Category Archives: 2020

Sustainable living starts in your garden

2020, Change, Clean Living, Community, Food, Homemade, houseplant, Learning, Lifestyle, New authors, New Release, Recommended, Science, Top Books, Top Tips, , , , , , , , ,

February marks the beginning of the The National Sustainable Living Festival here in Melbourne and with the horrifying summer we have just experienced, the need for community education and change is at an all time high. 

The mission of the festival is simple: to accelerate the uptake of sustainable living and to seek solutions to global warming. It is the largest sustainability festival in Australia and has proudly been a part of our calendar for 20 years. It showcases cutting-edge solutions to ecological and social challenges, fostering and providing tools for the change we want to see and the difference we want to make in the world.

You don’t have the live in Melbourne to take action, in fact, the best place to start is in your backyard: take a look at what you’re growing. Why not make 2020 the year to start growing your own produce? We have rounded up the leading titles that are being launched on the market which all aim to educate and help us become that little more sustainable in our garden. 

Attainable Sustainable by Kris Bordessa

Whether you live in a city, suburb, or the country, this essential guide for the backyard homesteader will help you achieve a homespun life, from starting your own garden and pickling the food you grow to pressing wildflowers, baking sourdough loaves, quilting, raising chickens, and creating your own natural cleaning supplies. In these richly illustrated pages, sustainability guru Kris Bordessa offers DIY lovers an indispensable home reference for sustainability in the 21st century, with tried-and-true advice, 50 enticing recipes, and step-by-step directions for creating easy, cost-efficient projects that will bring out your inner pioneer. Filled with 340 colour photographs, this relatable, comprehensive book contains time-honored wisdom and modern know-how for getting back to basics in a beautiful, accessible package.

Small Garden Style by Isa Hendry Eaton

A stylishly photographed guide to creating lush, layered, dramatic little gardens no matter the size of your available space; an urban patio, a tiny backyard, or even just a pot by your front door. Petite gardens align with the movement to live smaller and create a life with less stuff and more room for living. But a more eco-friendly and efficient space doesn’t have to sacrifice style. In Small Garden Style, garden designer Isa Hendry Eaton and lifestyle writer Jennifer Blaise Kramer show you how to use good design to create a joyful, elegant and exciting, yet compact, outdoor living space for entertaining or relaxing. A style quiz helps you focus in on your own personal garden style, be it traditional, modern, colourful, eclectic, minimalist, or globally inspired, then utilise every inch of your yard by considering the horizontal (floor), vertical (walls), and overhead (ceiling) spaces. Eaton and Kramer recommend their favourite plants and decor for small gardens, along with lawn alternatives and inspiration for making a fire pit, front door wreath, instant mini orchard, boulder birdbath, patterned vines, perfumed wall, and faux fountain with cascading plants. You’ll learn how to design stunning planters and container gardens using succulents, grasses, vibrant-coloured pots, and more. Nothing lights up a little garden more than a well-considered planter. It’s the welcome statement at the front door, the conversation centerpiece at the outdoor dining table, and the piece that naturally softens the patio. However small your garden, Small Garden Style will transform it into a magical, modern outdoor oasis.

A Year in Flowers by Erin Benzakein

From star flower farmer and bestselling author of Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden, Erin Benzakein comes this gorgeous and comprehensive guide to enhancing every occasion with floral beauty. With hundreds of stunning photographs and an inviting narrative style, this book offers approachable tips for caring for and arranging cut flowers, plus how-tos for designing more than 25 seasonal arrangements including magnificent centrepieces, infinitely gift-able posies, festive wreathes, and breathtaking bridal bouquets. Plus, an A to Z flower guide provides photos and care tips for more than 200 varieties, making it easy to identify and use a wide range of beautiful ingredients. Strikingly beautiful and full of authoritative advice, this book is an invitation to live a flower-filled life and the perfect gift for anyone who loves flowers.

Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy

Douglas W. Tallamy’s first book, Bringing Nature Home, awakened thousands of readers to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. In this new book, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation. Nature’s Best Hope shows how homeowners everywhere can turn their yards into conservation corridors that provide wildlife habitats. Because this approach relies on the initiatives of private individuals, it is immune from the whims of government policy. Even more important, it’s practical, effective, and easy, you will walk away with specific suggestions you can incorporate into your own yard. If you’re concerned about doing something good for the environment, Nature’s Best Hope is the blueprint you need. By acting now, you can help preserve our precious wildlife and the planet for future generations.

The Earth in Her Hands by Jennifer Jewell

In this beautiful and empowering book, Jennifer Jewell, host of public radio’s award-winning program and podcast Cultivating Place, introduces 75 inspiring women. Working in wide-reaching fields that include botany, floral design, landscape architecture, farming, herbalism, and food justice, these influencers are creating change from the ground up. Profiled women include flower farmer Erin Benzakein; co-director of Soul Fire Farm Leah Penniman; plantswoman Flora Grubb; edible and cultural landscape designer Leslie Bennett; Caribbean-American writer and gardener Jamaica Kincaid; soil scientist Elaine Ingham; landscape designer Ariella Chezar; floral designer Amy Merrick, and many more. Rich with personal stories and insights, Jewell’s portraits reveal a devotion that transcends age, locale, and background, reminding us of the profound role of green growing things in our world and our lives.

The Family Garden Plan by Melissa Norris

Do something good for your family by learning how to plant a garden that will yield healthy, wholesome food throughout the year. Melissa K. Norris, fifth generation homesteader and host of the popular Pioneering Today podcast, will walk you through each step of the process, from planning your food crops and garden space to harvesting and preserving the food you grow. Even intermediate to experienced gardeners will discover dozens of new ideas.

This book is more than just practical advice, you’ll learn how gardening can contribute to a sustainable lifestyle and give you a sense of accomplishment, peace of mind, and overall joy. Make the Family Garden Plan your “grow-to” guide for good eating and greater well-being for you and your loved ones.      

Enjoy!

Off Menu

2020, Funny, Listen, Podcast, Podcast of the Day

We love a good podcast here at Team Booko and we know you do too so for the month of February we are going to share one of our favourites with you each day. Get your phone ready because there are some beauties that you are going to want to subscribe to. Be sure to share your favs with us in the comments below. First up, we have Off Menu with the hilarious James Acaster and Ed Gamble.


It’s February!

2020, Change, Clean Living, Community, Food, Goals, houseplant, Learning, Lifestyle, Monday Inspo, QOTD, Summer, Top Tips

It’s February and that marks the start of the Sustainable Living Festival here in Melbourne. Throughout the month we’ll be sharing the top books on living sustainably with a focus on your garden, home, craft and fashion. Have a great Monday everyone.

Summer Food Ideas

2020, Cooking, Food, Summer

Are you trying to eat better / healthier / lighter?  Diet-related goals are popular New Year’s Resolutions, and we in Australia are lucky to have an abundance of summer produce to help us kickstart these goals.  If you’re after ideas for flavourful meals with minimal prep, that are satisfying without feeling heavy, then look no further – we’ve got just the right recipes for you!

Salad Feasts: How to Assemble the Perfect Meal by Jessica Elliott Dennison

Big, filling salads are my current summer favourites – they are easy to scale up to feed a crowd, and perfect for those too-hot-to-cook days.  Salad Feasts is a treasure-trove of ideas on how to layer flavours and textures, so that you achieve a balance of freshness, heartiness and nutrients.  Jessica Elliott Dennison also provides lots of suggestions on how to substitute and customise your salads.  Serve these beautiful salads as complete, plant-based meals in themselves, or as vibrant accompaniments to meat.

Well+Good Cookbook: 100 Healthy Recipes + Expert Advice for Better Living by Alexia Brue

The team at Well+Good represent some of the most trusted, influential and trend-setting experts in wellness.  In its first cookbook. Well+Good is showcasing how diverse healthy eating can be, just as “wellness” can mean different things to different people – nutrition, fitness, beauty, spirituality and more.  There are dishes that suit a range of eating styles including vegan, Paleo, Keto, low FODMAP and gluten-free.  With recipe contributions by celebrity wellness devotees including Venus Williams, Marie Kondo, Bobbi Brown and others, the Well+Good cookbook shows that, no matter how busy you are, there are healthy eating options that are achievable and can make you feel great.

Nothing Fancy: the Art of Having People Over by Alison Roman

Alison Roman prefers to talk about “having people over” rather than “ entertaining” – the idea of “entertaining” is more performative and about impressing people, which creates unnecessary expectations and stress for the host.  Instead, she reminds us to be kind to ourselves, and champions unfussy food with big flavours – low stress, high-impact dishes that are great even if they’re not perfectly made.   With recipes that have gone viral and been tried successfully by thousands of fans, Nothing Fancy is a delicious manifesto about cooking for people you love.

The Little Swedish Kitchen by Rachel Khoo

A few years ago, Rachel Khoo relocated her little kitchen from France to Sweden after marrying and starting a family. The Little Swedish Kitchen is a celebration of her new home, reflecting her understanding of Swedish cuisine.  The cool climate and short growing season means Swedish cooking focusses on a small range of core ingredients, livened up with seasonal treats.  Think potato salads tossed with foraged greens, wild mushrooms in a cheese tart, and cakes made with colourful summer fruit.

Planted: a Chef’s Show-stopping Vegan Recipes by Chantelle Nicholson

Plant-based eating (as well as veganism) is a huge trend right now, appealing to people who want to develop more sustainable, ethical and healthy eating habits.  In Planted, Chantelle Nicholson brings a chef’s finesse to vegan recipes – something you don’t usually find in this category.  This New Zealand-born, London-based chef has created seasonal, flavourful recipes that are refined enough for special occasions, yet perfectly achievable for weeknight dinners.  Planted will open your mind to the possibilities of plant-based eating.

Healthier Together: Recipes for Two – Nourish your Body, Nourish your Relationships by Liz Moody

Have you ever given up on health goals because you struggled with motivation?  Try finding a partner – setting and sticking to goals can be much easier when paired with someone else. Healthier Together builds on this idea by offering you delicious, healthful recipes for two.  The act of cooking and eating together will help you strengthen your relationship, as well as get healthy together! These 100+ recipes are gluten-free, dairy-free and plant-centered, including sweet treats and healthier versions of takeaway dishes such as fried chicken, banana bread and brownies.

Back to Uni: Tips and Tricks for buying your books online

2020, Backtoschool, Hacks, Learning, Textbooks, University

Mid-January is the beginning of the Back to School / Uni rush – which can be fun for stationery-addicts like me, but can also be a stressful time, with so many things to pay for all at the same time!  Luckily, Booko can help lighten this load, and today we’ll show you how to join other savvy students in using Booko to find the best prices for your textbooks.  What’s more, Booko has set-and-forget alerts and lists features that can help you organise future purchases!

Let’s start by checking the price of this Accounting textbook:

Booko’s standard search finds you the best prices for right now.  The first list of prices (with an orange heading) is for New copies; if you are interested in Used / second-hand copies, just scroll further down, and copies available will be listed in the second table (with a purple heading).  Don’t forget to check that you are searching for the correct edition!

Creating Alerts and Lists

For even better deals, Booko offers a set-and-forget Alerts and a Lists feature. Booko Alerts regularly checks the prices for your chosen items and will email you as soon as the price falls below the current (or a specified) level. It’s a great way to monitor for sales.  To set an Alert, first search for the book you want – if possible, use the ISBN to confirm the correct edition.

Using the accounting textbook again as an example, the top listing on the Right is the current best price. To create an Alert, click the Add an Alert button below the Cover Image on the left side of the page.  Set your preferred price – and you can set separate prices for new and used books. Then enter your email and click Add.  Now all you need to do is wait for the Good News email! 

If you are logged into your Booko account, you can set an Alert faster, because you won’t need to enter your email each time.  A Booko account allows you to modify your alerts (delete or change target prices) more easily, as a list. 

A Booko account also allows you to set up Lists.  These help you sort and group the books you are watching for.  To add a book to a list, click the Add to List button below the Cover Image (next to the Add an Alert button). This adds the book to your Wishlist (the default list for each Booko account).  To create more lists, click on the My Lists tab on the Top Right of the page, then click the Manage Lists button.

The Manage Lists option has several nifty features – here you create new personalised lists (A), View/Edit or Delete existing lists, or Export list data in a spreadsheet-friendly format (B).  Booko will also tell you whether you can buy all your list items from a single store (C) – and do a price comparison as well.

Booko Alerts and Booko Lists can help you minimise the time and money you need for your back-to-uni essentials – so that you’ll have more time to relax before Term / Semester starts!