By Jane Connors. Published by the National Library of Australia On Wednesday, April 3, l954 “at precisely 10.33 am, a small foot in a white peep toed sandal came slowly down upon a pontoon to Farm Cove,” and the ABC broadcast to the country that “The Queen is now in Australia.” Her Majesty was young, […]
Our southern neighbour, Newcastle, has transformed itself from a grungy coal city on the coast to a buzzy, thriving, booming and popular destination. There are many reasons, but there’s one story of man who has played a vital role. Marcus Westbury looked at his home town with fresh eyes and had an idea. The results […]
With the closure, sadly, of so many bookshops, a smart publishing guru, Bernadette Foley, has come up a great idea – The Big Country Book Club. This is an online book club which you join and buy books but have access to a selected choice from a publisher and editor who understands books and writing. […]
Guinness World Records 2016 – Published by Guinness World Records. Distributed by MacMillan. How the Guinness Book of Records fascinated us as children! Snakes with 12 heads, women who ate 700 cream buns…There was nothing people would not do, no records which couldn’t be bettered, no person or activity so bizarre it wasn’t included to […]
Charles Bean. If people really knew: One man’s struggle to report the Great War and tell the truth. By Ross Coulthart, joint winner of the Australian History Prize in the prestigious 2015 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Charles Bean saw more combat than any other man in World War I. He was a firsthand witness to […]
Lets be honest and admit we’ve always wanted to know the truth about banana peels, or why synthetic shirts stink. It’s also good to find out why the shape of a glass affects the flavour of the wine. And what about how much clouds weigh? And you can astonish your friends by facts about the […]
One of the great things about this book is how it emerges why her character, Sharon, was such a loved, essential person in the dynamics of the Kath & Kim series on TV. Not only was she a funny, but also decent, forlorn, and a downtrodden foil to the exaggerated confidence of Kath and Kim. […]
Is it art? Is it science? Is it therapy? A fad? Or perhaps spiritual escape from bad news, or a digital detox? Well, for a start it’s just simple fun. Colouring for adults is a publishing phenomenon, with hundreds of books now available, many on the best seller lists for months. It began in earnest […]
We love Matt’s recipes, they’re easy and different. And while he’s the cravated sophisticate dispensing kind advice on Masterchef, he also seems a bloke who loves cooking for his family, telling funny stories and who licks the cream off the beater or his sticky fingers! From: Matt Preston Cook Book – 187 Recipes to make […]
By Hannie Rayson. Text Publishing. $29.99. Australian playwright Hannie Rayson describes herself as a writer, mother, daughter, sister, wife, romantic, adventuress, parking-spot optimist, and a “good and dull girl from an ordinary family”. Rayson’s recently released memoir, “Hello Beautiful!: Scenes from a life”, reveals that while her family might indeed be ordinary, she is anything but […]
By Deb Hunt. Macmillan. 330 pp. $29.99 As a teenager, my summer holidays were spent jillarooing on a huge property on the Queensland border, where I learned both the enchantment and brutality of large scale pastoral life. The heat, the flies, the endless plains, dust, and how to outrun a big angry goanna. Then I […]