardcover book.
Illustrations by Axel Scheffler (children may recognise his work from Julia Donaldson's books, among others) bring fun and whimsical visuals to this set of glorious poems, first published in 1939.
From the naming of cats (did you know a cat must be given three names?) through to pirate cats, theatre cats, mystery cats and a sordid pair named Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer, these rollicking rhymes and character-filled pictures will enamor cat-lovers of all ages. And yes, dogs make an appearance or two. Lovely.
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Madame Pamplemousse and the Time Travelling Cafe by Rupert Kingfisher - 9781408800546
When the young and curious Madeleine is abandoned by her parents, she befriends a curious group of enchanting characters including Monsieur Moutarde and Madame Pamplemousse - the greatest culinary genius the world has ever known.
Madame Pamplemousse (with means ?grapefruit' in French) owns a captivating café in the famed Montmartre district of Paris, alongside business partner Moutarde ('mustard'). Here in this café lies a magnificent coffee machine capable of making an elixir that will transport Madeleine to other times - to Jurassic times, to Scotland in the 1930s, even to the time of the mighty Sphinx. But when Paris and its historic monuments are marked for descruction by a corrupt Parisian government, Madeleine could never imagine the mind-boggling adventures in store.
Accompanied by gorgeously retro ink illustrations by Sue Hellard, this book is a feat in extraordinary imagination. A truly wonderful tale, in the style of the fabulously historical and nonsensical stories of yore, will absolutely delight any reader intent on taking an unexpected trip - to fanciful literary satisfaction. Wonderful stuff.
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To the Top End by Roland Harvey - Our trip across Australia - 9781741758849
Ooh - I love a good travel book and this hardcover picture book by esteemed Aussie illustrator Roland Harvey, takes kids on an absolutely delectable lollop across our wide brown land from Tasmania, across Bass Straight, through the High Plains, via the Riverland, into the Flinders Ranges and over the great deserts of middle Australia.
Readers visit an incredible cacophony of famous desert landmarks before taking a cool dip at the Great Barrier Reef and its stunning islands, then continuing on to the lush rainforest and coastal marshes of the Top End.
With glorious, scattered, kid-like prose and featuring absolutely stunning and eye-swamping illustrations and the most deliciously curly text, wrapping its way around rivers, mountains and rocks - I have to say this is one of my favourite books to appear on the market in recent times. Funny, detailed, packed with wonderful Aussie flora and fauna, I dare any Australian to read this book without puffing their chests out in home-grown pride. An Aussie must-own.
After a 25-year career spanning radio, newspaper and magazine journalism, including editing two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY and NEW IDEA, Susan Duncan woke up one morning and chucked in her job. The decision followed the deaths of her husband and brother. After struggling to begin again, she finally found her own patch of paradise on earth only to discover it might already be too late when she was diagnosed with cancer herself..
Susan Duncan came to Pittwater when she impulsively bought a tumbledown, boxy little shack in Lovett Bay. The move changed her life forever, as she describes in her bestselling title, Salvation Creek. Now Susan lives in Tarangaua, the gracious house built for Dorothea Mackellar in 1925 and is a well loved member of the small Pittwater community.
A LIFE ON PITTWATER takes the reader on a memorable trip to this beguiling place and presents all aspects of its distinctive way of life. There is Susan's lovely home with its gorgeous verandah; the lush surroundings, the bush and the bays; the wildlife and the ever-present dogs; the tinnies, the ferries and the peculiarities of living somewhere without cars;the boatshedsandtheworkingboats;thebushfires;and,aboveall,theclosecommunitylife.
A Life on Pittwater - Susan Duncan - 9781741666694
Luke Mangan is an internationally acclaimed chef and is recognised as one of the best in Australia. He owns and operates a variety of top restaurants at home and overseas, including glass brasserie at the Sydney Hilton, Salt and the adjoining World Wine Bar in Tokyo, and South food + wine in San Francisco.
Luke has new book coming out in November called At Home And In the Mood, published by New Holland Publishers.
Q&A with Luke Mangan
What is your favourite country or destination to visit and why?
"At the moment it's Japan, mainly Tokyo, because I have a restaurant there and because I love the food and culture."
Food is such a major part of your life .. what about when you travel?
"It is, and when I travel one of my favourite things to do is try new restaurants and look at produce markets. It keeps me motivated."
Does travel inspire you in the kitchen?
"Yes it does inspire me in the kitchen. I am always learning new things from different cuisines and countries, for example I went to Mumbai a while back, and when I came back I started cooking with a lot of fragrant spices."
What is your idea of the quintessential Sydney meal?
"For me it would have to be BBQ with friends on the balcony at home with lots of wine."
When you are on the road, what things will you never travel without?
"Definitely my iPod and my Blackberry!"
What excites you about your new book, At Home & In The Mood.
"This book contains all of my favourites recipes, but also all of these dishes are simple, fun and affordable for everyone."
Where are you travelling to next and why?
"My next trip is to America in October to change the menus for Virgin America's First Class cabin .. I create all of the first class food."
A few pages into Nick McDonell's third novel, a young American spy stumbles across a Harvard College mug in the wreckage of a tiny Somali village. The coincidence rings as loud as gunfire: the spy, Michael Teak, is a Harvard man himself. But there's real gunfire to contend with, and his mind is on life-or-death, not auld lang syne. Somehow, his mission has gone badly awry. Teak's orders were to deliver a packet of cash to a rebel leader named Hatashil. Moments after he did, bombs leveled their meeting site. Now men with guns have arrived to liquidate the village.
And then we're in Harvard Square, having salmon eggs Benedict with two undergraduates about to be wound into the book's vast conspiracy. David is a Somali scholarship student with connections to the very village that's been laid to waste. Jane, his Boston Brahmin girlfriend, is a reporter for The Harvard Crimson. And his adviser, Susan Lowell, has just won a Pulitzer Prize for a book praising Hatashil as a freedom fighter. Flash to Africa, where trigger-happy paramilitaries gun down two unarmed kids and Teak is released by their American commanding officer. Back to Harvard. The press and the State Department have pinned the slaughter on Hatashil's men, and Jane is assigned to write a story for The Crimson that puts Professor Lowell on the ropes.
Half campus novel, half geopolitical thriller, "An Expensive Education" proceeds at this pace for 300 almost unerringly entertaining pages. McDonell skips from Washington to Nairobi as easily as he crosses the river between Cambridge and Boston, usually by means of short chapters and skillful cuts, but sometimes joining his characters in the comfortable business-class cabins of their transcontinental flights. Which is also to say, for all the fine reportorial detail about African dialects and the best way to negotiate with bandit militias, McDonell's true subjects are the status markers and status obsessions of his beautiful young cast. This makes for great scenery. When Teak's superiors need him to lie low, they fly him to a tiny resort island in the Indian Ocean. He's the sort of 25-year-old who carries a SIG P220 handgun, can negotiate in Arabic, Swahili and Amharic and has a favorite hotel on the Left Bank. "Luxury was always a good cover," McDonell writes. And who cares if it rings true: it's a lot of fun.
An Expensive Education - Nick McDonell - 9781921520969
Nam Le has won Australia's richest literary award for fiction for his collection of short stories, The Boat.
The Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction, accompanied by a cash prize of $100,000 Australian, was established by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008.
Le's stories draw on his life as a Vietnamese refugee who grew up in Australia but also narrate the experiences of a tourist in Tehran, a Colombian gangster and an aging New York artist.
Le, who came to Australia from Vietnam in 1979, is now fiction editor of the Harvard Review. His stories have been widely anthologized and critically acclaimed. The Boat also won the Dylan Thomas Prize.
The judges recommended the book for its daring scope and excellence of its execution and the excitement generated by every story.
Le was not at the prize ceremony but sent an acceptance speech, read in his absence by his publisher, Ben Ball.
"It's an anodyne thing to say, but maybe it needs to be said, and said again and again: that books matter, that they are the truest means of telling and showing us to ourselves, that they do a strange, unaccountable, irreplaceable work that the loose, baggy monsters of film, TV and internet cannot," Le said.
He said he was "gobsmacked" at being selected as the winner.
Jane Kennedy has long been known for her radio and television career. Something less known is that Jane loves food. Both cooking it and eating it. But Jane can't eat anything she wants to. That's because she gets FAT. After having five children in six years and trying every fad diet known to man in an attempt to shift excess weight, Jane decided to take matters into her own hands.
A lifetime love of cooking teamedwith a refusal to give up the flavours of her favourite meals led Jane to develop her own dishes that are delicious but also good for you. In Jane's Kitchen, she shares the recipes that allowed her to lose weight and feel fantastic: meals for every day in the home, for entertaining, for nights when you couldn't be bothered cooking and just really want takeaway, and even some pretty deceptively delicious desserts. Jane's Kitchen is your new way of cooking - packed full of flavour but minus the boombah!
Janes Kitchen - Fabulous Food Minus the Boombah - Jane Kennedy - 9781740668088
'Vivienne Ulman has written a heart-rendingly beautiful book, moving and sometimes unsettling. She writes with a truthful love that struggles for lucidity about what it can mean to suffer from Alzheimer's disease, to love and, in more than one sense, to lose someone who suffers from it. Outstanding is her portrait of her father, who cared for his wife with a love that was both romantic and saintly. The story of this wondrously good man will inspire and humble readers of all kinds and ages for years to come.' Raimond Gaita
'What a powerful, rewarding book this is. The author give us an unflinching insight into her mother's descent into Alzheimer's disease and the myriad battles, humiliations, false moments of hope and hours of despair that accompany this soul destroying condition ... That her parents were people of note--self-made, successful clothing manufacturers and pillars of their community--carries the story well beyond the limitations of a family medical memoir and into the realm of rewarding social history. The author's journalistic skills prevent the book from being bogged down by trivia or bathos ... Everyone with any involvement with Alzheimer's, whether personal or professional, can only benefit from reading, and absorbing, this outstanding book.'
Alzheimers - A Love Story - Vivienne Ulman - 9781921640001
Based on Simon Tofield's animations that have taken YouTube by storm with over thirty million hits, SIMON'S CAT depicts and exaggerates the hilarious relationship between a man and his cat. The daily escapades of this adorable pet, who will do just about anything to be fed, and his exasperated but doting owner, come to life through beautiful black and white line drawings. With a huge fan following that is growing even larger by the day, SIMON'S CAT is set to become a major new comic creation.
Simon Tofield is an award-winning illustrator, animator and director at Tandem Films in London.
"Celebrate the magic of Christmas with this exciting and contemporary take on traditional yuletide fare. From roast turkey with hazelnut and porcini stuffing to a cardamom, chocolate and pear trifle, more than 120 recipes are presented in this stunning compilation of old favourites and soon-to-become new classics.
With every dish accompanied by beautiful photography and foolproof instructions, your festive season is guaranteed to be a great success year after year. Including an exemplary array of celebratory cocktails and nibbles, succulent roasts, perfect puddings, edible gifts plus all the seasonally anticipated trimmings, this book is destined to become an essential and cherished reference for Christmas past, present and future. "
Cooking for Christmas - Timeless Recipes For The Festive Season - 9781741964363
In an era where young people are less likely to be in church and more likely to be influenced by hustlers, rappers and movies like Scarface, things have changed. The 48 Laws of Power by author Robert Greene, has emerged as the hustlers Bible in hip hop. I have personally met people in the rap game that can quote Robert Green's Laws by number, more readily than they can quote any other book intended to refine their life. Any independent would be music mogul without The 48 Laws of Power is a pawn of those around him.
Robert Greene replaced The Autobiography of Malcolm X as the book of choice on the block. Busta Rhymes, Bruce George, T-KASH, Jay-Z and 50 Cent are just a few hip hop icons that consult this book when battling on wax, the block or the boardroom. 50 Cent could easily be considered its most adept student. 50 has not only left peoples reputation and bank accounts in shambles, he has made more money arguably than any other rapper in the history of the art.
Which is why it makes sense that Greene's next book is entitled The 50th Law, co-authored by none other than 50 Cent.
"...I met him in 2006. I know his literary agent here in LA. He contacted me. 50 had some beef goin' on with Game. Offensively 50 and his guys wanted to meet me to discuss a strategy about Game. I had read From Pieces to Weight, his autobiography. I liked it. Its not your typical celebrity hack job. Its so much better than the movie.
I went to NY and I met him in this back room. Things were intense. There was still a little bit of weirdness going on. I really liked him. We got along really well. He looks you in the eye when he speaks. He's very down to earth. You don't have to stroke his ego. He's just really into certain things. War, strategy and that kinda stuff. So we talked about the Game, and I gave him my advice. The problem was that I didn't really know enough about what was going on. If I had known a lot more I probably would have said something a lot more intelligent.
Anyway, from that we kinda just kept in touch. He was gonna be doing some kind of business/success book with someone else. They ended up not liking the writer. They came to me. Instead of ghost writing a book, I'd collaborate with him directly.
The latest Corinna Chapman mystery is set at the beginning of a hot summer in Melbourne. Corinna hates summer, hates Christmas & just wants December to be over so she can close her bakery & have a month's holiday. Her lover, Daniel, has been hired to find two runaway teenagers, Manny & Brigid. Brigid's parents, members of a strange religious group, locked her away when they discovered she was pregnant.
Manny helps her escape & they're now on the run, with the baby due any day. There are lots of echoes of the Christmas story in this fast-paced book - the race to the hospital with Brigid riding on a donkey called Serena is especially funny - & Greenwood uses traditional carols & Christmas music to great effect. As always in this series, the luscious descriptions of food & drink & the lives of the people & cats living in the Insula building are almost more important than the plot. This series is a treat for the senses, full of humour & a real feeling of life lived to the full.
Forbidden Fruit (Corrina Chapman 5) by Kerry Greenwood - 9781741759822
An extraordinary insight into the war experiences of a very young man, and the relationship between a son and his mother, during the horrors of Galipoli and its aftermath.
A Globite suitcase, a diary, and a bundled pile of postcards and letters left abandoned in a barn. Lying unknown to his family, here was the life of a young man of humble beginnings who left home at fourteen to become a telegraph boy, only later to experience the horrors of Gallipoli day by day, day after day, and establish one of Australia' s great political families..
Sapper Hubert Anthony was seventeen when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in October 1914. He wrote deeply affectionate letters home to his mother in outback New South Wales. They show the thoughts of a young man encountering the world for the first time, provide great insights into the relationship between a son and his mother, and tell of a long-gone period in Australi' s rural history.
But these letters offer more. They give a fleeting picture of Honora McNab, a young girl who escaped the famine in Ireland for service in outback Queensland, a woman who endured the loneliness and hardship of bush life and a mother who instilled in her children a curiosity and deep eagerness to learn. Letters Home is a rich and intimate portrait of a different time, the sadness of war and the enduring nature of family.
About Doug Anthony and Margot Anthony Doug Anthony wanted to be a farmer but became Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. He is Sapper Hubert Anthony' s son. Margot Anthony loves books, music and cows from a distance. For twenty-seven years she juggled the demands of her husban' s political life with that of their home. Together Doug and Margot have pieced together these faded fragments of their family.
Letters Home - Doug Anthony Margot Anthony - 9781742371375
It is not everyday that Juliet Barker is quoted as saying that The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan is 'quite simply the best novel about the Brontės I have ever read'. And when we closed the book ourselves we couldn't help but echo her words. In fact, we would go as far as saying that, fictionalised account as it is, it is much better than a good many serious, brimming-with-data, feet-on-the-ground biographies.
The story of the Brontės is, in many ways, a real-life fairytale. It certainly doesn't have too many rose-coloured moments, but it does have a sort of magic, a sad kind of magic if you will, which is reflected in their novels to the point of sending most of their readers straight to some biography. However, up until now the Brontė story was mostly told in a very aseptic way, which is not necessarily bad, of course. But there was nothing that really captured the afore-mentioned sad magic. And here's when Jude Morgan - a pseudonym as ambiguous as Currer, Ellis or Acton Bell - enters the scene and astounds us with his wonderful prose, his amazing take on the story and his tremendous gift for story-telling.
Jude Morgan doesn't try to copy the Brontės' style, neither does he even try to use a 19th-century style. In fact, his prose is highly modern in many aspects, which then makes the fact that it fits in so well with the story all the more surprising. Morgan's is not a style the Brontės would have used back in their day but we are now convinced that it is the style they deserve in our day. This well-known story, made up of key scenes, breath-taking remarks and things left unsaid (Jude Morgan is able to write silences even) takes such a turn in Jude Morgan's hand that you find yourself reading on and on, wondering what is going to happen next even if you do know what is - so absorbing is the story. But the writing makes all the difference: the stage is all lit up and what up until now was a rigid painting, much like the famous Pillar portrait, where you both saw and couldn't see the Brontės, is now full of life, and unexpectedly moving in all senses of the word.
The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan - 9780755338993
What do you owe the man who saved your life? In Valerie Martin's ninth novel, The Confessions of Edward Day, the enigmatic Guy Margate asks this question to the eponymous narrator who Guy saved from drowning when they were both young men. As Guy sees it there are two ways of looking at it: in the Western view, you owe that man your life. But in the Eastern view, it is turned around and he, in saving your life, becomes responsible for it. Edward Day wants to consider a third option: "Any place where it's just a happy accident not necessitating a further relationship?"
But this engrossing novel is not a place where happy accidents occur. Everything comes wrapped in tension. When Margate pulls Day out of the water he insists the two men know each other and Day, rather than confessing ignorance, pretends to remember the man who has just saved his life. "I didn't recognise you. I'm not myself," he apologises, to which Margate's cutting response is: "Are you ever?"
Most other writers would eventually have revealed how the two men know each other, if indeed they do, but Martin's more daring approach is to leave the question, like so many others, to the reader's interpretation.
And it is no easy thing to interpret what is true and what is not when seeing the world through the eyes of Edward Day. An actor and a narcissist, Day is propelled through the world by his dazzling good looks and his indifference to others. In these characteristics he seems, at the start, well matched by his lover, Madeleine. As her demands grow, Day drifts away and seems certain to drift out of her life entirely - until Margate re-enters the picture as a rival for Madeleine's affections.
That Margate, like Madeleine and Day, is an aspiring actor only makes the picture murkier. What is real and what is artifice in the lives of these people? Do they even know? Although Day claims that actors have greater access to their emotions than other people, and are always drawing on real feelings in order to effectively play a part, it seems equally possible, as another character says, that everything for Day is "a part", on stage and off.
The cover of the novel carries the tag line: "He saved your life. Now he wants to live it." It is best to ignore that. Though there are whiffs of both All About Eve and Single White Female here, the story which really lies beneath the surface is The Picture of Dorian Gray. Margate and Day bear a strong physical resemblance to each other at the start of the novel; but just a few years later, Margate's appearance has deteriorated sharply and his confidence is shattered, while Day seems unchanged, emotionally and physically. The crucial difference in the two tales is that Dorian Gray always knows how he has achieved his untouched life; Day remains oblivious to his culpability.
And yet, that reading makes the novel appear easier to unpick than it really is. Day is a monster of sorts. But what about Madeleine? What about Margate? Does his guilt make them innocent? Or are they - one or both of them - also monsters who exploit Day's weaknesses? As we try to separate the world as Day sees it from the world as it is, we are left in uncertainty: characters swap parts, try out motivations, improvise in response to their perceptions of each other. All this could get aggravating, as could the lack of an ending in which all is tied up and explained - but it doesn't. Instead, Martin draws us skilfully and boldly into a world in which near drownings, lost loves, stalkers, and the loaded gun which must finally go off, are not nearly as terrifying as the unknowability of the human psyche.
Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin - 9780297855354
"...Punctuated by lacerating comic dialogue and scenes of explosive violence, full of the kind of inventive word play and thinly veiled social commentary that make Florida-based crime author Carl Hiaasen so much fun to read - and, as with Hiaasen, there's ample substance beneath the dialogue." The Age, October 10th 2009
"Violent, funny and poignant by turn; if you liked Underbelly, you'll love this" Grazia Magazine, October 19th 2009
"I laughed out loud... The publisher's blurb says the book is 'crime fiction as it's never been written before', and that is a fair call. For starters the level of sex and profanity makes Nick Cave, in his new novel The Death of Bunny Munro, look like the choir boy he once was. The prose is as colourful as a Sydney racing identity, or Dapin's heavily tattooed arms, and there are some brilliant linguistic gymnastics. Dapin brings to the book the quirky, insightful turn of phrase that makes his newspaper columns for Good Weekend mandatory reading. a funny, over-the-top, well-written read." Stephen Romei, Australian Literary Review
"Dapin is a writer who punches with both hands and winks at the crowd while he's at it. His protagonist is part punk, part pug, part poet - an anti-hero who reveals his own back story as he gets the King of the Cross to unravel the eerily familiar tale of his unlikely rise. Truth might be stranger than fiction but in the hardened artery of Dapin's Kings Cross, alleged fiction rings truer than the alleged facts. A cunning stunt that could get him knee-capped." Andrew Rule, author of Underbelly
"Explosive, gritty, hilarious and - best of all - truly original. This book detonates while you're reading it." Rob Drewe
King of the Cross is a dazzling novel that explores the criminal world of Jacob Mendoza: legendary Godfather of Kings Cross and for more than four decades Australia 's most powerful and notorious crime figure. Now in his eighties, Mendoza believes it's time to record his epic life story - although finding a competent writer is never easy. As Mendoza unfolds his seductive story of thugs and drugs, murders and mysteries, bikers, bent cops and girls, girls, girls, it emerges that he's not the only one with a past. And as the memoir takes shape, other more terrifying criminals are circling the kingdom that Mendoza built.
This is crime fiction as it's never been written before. Funny, edgy, violent, subversive and utterly compelling, King of the Cross is wickedly entertaining.
