[rating:4] The holidays are coming, and the cries of ‘I’m boooooored’ might be more than you can handle for those long weeks. And once that call starts, it’s hard to get rid of. Enter Anna O’Donnell … [Read more...]
Book Review: New Australian Stories 2 edited by Aviva Tuffield
There’s a story for most readers in this absorbing new collection of new short fiction. Dark, humorous, quirky and many other descriptive labels besides – pick your preferred writing style and there’s … [Read more...]
Book Review: Room for Children
[rating:4] You don’t need to be a design lover to crave a beautiful space for your children for sleep and play, and this stunning new book by Susanna Salk certainly provides the inspiration to create … [Read more...]
Book Review: Lolli's Apple by Tomas Fleischmann
[rating:4] "I was six years old when I was sent to the concentration camp of Terezin in the dying days of World War II. Sixteen thousand children went through Terezin, but only one hundred and … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
[rating:5] Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2010 Julian Treslove is a man whose life has been “one mishap after another”. He is addicted to tragedy - he imagines almost everything in the context of an … [Read more...]
How To Self-Publish a Children's Series and Remain Sane
Interested in self-publishing a children's book? Want to know if it's worth it and if you can remain sane in the process? Well, what do they say about working with animals and children? Toss that … [Read more...]
Book Review: Diary of a First-time Mum by Nicole Hall
[rating:3] No matter how long you’ve thought about having a baby, how many books you’ve read, and despite nine months of knowing that there is an imminent arrival, nothing – I repeat, nothing – can … [Read more...]
Book Review: Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy
[rating:3] Binchy, the mother of character driven chick-lit, has just released her latest novel, Minding Frankie. It’s always a little nerve-racking reading a new book from a much-loved author, one … [Read more...]
Book Review – Dead Man’s Chest by Kerry Greenwood
[rating:4] Phryne Fisher is heading to the resort town of Queenscliff for her summer holiday. Accompanied by her faithful companion Dot, Molly the dog, and her two adoptive daughters Ruth and Jane; … [Read more...]
Book Review: What is left over, after by Natasha Lester
[rating:4.5] This is a book about mothers and daughters; about what it means to be both a mother and a daughter and what this familial bond means for a woman’s sense of self. Gaelle has fled her … [Read more...]
Book Review: Madam Lash by Sam Everingham
[rating:3.5] Gretel Pinniger, along with her larger-than-life alter ego Madam Lash, has outraged, titillated and enriched the Australian cultural scene over the past forty-odd years. The publicity … [Read more...]
Book Review: Otherland – a journey with my daughter by Maria Tumarkin
[rating:5] Sometimes the gulf between reality and imagination is vast. Often it is at its greatest when it involves those things closest to our hearts, for here the possibility of self delusion is at … [Read more...]
Book Review: Trust by Kate Veitch
[rating:4] Susanna Greenfield appears to have the perfect life. She has a handsome architect husband, Gerry; two gifted teenage children, Seb and Stella-Jean; as well as a teaching career and an art … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Australian Veg Food Guide 2011
[rating:4] Vegetarians and vegans rejoice! After a sellout Melbourne edition, this pocket-sized book packs a powerful punch for vegos all over the nation - with over 150 reviews and listings of the … [Read more...]
Aleesah Darlison – from the Grocery Store to Published Author
Like many with a passion for literature, Aleesah Darlison feels she has always been a writer. And like many with the desire to write full time, life somehow got in the way. At the age of 16, Aleesah … [Read more...]
Battling Childhood Demons with Caroline Overington
Caroline Overington has some stories to tell. Her novels, first Ghost Child and now I Came to Say Goodbye, speak of families struggling and battling their demons, and of children as victims amidst it … [Read more...]
Book Review: I Came to Say Goodbye by Caroline Overington
[rating:4] A woman walks into a hospital, places a baby into a shopping bag, walks outside and gives it a gentle hug before placing it inside her car. So goes the prologue of this heartbreaking … [Read more...]
Cookbook Review: Bill’s Basics by Bill Granger
[rating:4] For those of us who don't want to spend forty-five minutes slicing a carrot into needles or four hours kneading, whipping, layering and begging ingredients to perform culinary acrobatics … [Read more...]
Cookbook Review: Kitchen by Nigella Lawson
[rating:4.5] With her sensual, tempting, home-cooking-made-sophisticated style, the queen of the kitchen is back with this luscious, jam-packed tome of recipes – straight from the heart of the … [Read more...]
Book Review: If You Can’t Stand the Heat by Judy Horacek
[rating:4] Judy Horacek is well-known for her observations of the small things in life, combining those with the big issues that concern us all. In her new collection of cartoons, If You Can’t Stand … [Read more...]
Book Review: 60 Second Secrets to a happy, healthy, more relaxed you
[rating:4] It was the tagline to 60-Second Secrets (to a happy, healthy, more relaxed you) that first attracted me to this book. How can any woman resist that? Modern life is busy – often crazily so … [Read more...]
Book Review: Menagerie of False Truths by Greg French
[rating:3] When Jack meets Cherry, they bond over a mutual love of literature and the outdoors, but head their separate ways. Keeping in touch through letters, they learn more about each other, and … [Read more...]
YA Book Review: Spinner – A Novel by Ron Elliott
[rating:5] Even if you don’t like cricket and you’re not sure if this book will appeal to you – stick with me here. I don’t care for the game, yet this book has managed to find a cosy little spot in … [Read more...]
YA Book Review: Does My Bum Look Big In This Ad?
[rating:3] They’re all around us: images of perfect bodies, flawless complexions, impossibly skinny waists. Ads claiming we too could look that way if we just use this particular product. People … [Read more...]
Cookbook Review: Healthy Family, Happy Family
[rating:4] Food is a hot topic at the moment. With shows such as Masterchef and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in our lounge rooms each night, it’s hard to escape this one simple fact: home-cooked … [Read more...]
Book Review: Real Money Advice for Divorce
[rating:4.5] From the team behind yourfamilyyourmoney.com.au comes this third advice-packed manual on conquering money matters - namely, surviving the complicated and oft devastating rift that is … [Read more...]
Review: At Home by Bill Bryson
[rating:5] Let's just get to the heart of the matter. It's going to be tough to explain how much I loved this book. This may help: my heart raced every time I saw its black, cloth-bound cover (the … [Read more...]
Book Review: Blokes Health by Dr Bernie Crimmins
[rating:4] Blokes' Health is written by Dr. Bernie Crimmins who has been a General Practitioner for 27 years and features cartoons by published illustrator and cartoonist Paul Harvey. Some of you may … [Read more...]
Book Review: Play by Stuart Brown MD
[rating:4] We all know how vital the experience of play is for children and their mental, emotional and physical development. Even the most basic playtime encases a world of wonder and advancement in … [Read more...]
Farm Girl Made Good – author Fleur McDonald
Fleur McDonald is an author with her feet firmly on the land that she loves working with. Beginning her farming career straight out of boarding school, McDonald found herself working one hundred … [Read more...]
Book Review: Blue Skies by Fleur McDonald
[rating:3] Having gained her agricultural qualifications, Amanda Greenfield is keen to help her parents manage the family farm. But when her mother is killed in a terrible accident, Amanda’s father … [Read more...]
Book Review: Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans
Life is full of loose ends. Some are merely dusty cobwebs of regret that hang limp and forgotten in the shadowy corners of our past, others are the barbed rusty wires of unfinished business that bind … [Read more...]
Book Review: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
It astounds and delights me when authors write first books that are totally enthralling and emotionally satisfying – as though they have been penning novels for many years and have the experience and … [Read more...]
Book Review: Beautiful Monster by Kate McCaffrey
Life is good for the Edwards family – Tess, her Mum and Dad and little brother Brodie live happily together. Until Brodie is killed suddenly in a car accident. That moment changes their life … [Read more...]
101 Ways to Get Free Money from the Government
A new edition of the 2009 bestselling book, 101 Ways to Get Free $$$ from the Government is now available in bookstores. I haven't actually read this book (my reading pile is already stacked up to … [Read more...]
Book Review: Mary Poppins She Wrote by Valerie Lawson
Mary Poppins: the larger-than-life character we all know from the books and, of course, the famous Disney movie; the mysterious nanny who appears from nowhere and finds order from chaos; the strict, … [Read more...]
Childless NOT by Choice
As a woman who gave birth to her first child at the age of 18, I can't even imagine what it's like to want a child and not be able to have one. In a society that values it's working families, it must … [Read more...]
Book Review: The Essential First Year by Penelope Leach
What do newborns need their parents to know? Well, for a start – that life will never be the same again. Oftentimes those overwhelming first weeks and months of a baby’s life is all about going back … [Read more...]
Book Review: A Year in the Valley by Jackie French
As I read A Year in the Valley I can almost smell the honeyed scent of early summer’s blushing peaches hanging heavily in the air. Sun ripened to a delicate bloom they ooze sweet nectar and their … [Read more...]
Book Review: Horrockses Fashions – Off the Peg Fashion in the 40s and 50s
You don't need to be a die-hard retro fashion fan to enjoy this stunning new book by Christine Boydell, showcasing the ground-breaking fashions of the Horrockses label of the 1940s and … [Read more...]
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