She has arrived! Please welcome the newest addition to our family (temporarily, alas) – a brand new, baby blue Renault Koleos, delivered by gentlemanly car dealer, Glenn. Parked perkly and brightly … [Read more...]
Book Review: Wildflower by Mark Seal
The front cover of Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa, shows a supermodel in a 1950s frock, holding a milk bottle and being nuzzled by a baby elephant. At first, I thought … [Read more...]
Nursery Rhymes Explained for Grown Ups
I just love a bit of trivia, especially when it's on subject matter that I love. Like nursery rhymes, for example. What is it about nursery rhymes? What is it that enchants us even now as we slide … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
It’s always a little dangerous to read something that’s been lauded by the press and even more dangerous when the author has been pegged as the next big thing in contemporary fiction. It’s dangerous … [Read more...]
Teen Fiction: Third Transmission by Jack Heath
Wow. I started writing this review after my first chapter of Third Transmission, and I was so gobsmacked, all I ended up writing was ‘wow’. Several chapters later and now at the end of this … [Read more...]
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages
Having voraciously read all the Harry Potter books, I must admit it didn’t even dawn on me to pick up a copy of the companion novelettes – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through … [Read more...]
I’ll Take You Riding in My Car Car
I’m so excited. In around two weeks’ time, Renault is delivering a brand new Koleos to our house. Then, they’re going to leave it with us for a whole month - and I’m going to drive that baby, and … [Read more...]
Teen Fiction: Surf Sisters by Laurine Croasdale
Reading Surf Sisters sent me back to my teenage life, a time when wet hair, zinc cream and the warm smell of wax was de rigueur in our coastal town. It also sent me back to the sisterhood of teen … [Read more...]
Cookbook Review: Little Vietnam by Nhut Huynh
I can still remember the moment I slid my teeth into my very first Vietnamese rice paper roll. I can feel the soft, dry, sticky exterior on my lips and tongue. I can feel the slight give of the sheet … [Read more...]
Mummy Travellers Making a Difference
Australians are a band of travellers covering areas vast and wide. Not only do we travel young, we travel in packs. We also travel alone. We travel pre-marriage, post-marriage, pregnant, with babies … [Read more...]
Devour a Story During the Children’s Book Week Safari
Sssh. Don’t make a move. There could be a lion of a book in them there bushes, patiently stalking its prey… and it could be after your kids! This year’s national Book Week theme, proudly presented by … [Read more...]
The Towering World of Jimmy Choo: A Story of Power, Profits and the Pursuit of the Perfect Shoe
What is it about women and shoes? Especially glamour puss shoes with sky-high heels, sexy straps and bling? And, with the continued rise and rise of luxury brands across the globe, price and … [Read more...]
Mary O’Dwyer – The Down Under Specialist for Down There
Have you jumped up and down recently? Been for a run? Laughed until you blew a gasket? Sneezed one of those sneezes that starts from your toes and winds up in your knickers? Then, join the club, … [Read more...]
Babysitters – Leaving Babies with Babies
Family Matters Column. Last night we left our kids with a baby for the first time. Okay, well, she wasn’t exactly a baby, but seventeen does seem awfully young. I have to keep reminding myself this … [Read more...]
Wee Wee Wee, All the Way to a Public Toilet
Family Matters Column. All of us have a public toilet story. Some of them involve the kids, some of them adults. Some of them have happy outcomes, some not so clean, and some downright dirty. Many a … [Read more...]
Children’s Book Review: A Taste for Red by Lewis Harris
“…What happens if your sixth-grade science teacher is also your immortal enemy..?” I must admit, I’m a little bit chicken. Part lioness, part monkey, part chicken. I’ve watched legions of fans devour … [Read more...]
Maralinga – the Anangu Story: This Ain’t No Dreamtime
An extraordinary illustrated history for children told from the indigenous perspective and created through a series of workshops, extensive research and community consultation. What do you know about … [Read more...]
Book Review: La’s Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith
“…The strutting demagogue, with his insane shouting, had fixed his eyes on them, and he was coming…” This line, in chapter eleven of Alexander McCall Smith’s latest novel, terrified me. Why? Who was … [Read more...]
Hold on to your Knickers – It’s Continence Awareness Week
Who doesn’t like a good bounce? Along with twirling, spinning and swinging, it’s the stuff kids’ dreams are made of. And it doesn’t dissipate as adulthood descends – I still love a good bounce and … [Read more...]
You Sexy Mother
You Sexy Mother is some slammin’, out-there title for a book, and I must admit, it’s what initially drew me to it in the first place. Subtitled ‘A life changing approach to motherhood’, I was … [Read more...]
Children’s Book Review: Darius Bell and the Glitter Pool by Odo Hirsch
It’s just so glorious to read a magical story that’s not steeped in the stereotypical fairies, wizards, goblins or mysteriously shifting worlds that appear in the blink of an eye or through some … [Read more...]
Children’s Book Review: Cicada Summer by Kate Constable
The dreamlike opening of Cicada Summer was a little painful to read. Having lost my mother far too many years ago, it was a little heartbreaking to realise, within moments of opening this junior … [Read more...]
Tania McCartney Goes Sober for October
Can you get through Ocsober? We humans are strange creatures of habit. Not only do we form habitual ways over time, we also become so reliant on these habits, they become part of our very psyche. … [Read more...]
Book of the Month: Vintage Alice by Jessica Adams
It was interesting reading a chic lit novel written by an Australian living in London. Author Jessica Adams has a clear love for her homeland yet an insatiability for England that’s still apparent, … [Read more...]
Childrens Book Review: Angel Cake by Cathy Cassidy
It’s been a very long time since I’ve read a young fiction novel. So long, in fact, that when I finished reading Angel Cake by British author Cathy Cassidy, I felt thirteen again. Really. It was like … [Read more...]
Family Matters Column: Where has the year gone?
Crikey. How did June slip under the doormat? Never saw that one coming, but isn’t it the same every year? Suddenly, you’re staring down the barrel of Christmas and you’ve only just taken down last … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The first thing that happened when I started reading The Help was that a teensy bit of voice escaped from my lips. A vocal gasp. The second thing that happened was an ear-to-ear grin, followed closely … [Read more...]
Classic Kids Couture
Kids’ clothes. I’m so sick of the bedazzlement. The sequins, the lace, the ruffles and frills. The neon, the mesh and most especially the cacophony of branded characters from Hannah to Dora and … [Read more...]
Australia’s Baby Whisperer – Sheyne Rowley
Shh...Baby’s sleeping right through the night. Yes, you read it right. And there’s a whole lot more to read yet. Australia’s own Baby Whisperer, Sheyne Rowley, has finally opened up her bottle of … [Read more...]
Family Matters Column: Dinner Be Damned
I’ve recently come to a realization and a major decision. The realization is that I hate hate hate to cook dinner. The major decision, coming directly from this stunning realization, is that I really … [Read more...]
Children’s Book Review: Ever Clever Eva by Andrew Fusek Peters
Ever Clever Eva by Andrew Fusek Peter is the latest in The White Wolves series of books, published by A&C Black, London, are a brilliant collection of readers featuring three styles of story – … [Read more...]
Book of the Month: Breath by Tim Winton
Tim Winton’s latest novel, Breath, takes its first gasping breath in a fast-moving scene, flush with speed and emotion, and loaded with question marks. Written in the first-person, present-tense – … [Read more...]
Be Your Own Mother and Nurture Yourself
Perhaps like most mothers who stand on one leg and perform a multitude of tasks like a thrashingly efficient octopus, I'm often hit with the crashing reality that I am indeed a mum. The daily … [Read more...]
Essentially Erica Bauermeister: Master of Edible Fiction
Ah, La Dolce Vita. The sweet life of a successful author. Erica Bauermeister’s first fiction novel, The School of Essential Ingredients, may still be fresh on the shelves but this tantalising novel … [Read more...]
A Slow Long Weekend
June long weekend, in celebration of some figurehead monarch across the seas (will Queen Liz II soon be 100? who will send her a card?), has snuck up behind me and slapped me hard on the back of the … [Read more...]
S is for Superhero and B is for Bob McLeod
Popular children's author and comic book illustrator, Bob McLeod, chats with Australian Women Online. Bob McLeod has been doing something super. Something that is the envy of kids and adults … [Read more...]
Giving Kids a Sporting Chance
I’m no athlete. No sprinter, leaper, kicker, shooter, no no, not me. Sure, I’ve had periods in my life where I’ve worked my body into a shin-splinted ball of muscle. I’ve been variously addicted to … [Read more...]
Book Review: The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
The room filled mostly with couples, leaning toward each other across tables, enclosed in their own spheres of candelit intimacy. Fingers reaching toward fingers, or flying through the air, drawing … [Read more...]
Book Review: Red Dust by Fleur McDonald
Outback novels, in truth, have been few and far between on the bookshelves of my life, let alone one of ‘love, intrigue and redemption’, so I was very keen to start this debut tale by Fleur McDonald, … [Read more...]
The Urgent Case of the Missing Child
Parenting & Family Matters Columnist, Tania McCartney. Three days ago, I was sitting at the computer, digging deep into the recesses of my brain to write something superlative, when there was a … [Read more...]
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