Category Archives: Books of the World

So you want to be a photographer? 6 books to help you on your way

2022, Books of the World, Goals, Hobby, How to Guide, Ideas, Illustration, Learning, New Release, new skill, Non-fiction, Personal development, Photography, Recommended, something new, spare time, Top Tips, , , , , , , , ,

Photography is often a skill to learn sitting on people’s hobby wish-lists and it is no secret that Team Booko loves taking photos too. We have scoured the internet looking for books to not only inspire you but to also offer tips and tricks for those who would like to take a plunge into this creative world. 

It would be remiss of us to share our favourite photography books and not include our very own photographic inspiration based here in Melbourne in the form of Chris Cincotta. Chris is behind the lens of the Humans In Melbourne facebook page (you can follow his work here) and @melbourneiloveyou on Instagram. Chris takes a photo each and shares it every day and, not surprisingly, has some wonderful coffee table books available on his website.

Understanding Street Photography: An Introduction to Shooting Compelling Images on the Street by Bryan Peterson

Discover the secrets to mastering street photography from an acclaimed international photographer, teacher, and best-selling author, Bryan Peterson. Street photography enables us to experience the world through a new lens. In Understanding Street Photography, readers will learn the techniques behind images taken around the globe, from the vibrant streets of Varanasi, India, to the crowded walkways of the Charles Bridge in Prague, and so many other corners of the world. In this master class, street photography is defined as images that convey evidence of human interaction, whether that’s a striking cityscape, an image of rush-hour foot traffic, the remains of a half-eaten sandwich, or a pedestrian portrait. Along the way, Peterson shares 120 “mini diaries” the story behind each image; the thought process; the arrangement of the composition; the psychology of the colours; and the lens, aperture, shutter speed, and ISO for readers to replicate his work. Professional and aspiring photographers alike will learn how to produce posed and candid compositions, capture light and movement, and work with shadows, weather, and architecture, and hone your craft. Through lessons, exercises, and anecdotes, Peterson shares his best tips for capturing the unpredictable world of urban life in motion.

Photographers on Photography by Henry Carroll

Think you know photography? Think again. Through a carefully curated selection of quotes and images, this book reveals what matters most to the masters of photography. With accompanying text by Henry Carroll, author of the internationally bestselling Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs series, you’ll learn what photography actually means to the giants of the genres and how they developed their distinctive visual styles. Divided into clear sections, quotes offer intimate insights into “the camera”, “the photograph”, “taking pictures”, “style, subject matter and technique” and ultimately answer that all-important question-“what exactly is photography?” in wildlife.

Flora Photographica: The Flower in Contemporary Photography by William A. Ewing and Danaé Panchaud

Vivid, bold, spectacular and unexpected: a definitive overview of one of contemporary photography’s most innovative fields, showcasing flower imagery by more than 120 of the world’s leading practitioners. There has never been a period in photography’s long history – no school, no movement – when flowers have not been a central focus, whether in the form of the classic still life, the botanical study, incorporated into portraiture and studies of the human body, documented in street photography, or used subversively in surrealist collage and montage. Today, flower photography remains in full bloom, with photographers the world over depicting flowers and floral motifs in novel ways. Featuring works by more than 120 photographers, Flora Photographica links the very best of flower photography from the past thirty years with its predecessors. Vibrant and abundant with myriad species of flora, this stunning book is both a celebration of organic beauty and a keen look at the meaning of flowers in human culture – not to mention an insightful look at a key aspect of contemporary photography – making it a must-have publication for lovers of flowers and photography alike.

How I Make Photographs by David Yarrow

For over two decades, legendary British photographer David Yarrow has been putting himself in harm’s way to capture immersive and evocative photography of some of the world’s most revered and endangered animal species. With his images heightening awareness of endangered species and also raising huge sums for charity and conservation, he is one of the most relevant photographers in the world today. Featuring his 150 most iconic photographs, David Yarrow Photography offers a view of some of the world’s most compelling and threatened species. This collection of stunning images, paired with Yarrow’s first-person contextual narrative, offers an insight into a man who will not accept second best in the relentless pursuit of excellence.

Take Photographs, Not Snapshots: The Essential Elements of Photography by Cider Mill Press 

There is no reason to be intimidated by your camera, as this book is ideal for the beginner looking to learn more or the professional looking for a quick reference guide on location. Take your photos from so-so to stunning with techniques to help you understand aperture, depth of field, lighting, and composition. With guides for both digital and traditional cameras, as well as smartphones, upgrade your photography game on any platform with ease. Don’t just settle for a good enough picture, become a master photographer with Take Photos, Not Snapshots.

How Do I Photograph A Sunset? by Chris Gatcum

How do we learn? We learn by asking questions. But what if we don’t know what questions we should be asking? Thanks to the digital revolution, photography has never been so popular, and whether you shoot on a phone or a top-spec DSLR or CSC camera, the urge to improve is relentless. In this book, author Chris Gatcum asks the questions that every photographer will have in mind at some point in their image-making journey, and then answers them in a clear, concise, straightforward and inspirational manner. Laid out in intuitive sections, this book tackles the questions that are on every photographer’s mind, as well as those that they haven’t thought of yet. And with a clear progression through each chapter, from the simple to more complex, the book asks and answers questions to satisfy the complete novice as well as the advanced practitioner.

Enjoy!

Why do we think like we do? Six of the newest books exploring logic

2021, Books of the World, Change, General Knowledge, How to Guide, Ideas, Learning, Lifestyle, New Release, Non-fiction, Personal development, Philosophy, Recommended, Science, Students, Top Books, Top Tips, , , ,

How many times do you stop yourself and question why you think like you do? The most common response is ‘hardly ever’. It’s usually not until someone challenges us directly on why we think, or act, like we do that we actually stop to give it some thought. In our household our children are developing their own critical thinking skills and it is them that question us on the logic behind our thoughts. There are so many books on the market that explore logic, mindsets, and reasoning so we thought we’d share six of the newest titles on the market. 

The Critical Thinking Toolkit by Galen Foresman

Okay, so this one is a textbook, but boy is it a good one. The Critical Thinking Toolkit is a comprehensive compendium that equips readers with the essential knowledge and methods for clear, analytical, logical thinking and critique in a range of scholarly contexts and everyday situations. It takes an expansive approach to critical thinking by exploring concepts from other disciplines, including evidence and justification from philosophy, cognitive biases and errors from psychology, race and gender from sociology and political science, and tropes and symbols from rhetoric Written in an accessible way, this book leads readers through terrain too often cluttered with jargon Ideal for beginning to advanced students, as well as general readers, looking for a sophisticated yet accessible introduction to critical thinking.

The Art of Logic by Eugenia Cheng

Emotions are powerful. In newspaper headlines and on social media, they have become the primary way of understanding the world. But strong feelings make it more difficult to see the reality behind the rhetoric. In The Art of Logic, Eugenia Cheng shows how mathematical logic can help us see things more clearly and know when politicians and companies are trying to mislead us. First Cheng explains how to use black-and-white logic to illuminate the world around us, giving us new insight into thorny political questions like public healthcare, Black Lives Matter and Brexit. Then she explains how logic and emotions, used side-by-side, can help us not only to be more rational individuals, but also to live more thoughtfully. Filled with useful real-life examples of logic and illogic at work The Art of Logic is an essential guide to decoding modern life.

Livewired by David Eagleman

How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? What does a baby born without a nose tell us about our sensory machinery? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts? And what does any of this have to do with why we dream? The answers to these questions are not right in front of our eyes; they’re right behind our eyes. This book is not simply about what the brain is, but what it does. Covering decades of research to the present day, Livewired also presents new findings from Eagleman’s own research, including new discoveries in synaesthesia, dreaming and wearable neurotech devices that revolutionise how we think about the senses.

The Miniature Guide To Critical Thinking Through Concepts and Tools by Richard Paul and Linda Elder

Sometimes you just need a mini-little-book to give you the gist of something rather than a giant textbook. So here’s a gem of a miniature guide that does just that. This miniature guide, which has sold more than half a million copies, and is widely used in teaching and learning for both personal and professional lives. It distills the essence of critical thinking into a 24-page, pocket-sized guide and introduces the interrelated complex of critical thinking concepts and principles implicit in the works of Richard Paul and Linda Elder. 

The Beginner’s Guide to Stoicism: Tools for Emotional Resilience and Positivity by Matthew Van Natta

Optimize joy, overcome obstacles-discover the calm of stoicism. Being a stoic means embracing positivity and self-control through the ability to accept the uncertainty of outcomes. With this stoicism guide, the beginner stoic will learn how to take charge of their emotions on the path to sustained happiness and satisfaction.

This easy-to-navigate stoicism guide gives you the emotional tools needed to let go of the things you can’t control and find joy in what you have. Through thought-provoking strategies and exercises, this book helps you find contentment so you can build closer relationships and become an active member of society. This book explores the evolution and history of stoicism and how its principles can help you find peace.

Using Questions To Think by Nathan Dickman

Our ability to think, argue and reason is determined by our ability to question. Questions are a vital component of critical thinking, yet we underestimate the role they play. Using Questions to Think puts questioning back in the spotlight. Naming the parts of questions at the same time as we name parts of thought, this one-of-a-kind introduction allows us to see how questions relate to the definitions of propositions, premises, conclusions, and the validity of arguments. Why is this important? Making the role of questions visible in thinking reasoning and dialogue, allows us to ask better questions, improve our capability to understand an argument, exercise vigilance in the act of questioning, make explicit what you already know implicitly, engage with ideas that contradict our own and see ideas in broader context. 

Breathing new life into our current approach to critical thinking, this practical, much-needed textbook moves us away from the traditional focus on formal argument and fallacy identification, combines the Kantian critique of reason with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics and reminds us why thinking can only be understood as an answer to a question.

Enjoy!

Celebrating Fiction: The Best Page Turners on the Market

2021, Author, Books of the World, Characters, Fiction, New authors, New Release, Recommended, something new, Top Books, , , , , , , , , ,

The chilly Winter weather seems like it is definitely here to stay, and if you’re like us and based in Melbourne, we will be starting this season snuggled up at home keeping safe. We try to keep an optimistic mindset and are taking this latest lockdown as an opportunity to read as many new books as we possibly can. We normally binge read over summer at the beach, but there is also something lovely about being curled up in an armchair with a cup of tea and some page-turning fiction for company.

Here are six of the latest titles hitting the market now.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

In 1901, the word ‘Bondmaid’ was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium’, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid’ flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, this book reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his new wife, Hannah: protect her. Hannah knows exactly who Owen needs her to protect – his sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. And who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As her increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested for fraud and the police start questioning her, Hannah realises that her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey might hold the key to discovering Owen’s true identity, and why he disappeared. Together they set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realise that their lives will never be the same again.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Between life and death there is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray by Anita Heiss

Gundagai, 1852 The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction in its wake. It is a stark reminder that while the river can give life, it can just as easily take it away. Wagadhaany is one of the lucky ones. She survives. But is her life now better than the fate she escaped? Forced to move away from her miyagan, she walks through each day with no trace of dance in her step, her broken heart forever calling her back home to Gundagai. When she meets Wiradyuri stockman Yindyamarra, Wagadhaany’s heart slowly begins to heal. But still, she dreams of a better life, away from the degradation of being owned. She longs to set out along the river of her ancestors, in search of lost family and country. Can she find the courage to defy the White man’s law? And if she does, will it bring hope … or heartache? Set on timeless Wiradyuri country, where the life-giving waters of the rivers can make or break dreams, and based on devastating true events, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) is an epic story of love, loss and belonging.

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary

Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in rural Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier. Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with four hundred miles ahead of them, Dylan and Addie can’t avoid confronting the very messy history of their relationship… Will they make it to the wedding on time? And, more importantly, is this really the end of the road for Addie and Dylan?

How To Mend A Broken Heart by Rachael Johns

Summer in New Orleans means hot days, long nights, spooky stories and surprising new beginnings. Felicity Bell has struggled to move on after her marriage broke down. Her ex has found love again, her children have their own lives, and it’s beginning to feel like her only comfort comes from her dog and her job as a taxidermist. So when Flick gets an offer to work in New Orleans for a few months, she’s drawn to the chance to make a fresh start. Zoe is ready to start a family with her husband, but when he betrays her, she’s left shattered and desperate for a change of scenery. Joining her mother on the other side of the world to drown her sorrows seems the perfect solution. Although both mother and daughter are wary of risking their hearts to love again, Theo, a jazz bar owner, and Jack, a local ghost hunter, offer fun, friendship and distraction. But all is not as it seems in New Orleans…A chance meeting with Aurelia, a reclusive artist who surprises them with lessons from her life, prompts Flick and Zoe to reassess what they want too. Can all three women learn from the past in order to embrace their future? An uplifting novel about three women joyously learning to move on after heartbreak by the bestselling author of The Patterson Girls and Flying The Nest.

Enjoy!

Australia’s Top Six Bestselling Books for Winter

2021, Author, Books of the World, Characters, Comedy, Fiction, leisure time, My Next Read, New authors, New Release, Non-fiction, Personal development, Recommended, Top Books, Winter reading

Winter is inching closer and in an effort to help with your hibernation during those chilly days we have gathered up the best selling books in Australia to pop onto your bookshelves and read this Winter. 

So make yourself a cup of hot cocoa and settle in, you’re going to enjoy this list. If you have any recommendations, we’d also love to hear from you. Be sure to follow us on social media (our facebook link is here, instagram is here, and twitter is here), we also have a newsletter that you can subscribe to by logging into your account here, and of course, feel feel free to comment below. 

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz

Dead girls don’t usually get to tell their story, but Alice Lee has always been a different type of girl. When she arrives in New York on her eighteenth birthday, carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen Leica in her bag, Alice is a plucky teenager looking to start a new life away from her dark past. Now she’s ‘Jane Doe’, ‘Riverside Jane’, an unidentified body on a slab at City Morgue. Newspaper headlines briefly report that ‘the body was discovered by a jogger’. Ruby Jones is a lonely Australian woman trying to put distance between herself and a destructive relationship back home, and is struggling in the aftermath of being the person to find Alice’s body. When she encounters Death Club, a small group of misfits who meet at bars around the city to discuss death and dying, she finds a safe space to explore her increasing obsession with the girl and her unidentified killer. Alice, seemingly stuck between life and death, narrates Ruby’s story, hoping that this woman will help her come to terms with what happened and assist in identifying her body. From this first devastating encounter, an enduring connection between the two women is formed. One that will eventually lead to the man who murdered Alice …

Turns Out, I’m Fine by Judith Lucy

Judith Lucy was just Great! Sure, the last remaining member of her immediate family had died, she was menopausal, she suspected her career was in the shitter and it seemed like the world was going to hell in a handbasket – but she was about to move in with the love of her life! Everything would work out because SHE HAD A MAN. Then, in the space of twenty-four hours, her relationship came apart and so did she. A broken heart became the catalyst for a complete existential melt down. She was nearly fifty, suddenly alone and unsure about every aspect of her life. How had this happened? Should she blame one of her four parents? What part had the comedy world played and was her disastrous history with men about more than just bad taste? In her most candid and insightful book yet, Judith figures out what went wrong and then turns her attention to finding out what her life might look like if it went right. She tries everything from dating a tree to getting a portrait of her vulva done to swimming with a whale shark. Thanks to a series of revelations and a slight drowning experience, Judith slowly starts to realise that her life is still full of possibilities and despite death, heartache and a dry vagina it turns out … she’s fine.

Accidental Weatherman by Sam Mac

The Accidental Weatherman is the story of what happens when a hilarious Adelaide boy who knows nothing about meteorology scores the coveted weatherman gig on the highest rating breakfast TV show in Australia. As the Sunrise weatherman, Sam Mac has bungee jumped, swum with sharks, got his cat on the cover of Pussweek magazine, taken his mum to the Logies when he was nominated for gold, stripped naked for The Real Full Monty and even recorded a song with The Wiggles. But, ultimately, his job is about people – from primary schoolers to pensioners, Sam’s gift is how he connects with them all. He uses heart and humour in his role on Sunrise to introduce viewers to the true characters of Australia. He prides himself on bringing awareness to causes such as mental health and animal rescue, and on championing underdogs who might need a hand up or a shout out. His genuine nature and open-book approach to social media has won him hundreds of thousands of fans along the way – although even he would admit that many of them only like him for his cat Coco (who is rapidly catching up to him in Instagram followers). After presenting more than 25 000 minutes of live TV in over 800 different Australian towns, Sam really has seen the absolute best of Australia, and it’s brought out the best in him.

The Truth About Her by Jacqueline Maley

How can you write other people’s stories, when you won’t admit the truth of your own? An absorbing, moving, ruefully tender, witty and wise novel of marriage, motherhood and the paths we navigate through both, for fans of Ann Patchett and Anne Tyler. Journalist and single mother Suzy Hamilton gets a phone call one summer morning, and finds out that the subject of one of her investigative exposes, 25-year-old wellness blogger Tracey Doran, has killed herself overnight. Suzy is horrified by this news but copes in the only way she knows how – through work, mothering, and carrying on with her ill-advised, tandem affairs.The consequences of her actions catch up with Suzy over the course of a sticky Sydney summer. She starts receiving anonymous vindictive letters and is pursued by Tracey’s mother wanting her, as a kind of rough justice, to tell Tracey’s story, but this time, the right way. A tender, absorbing, intelligent and moving exploration of guilt, shame, female anger, and, in particular, mothering, with all its trouble and treasure, The Truth About Her is mostly though a story about the nature of stories – who owns them, who gets to tell them, and why we need them.

The Duke and I : Bridgerton Book 1 by Julia Quinn

Bridgerton is a period drama like no other and was a massive hit on tv. Like all great movies and series, it started with a humble book. 

By all accounts, Simon Basset is on the verge of proposing to his best friend’s sister—the lovely and almost-on-the-shelf—Daphne Bridgerton. But the two of them know the truth—it’s all an elaborate ruse to keep Simon free from marriage-minded society mothers. And as for Daphne, surely she will attract some worthy suitors now that it seems a duke has declared her desirable.

But as Daphne waltzes across ballroom after ballroom with Simon, it’s hard to remember that their courtship is a sham. Maybe it’s his devilish smile, certainly it’s the way his eyes seem to burn every time he looks at her . . . but somehow Daphne is falling for the dashing duke . . . for real! And now she must do the impossible and convince the handsome rogue that their clever little scheme deserves a slight alteration, and that nothing makes quite as much sense as falling in love.

Can’t get enough? You can get the whole set of Bridgerton books here. 

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Who said old age has to be dull? In a peaceful retirement village off the A21 in Kent, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings. But when a local property developer shows up dead, ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be octogenarians, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late? A page-turning murder mystery in the tradition of Christie, and a joyful, laugh-out-loud celebration of modern Britishness and the power of friendship, The Thursday Murder Club is a true classic in the making.

The second book in this series is also out. You can find more about it here. 

Enjoy!

Monday Inspo

2021, Backtoschool, Books of the World, Characters, Friendship, General Knowledge, Ideas, Learning, Monday Inspo, My Next Read, QOTD, , , ,

Advice…it seems to come from everywhere when you are younger and often at times when you’re not really in the frame of mind to listen to it. That’s why we love that YA novels offer little words of wisdom within their pages. Here’s our fav.

Celebrating the Australian Book Industry with Booko: The Space Between

2021, Australian Stories, Author, Awards, Books of the World, Characters, Learning, My Next Read, New authors, New Release, Non-fiction, Personal development, Recommended, Top Books, , , , , ,

Our 20s can be wildly confusing, often lonely, sometimes embarrassing and frequently daunting, there’s also a whole lot of magic to be found in the chaos. The Space Between explores these crazy years.

Celebrating the latest Australian Non-Fiction titles

2021, Australian Stories, Author, Awards, Books of the World, Change, Characters, Comedy, Community, Ideas, Lifestyle, My Next Read, New authors, New Release, Non-fiction, Personal development, Recommended, Top Books, Writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

They say writing a diary is cathartic and not only serves as a method of practising your writing style but is also helpful to let go of thoughts that may be  holding you back. But would you ever be brave enough to publish it for the world to read? That’s just what these six amazing authors have done. 

Tales of people‘s lives, careers and families can be joyful, gut wrenching, horrifying and heartwarming. These Australian non-fiction titles encompass all of those. There’s something enticing about being invited to understand someone else’s life through their eyes, and once you have, you never quite think of them the same again. 


Untwisted: the Story of My Life by Paul Jennings

Sometimes, rather than making you laugh or cry out in surprise, a story will instead leave you wondering about human fragility. In the telling of his own tale, children’s author and screenwriter Paul Jennings demonstrates how seemingly small events can combine into a compelling drama. As if assembling the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, he puts together fragments, memories and anecdotes to reveal the portrait of a complex and weathered soul. Untwisted is revealing, moving and very funny.

Truths from an Unreliable Witness: Finding laughter in the darkest of dark places by Fiona O’Loughlin

Fiona O’Loughlin was raised in the generation of children who were to be seen, but not heard, unless there were guests in the house. Then she’d watch everyone, telling stories, making each other laugh. This was where she discovered the rhythm of stories and the lubrication that alcohol lent the telling. Years later, as a mum of five, Fiona would become one of Australia’s most-loved comedians, performing gigs in New York, Montreal, Singapore, London, Toronto and Edinburgh. Fiona looked like she was living her dream but she was hiding a secret in open sight, using alcoholism as material for her comedy and using comedy as an excuse for her alcoholism.

Truths from an Unreliable Witness is a fiercely honest and wryly funny memoir of melancholy, love, marriage, the loss of love and marriage, homelessness, of hotel rooms strewn with empty mini-bar bottles of vodka, of waking from a two-week coma, of putrid drug dens and using a jungle to confront yourself. It is about hitting rock bottom and then realising you are only halfway down. Ultimately, it’s about hanging on to your last straw of sanity and finding laughter in the darkest of times. You may want to sit down for this.

The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory: A Memoir by Corey White

Corey White was a golden child. He knew this because his father would hit his mother and his sisters but not him. And his mother adored him so much she let him drop out of primary school. After losing his father to jail and his mother to heroin, though, he became a target for cruelty and dysfunction in foster homes. A scholarship to a prestigious boarding school lifted him out of foster care and awakened a love of learning and reading for him, but this was soon overwhelmed by a crushing depression and drug addiction. Through it all, he kept thinking, sometimes hoping, sometimes fearing, that he was destined for something bigger. Would he find salvation in the halls of a university, or a poetically grimy crack den, or through love? Or would the golden glow that had been in him since childhood ultimately fade, leaving only darkness and ruin? The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory is a memoir of trauma and survival that will break your heart and then show you how to rebuild it. It is a powerful, lyrical and darkly funny debut from one of Australia’s brightest young comedians.

The Tap-Dancing Knife Thrower: my life – without the boring bits by Paul Hogan

Paul Hogan first appeared on our screens in 1971 as a ‘tap dancing knife thrower’ on channel 9’s New Faces. The then father of four and Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger from Granville did it as a dare, but when the network’s switchboard lit up, he was invited back. So popular was he with viewers, Hogan became a regular on Mike Willesee’s A Current Affair. The rest, as they say, is history. In collaboration with his business partner and best friend John Cornell (who played his sidekick, Strop), he went on to become one of Australia’s favourite TV comedians. His hugely popular comedy shows and appearances in unforgettable and ground-breaking ads for cigarettes, beer and tourism, came to personify Australia and Australians here and overseas, helping to change the perception of who we are as people and as a nation. Then, in 1986, Crocodile Dundee, the movie he conceived, co-wrote and starred in, became an international smash, grossing more than a billion dollars in today’s money and earning its star an Oscar nomination. Despite the fact Hoges claimed to be ‘retired’, many more movies followed. But even as his star rose ever higher, he always expected someone to grab him by the arm and say, ‘What are you doing here? You’re just a bloody rigger!’ The Tap Dancing Knife Thrower is a funny and candid account of the astonishing life of ‘one lucky bastard’, as Hoges describes himself. Full of countless stories never previously shared and told in the comedian’s inimitable, funny and self-deprecating style, The Tap Dancing Knife Thrower is Paul Hogan’s story told his way – ‘without the boring bits’.

My Tidda, My Sister: Stories of Strength and Resilience from Australia’s First Women by Marlee Silva & Rachael Sarra

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and society has existed on this continent for millennia. It is a culture that manifests as the ultimate example of resilience, strength and beauty. It is also a culture that has consistently been led by its women. My Tidda, My Sister shares the experiences of many Indigenous women and girls, brought together by author and host of the Tiddas 4 Tiddas podcast Marlee Silva. The voices of First Nation women that Marlee weaves through the book provide a rebuttal to the idea that ‘you cannot be what you cannot see’. For non-Indigenous women, it demonstrates the diversity of what success can look like and offers insight into the lives of their Indigenous sisters and peers. Featuring colourful artwork by Goreng Goreng artist Rachael Sarra, this book is a celebration of the Indigenous female experience through truth-telling. Some stories are heart-warming, others shine a light on the terrible realities for many Australian Indigenous women, both in the past and today. But what they all share is the ability to inspire and empower, creating a sisterhood that all Australian women can be part of.

Waleed Aly (I Know This to be True) On Sincerity, Compassion & Integrity by Geoff Blackwell & Waleed Aly


Created in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, I Know This to Be True is an uplifting new series inspired by his legacy. Extraordinary figures from diverse backgrounds answer the same questions, sharing their compelling stories, guiding ideals, and insightful wisdom. The result is a collection brimming with messages of leadership, courage, compassion, and hope. These books offer encouragement and guidance to future leaders, and anyone hoping to make a positive impact on the world. 

Waleed Aly is an Australian broadcaster, journalist, academic and musician. As co-host of The Project, a daily primetime television news and current affairs programme, he is one Australia’s leading commentators on national and international issues. Reflecting on his childhood, career and values, he discusses the importance of taking risks, standing by your beliefs and above all, being honest. Self-deprecating and empathetic, his words offer hope and guidance to anyone struggling to find their way and all who champion equality.

Enjoy!

Happy Weekend

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It’s raining here in Melbourne and will be for the next few days which means we can all snuggle up with a great book for the whole weekend with no guilt! Yippee! Enjoy a safe and cosy weekend.