Category Archives: New Release

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!

The best books for reading beside the pool this Summer

2020, Characters, Community, Friendship, Holiday, New Release, Recommended, Summer, Top Books, Weekend, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Summer has been particularly tough here in Australia with devastating bush fires burning throughout most of our wonderful country, our skies are filled with smoke and our hearts are heavy. 

It’s now mid January, a time when so many are heading back to work to begin the new year, for a few of us we are still dragging out the last of the holidays and are trying not to think of our inboxes or growing to do lists…so this blog is for those those that are either still away from the office, or have a chance in the evening to pick a book up and pretend you are poolside once more. 

Whisper Network by Chandler Baker

Sloane, Ardie, Grace, and Rosalita have worked at Truviv, Inc. for years. The sudden death of Truviv’s CEO means their boss, Ames, will likely take over the entire company. Each of the women has a different relationship with Ames, who has always been surrounded by whispers about how he treats women. Those whispers have been ignored, swept under the rug, hidden away by those in charge. But the world has changed, and the women are watching this promotion differently. This time, when they find out Ames is making an inappropriate move on a colleague, they aren’t willing to let it go. This time, they’ve decided enough is enough. Sloane and her colleagues’ decision to take a stand sets in motion a catastrophic shift in the office. Lies will be uncovered. Secrets will be exposed. And not everyone will survive. Explosive, timely, resonant and relatable (I’ve just finished it): if you love Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies or Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, you will love Whisper Network.

A Half Baked Idea by Olivia Potts

When my mother died, I was cooking. I was not a cook. I did not cook. I ate high-street-chain sandwiches, supermarket filled pasta, and more takeaway kebabs than I was comfortable admitting. My rare, haphazard forays into the kitchen led to fallen cakes, burnt biscuits, and stringy stews. But I had also recently started dating a man, a man who was very keen on cooking, and whom I was keen to impress. One weekend, he suggested we cook together for friends. And I thought, Oh god, that sounds like a terrible idea. But I said, “Sounds great.” And so I found myself standing in a kitchen that was not my own, baking a cake alongside a man I didn’t know. Meanwhile, 275 miles away, my mother was dying.

At the moment her mother died, Olivia Potts was baking a cake. She was trying to impress a man, a cooking enthusiast who would later become her husband. Grief-stricken by the news, Olivia took to the kitchen. She came home from her job as a criminal barrister miserable and tired, and baked soda bread, pizza, and chocolate banana cake (mostly unsuccessfully). It brought her comfort, and so she concocted a plan- she would begin a newer, happier life, filled with fewer magistrates and more macaroons. She left the bar for Le Cordon Bleu, plunging headfirst into the eccentric world of patisserie. Interspersed with recipes ranging from passionfruit pavlova to her mother’s shepherd’s pie, this is a heart-breaking, hilarious, life-affirming memoir about dealing with grief, falling in love, and learning how to bake a really, really good cake.

The Weekend by Charlotte Wood

I just finished this book after two friends recommended it to me. It’s really good. Raw, honest and slightly scary to see what may lie ahead, but good. People went on about death bringing friends together, but it wasn’t true. The graveyard, the stony dirt, that’s what it was like now. They knew each other better than their own siblings, but Sylvie’s death had opened up strange caverns of distance between them. Four older women with a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Can they survive together without her? They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur, Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual, and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they’ve remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for Christmas at Sylvie’s old beach house, not for festivities, but to clean the place out before it is sold. Without Sylvie to maintain the group’s delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good. The Weekend explores growing old and growing up, and what happens when we’re forced to uncover the lies we tell ourselves. Sharply observed and excruciatingly funny, this is a jewel of a book, a celebration of tenderness and friendship that is nothing short of a masterpiece.

Grand Union Stories by Zadie Smith 

The Grand Union is a dazzling collection of short fiction by Zadie Smith who has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and her inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. Interleaving eleven completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from The New Yorker and elsewhere, Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us. Nothing is off limits, and everything, when captured by Smith’s brilliant gaze, feels fresh and relevant. Perfectly paced and utterly original, Grand Union highlights the wonders Zadie Smith can do.

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

This is a suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences. Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma’s worst fears are confirmed.

Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to, or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families’ fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?

Going Under by Sonia Henry

Dr Katarina ‘Kitty’ Holliday thought that once she finished medical school and found gainful employment at one of Sydney’s best teaching hospitals that her dream was just beginning. The hard years, she thought, were finally over. But Kitty is in for a rude shock. Between trying to survive on the ward, in the operating theatre and in the emergency department without killing any of her patients or going under herself, Kitty finds herself facing situations that rock her very understanding of the vocation to which she intends to devote her life. Going Under is a rare insight into the world of a trainee female medic that takes an unflinching look at the reality of being a doctor. It explores the big themes; life, death, power and love through the eyes of Dr Holliday as she loses her identity and nearly her mind in the pressure-cooker world of the hospital. But it is also there that Kitty might find her own redemption and finally know herself for the first time. Darkly funny, sexy, moving and shocking, Going Under will grip you from the opening page and never let you go.

Enjoy!

The Best Books to help you become organised in 2020

2020, Learning, New authors, New Release, Organisation, Personal development, Top Books, Top Tips, , , , , , ,

It’s January, the traditional time of year where we all vouch to become a little more organised and mentally prepared than the year before. And because it’s 2020, the start of a brand spanking new decade, the desire to do so is even more heightened. You’re in luck, we have found some fabulous new titles on the market that all aim to get our diaries, lives and minds in order. To be fair, a few of these titles are a bit older than the last month (but their lessons are so en pointe that we just had to include them). Righto, get yourself comfy, pop the kettle on for a cup of tea because these books are about to really challenge you to make the best of 2020. 

Get Remarkably Organised by Lorraine Murphy

Lorraine Murphy is one of Australia’s leading entrepreneurs and founder of The Remarkables Group and in this books she asks some pretty straight-shooting questions: Is your life chaotic? Are you hungry for advice on how to live calmly, happily and productively? The cornerstone of success at work and at home is being organised and, with Lorraine’s help, you can achieve this by forming excellent habits in a way that’s easy and fun, not stressful. This book is an inspiring look at the organisational lessons Lorraine has learned during her entrepreneurship journey through study, trial and error; the strategies she has developed and the habits she religiously follows. As well as coaching you through specific challenges, you’ll discover 14 informative and approachable chapters with guidance on: The value of routine and habits, easy decluttering, tips for planning your week and managing your day, conquering distractions, the joy of hassle-free outsourcing, overcoming procrastination and even harmony at home. If you fancy giving this book a read this summer, be sure to check out Remarkability (I just finished that one and my copy now has yellow highlighter in each chapter as I devour her lessons). 

The Feel Good Guide by Matilda Green

When Matilda Green, bestselling author of The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Living a Beautiful Life, found herself facing some hard times, she knew she needed to do something to boost her happiness and her self-esteem. But what? So she set out on a journey of discovery, embracing gratitude, mindfulness and meditation techniques, and learning how to be kind to others and to herself. In The Feel Good Guide Matilda pulls together everything she has learnt and shares her own experiences, in the hope that it will help others too. This practical resource, full of helpful tips and real talk, comes complete with an action plan in every chapter to get your own journey kick-started. As Matilda says, this isn’t so much about changing who you are as it is about loving who you are. It’s about celebrating yourself, embracing and being proud of the person you have grown to be, and finding the right tools to help you remember just how awesome you really are.

Things No One Else Can Teach Us by Humble the Poet

The rapper, spoken word artist, poet, blogger, social media influencer, and international bestselling author of Unlearn delivers unorthodox lessons for shifting our perceptions and learning to create silver linings from our most difficult moments. Every one of us endures setbacks, disappointments, and failures that can incapacitate us. But we don’t have to let them. Instead, we can use these events as opportunities for growth. In Things No One Else Can Teach Us, Humble the Poet flips the conventional script for happiness and success, showing us how our most painful experiences can be our greatest teachers. Humble shares raw, honest stories from his own life – from his rocky start becoming a rapper, to nearly going broke, to being the victim of racial prejudice – to demonstrate how a change in mindset can radically alter our outlook. This shift in perspective, one that stops seeing the negative and starts seeing the lesson or positive spin, is what no one else can teach us. We must figure things out on our own, often through difficult and heartbreaking experiences. Humble inspires us to create these silver linings ourselves, preparing us to better handle any challenges that may arise. From a breakup to going broke to losing a loved one, our hardest moments can help us flourish, but only if we recognise and seize the opportunity. By doing so, we will become more self-aware, grateful, and empowered. Simple yet profound, Humble’s message is clear. While we can’t control the vagaries of life, we have the power to control how we react to them. Things No One Else Can Teach Us reminds us all that we have the power within us to transform the way we respond to everyday challenges and ultimately be our best selves.

488 Rules for Life by Kitty Flanagan

488 Rules for Life is Kitty Flanagan’s way of making the world a more pleasant place to live. Providing you with the antidote to every annoying little thing, these rules are not made to be broken. 488 Rules for Life is not a self-help book, because it’s not you who needs help, it’s other people. Whether they’re walking and texting, asphyxiating you on public transport with their noxious perfume cloud, or leaving one useless square of toilet paper on the roll, a lot of people just don’t know the rules. But thanks to Kitty Flanagan’s comprehensive guide to modern behaviour, our world will soon be a much better place. A place where people don’t ruin the fruit salad by putting banana in it … where your co-workers respect your olfactory system and don’t reheat their fish curry in the office microwave … where middle aged men don’t have ponytails … Other rules to live by include: Men must wear shorts over leggings. The gym is no place for people to discover whether or not you are circumcised. That’s a private discussion for another place and time. Team bonding activities should be optional. Some people love it when management decides that an afternoon of bowling or paint-balling or (god forbid) karaoke will help everyone work better as a team. Others would rather be dead. Don’t ever mention your ‘happy place’. To me, this sounds less like a pleasant, fun state of mind and more like some kind of utopian wank palace you’ve had built in the basement. 

What started as a personal joke is now a quintessential reference book with the power to change society. (Or, at least, make it a bit less irritating.) What people are (Kitty Flanagan is) saying about this book: ‘You’re welcome everyone.’ ‘Thank god for me.’ ‘I’d rather be sad and lonely, but right.’ ‘There’s not actually 488 rules in here but it sure feels like it’.

F**k No! by Sarah Knight

The latest no-fks-given guide from New York Times bestselling author of the international sensations The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**K, Get Your S**T Together, You Do You, and Calm The F**K Down. How to stop saying yes when you can’t, you shouldn’t, or you just don’t want to With 2 million copies sold worldwide, Sarah Knight’s bestselling No F*cks Given Guides prove that she’s the Queen of No: no to a single extraneous f*ck given, to unwanted obligations, overcommitting, and overcomplicating her life. For Sarah, saying no is easy. For the rest of us, it’s stress-inducing, blood pressure-raising, teeth-grinding hard. But it doesn’t have to be. F**K No! is filled with tips, techniques, and practical strategies that will arm you with not only permission to decline, but plenty of ammunition for doing so. An encyclopaedia of examples, a cornucopia of comebacks, a plethora of polite replies: if you’re looking to say no (and without being selfish, unlikeable, or mired in missing out), you’ve come to the right place.

Becoming – A Guided Journal by Michelle Obama

What’s your journey of becoming? Based on Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir, this gorgeous journal features an intimate and inspiring introduction by the former First Lady and thought-provoking questions and prompts to help you discover, and rediscover, your story. 

‘It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.’ – Michelle Obama

Enjoy!

Time to load your e-reader for the holidays

2020, eBooks, Fiction, Holiday, mystery, New Release, Recommended, Summer, Thriller, Top Books, , , , ,

Summer has well and truly arrived here in Melbourne and with the festive season done and dusted it’s time to load your e-reader full of books to enjoy while spending your days on the beach, in a hammock or beside the pool. 

We rounded up the top selling books of the year in December (you can have a read of that blog post here ) and you can find the eBook versions of them on Booko, too, by clicking eBook in the drop down menu of your search. 

We are a household that uses both Kindles and Kobos to read books on the go. We have Kobos for our children as they allow them to read their library books in an electronic version (via the amazing libby app). We love this functionality as it allows them to bring their library books on holiday without the fear of ever losing one! 

Here are our top downloads for you to enjoy. Let us know what you’re spending your summer reading in the comments below. 

Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham

Six years ago, Evie Cormac was discovered, filthy and half-starved, hiding in a secret room in the aftermath of a shocking crime. Now approaching adulthood, Evie is damaged, self-destructive and has never revealed her true identity.

Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven, a man haunted by his own past, is investigating the death of champion figure-skater Jodie Sheehan. When Cyrus is called upon to assess Evie, she threatens to disrupt the case and destroy his ordered life. Because Evie has a unique and dangerous gift – she knows when someone is lying. And nobody is telling the truth.

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

Based on the heart-breaking true story of Cilka Klein, Cilka’s Journey is the sequel to the internationally No.1 bestselling phenomenon, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. In 1942 Cilka Klein is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, notices her long beautiful hair, and forces her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly given, equals survival.

After liberation, Cilka is charged as a collaborator by the Russians and sent to a desolate, brutal prison camp in Siberia known as Vorkuta, inside the Arctic Circle. Innocent, imprisoned once again, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, each day a battle for survival. Cilka befriends a woman doctor, and learns to nurse the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under unimaginable conditions. And when she tends to a man called Alexandr, Cilka finds that despite everything, there is room in her heart for love.

Cilka’s Journey is a powerful testament to the triumph of the human will. It will move you to tears, but it will also leave you astonished and uplifted by one woman’s fierce determination to survive, against all odds.

Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe

Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating, and storing; behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence in Dark Emu comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources. Dark Emu is a must read for anyone who wants to understand what Australia once was, or what it might yet be if we heed the lessons of long and sophisticated human occupation.

The Strangers We Know by Pip Drysdale 

This is the eagerly awaited new thriller from the bestselling author of The Sunday Girl. Imagine seeing your loving husband on a dating app. Now imagine that’s the best thing to happen to you all week. When Charlie sees a man who is the spitting image of her husband Oliver on a dating app, her heart stops. Her first desperate instinct is to tell herself she must be mistaken, after all, she only caught a glimpse from a distance as her friends were laughingly swiping through the men on offer. But no matter how much she tries to push her fears aside, she can’t because she took that photo. On their honeymoon. She just can’t let it go. Suddenly other signs of betrayal begin to add up and so Charlie does the only thing she can think of to defend her position, she signs up to the app to catch Oliver in the act. But Charlie soon discovers that infidelity is the least of her problems. Nothing is as it seems and nobody is who she thinks they are. 

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

This is the next episode in David Lagercrantz’s acclaimed continuation of Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo series is a thrilling ride that scales the heights of Everest and plunges the depths of Russia’s criminal underworld. In a climax of shattering violence, Lisbeth Salander will face her nemesis.

Lisbeth Salander’s mentor and protector Holger Palmgren is dead, and she has been gone from Stockholm since his funeral. All summer, Mikael Blomkvist has been plagued by the fear that Salander’s enemies will come after her.

He should, perhaps, be more concerned for himself.

In the pocket of an unidentified homeless man, who died with the name of a Swedish government minister on his lips, the police find a list of telephone numbers. Among them, the contact for Millennium magazine and the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Following the scorched trail of her twin sister Camilla to Moscow, Salander nevertheless continues to watch over her old friend. Soon Blomkvist will need her help. But first, she has an old score to settle; and fresh outrage to avenge.

Agent Running in the Field by John le Carre 

Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.

Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all. Agent Running in the Field is a chilling portrait of our time, now heartbreaking, now darkly humorous, told to us with unflagging tension by the greatest chronicler of our age.

Enjoy!

New Year Party Planning

2019, 2020, Cooking, Craft, Food, Friendship, Holiday, New Release, Recommended, Summer, Top Books, Top Tips, , , , , , , ,

We hope you all survived the fun and excitement that is Christmas Day and now that that is behind us we are continuing the party season with New Year celebrations. Can you believe it is 2020 next week? How is it that when we think of 20 years ago we naturally think of the 80s but, no… it was 2000. Yikes! (makes us feel old…).

To ring in the new year, many people have a bit of a bash and we thought we’d share some of the best books on the market that will help elevate your soirée into something a little more memorable. 

Just a note, some of these books contain ideas for fancy smanzy drinks involving alcohol so please remember to drink responsibly and look after each other as you welcome in the new year. 

Mix Tape Pot Luck by Questlove

What if Questlove threw a potluck dinner, and everybody came? He picked the guests. The guests picked the recipes. The result is the ultimate potluck cookbook. Questlove is best known for his achievements in the music world, but his interest in food runs a close second. He has hosted a series of renowned Food Salons and conversations with some of America’s most prominent chefs. Now he is turning his hand to creating a cookbook. In Mixtape Potluck Cookbook, Questlove imagines the ultimate potluck dinner party, inviting more than fifty chefs, entertainers, and musicians such as Eric Ripert, Natalie Portman, and Q-Tip and asking them to bring along their favourite recipes. He also pairs each cook with a song that he feels best captures their unique creative energy. The result is not only an accessible, entertaining cookbook, but also a collection of Questlove’s diverting musical commentaries as well as an illustration of the fascinating creative relationship between music and food. With Questlove’s unique style of hosting dinner parties and his love of music, food, and entertaining, this book will give readers unexpected insights into the relationship between culture and food.

The Champagne Guide by Tyson Stelzer

This one is for those who like to ring in the new year with some bubbles. This is the world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to Champagne, featuring all the latest vintages. The Champagne Guide 2020-2021 contains fully independent assessments, with profiles and ratings, of over 120 champagne producers and 800 cuvées. Inside you’ll find: Independent assessments and ratings of more than 800 cuvées, all tasted recently; all of the latest insights on the top 120 champagne houses, growers and cooperatives; a Hall of Honour to acknowledge the best producers in Champagne this year; highlights of all the best champagnes of the year at every price and style; updated assessments of the past 24 vintages in Champagne; a chapter on decoding champagne labels and bottling codes along with maps of the champagne villages and vineyards.

Popsicle Party by Louise Pickford

Okay, so this may not be the book of choice for a New Year’s party in the UK but we know those down under will love it. A chilled popsicle, grabbed and shared round languorously from the freezer on a boiling hot day is a simple, nostalgic pleasure. These juvenile treats have clearly not lost their appeal amongst fun-loving adults, and recent trends have seen these childish ices transformed into something far more sophisticated, with fresh natural ingredients and gourmet flavours. Adults and children alike will adore Coconut, Mango and Passion Fruit ice pops: a rainbow of colours and three of your five-a-day in the most enjoyable way. A stash of dairy-free Almond Milk, Honeycomb and Salted Chocolate Pops will always be welcome, while making Buttermilk, Rosewater, Raspberry and Pistachio Pops with whole raspberries set inside would be the most attractive end to any dinner party. It is remarkably easy to make these frozen treats at home, so stock up your freezer and have a posh popsicle ready for any occasion.

The Modern Gentleman by John McCarthy

This compact volume introduces modern gentlemen to some of the greatest pleasures in life, from the very best spirits to the most complex hot sauces to the suavest of accessories. The book is targeted to aspiring bon vivants, modern metrosexuals, millennials, and hipsters eager to become the new gentleman. Content not only includes quick guides to great drinks, foods, and cigars, but also makes the case for why every real gentleman needs a great flask, a classic pen, and a watch that may not be ‘smart’ but will make you look and feel like 007. Features short essays on each subject, with classic illustrations accompanying each, all in a handsome package that will evoke thoughts of a trusted old leather-bound book.

Paper Pom Poms and other Party Decorations by Juliet Carr

We love to add a little decoration or two to jazz up a party and why not try your hand at making your own this year. Discover how to create a spectacular setting for your next party with these 35 fabulous projects. From eye-catching pom-poms to pretty garlands and stunning giant flowers, you’ll want to make every one of these wonderful paper decorations. Begin with the classic pom-poms–popular in the 60s and 70s, but enjoying a stylish revival today. Make them in different sizes and colours for a real impact. Learn, too, how to make honeycomb balls, a star piata, and rosette snowflakes–all beautiful hanging decorations that will look great hung from the ceiling, or in a window. In chapter 2, you’ll find garlands and bunting. Why not try the cupcake garland, using cupcake cases to sit around fairy lights and look like twinkling flowers? Or have a go at the vintage book bunting that would add character at a themed party, or even in your workspace. Finally, create impressive centerpieces – giant roses and daffodils, a coffee filter flower wreath, and waxed floating lilies are among the striking designs. The projects use a variety of paper materials, including tissue, cardstock, and crepe paper, as well as recycled magazine pages and gift-wrap–and no specialist craft experience is needed. Step-by-step photography will show you exactly what to do. You’ll also find out about all the different types of paper available–such as water-resistant tissue paper, and two-tone paper that has a different colour on each side of it–as well as where to buy them. Plus, every template you’ll need is included at the back of the book.

Batch Cocktails by Maggie Hoffman

As anyone who has hosted a dinner party knows, cocktail hour is the most fun part of the evening for guests–but the most stressful for whomever is in charge of keeping the drinks flowing. The solution, though, is simple: batch it! In this fun collection, Maggie Hoffman offers 65 delicious and creative cocktails that you don’t have to stir or shake to order; rather, they are designed to stay fresh when made ahead and served out of a pitcher. Recipes such as Tongue in Cheek (gin, Meyer lemon, thyme, Cocchi Rosa), Friendly Fires (mezcal, chili vodka, watermelon, lime), BirdsnBees Punch (rum, cucumber, green tea, lemon), and even alcohol-free options are organized by flavor profile –herbal, boozy, bitter, fruity and tart, and so on– to make choosing and whipping up a perfect pitcher of cocktails a total breeze.

Enjoy!

Festive Food… part two.

2019, Blog, Christmas, Community, Cooking, Food, Gifts, Holiday, New Release, Shopping, Top Books, Top Tips

And just like that, it is Christmas next week! Friends and family are starting to arrive from out of town, presents are being wrapped and popped under the tree and the sun is starting to settle in for a long and hot Summer here in Melbourne. 

Whether your family cooks up a big roast dinner with all of the trimmings, or grills seafood on the bbq or even prefers a lighter approach with salads, we have found some great cookbooks with mains and desserts that will wow your guests this festive season. 

This week we’re focussing on the main meal and sweet treats for afterwards, if you were looking for inspiration for starters and tasty beverages, then be sure to check out this blog post here. 

Prepare to be inspired. 

The Whole Fish by Josh Niland

We all want to eat more fish, but who wants to bother spending the time, effort and money cooking that same old salmon fillet on repeat when you could be trying something new and utterly delicious? In The Whole Fish Cookbook, Sydneys groundbreaking seafood chef Josh Niland reveals a completely new way to think about all aspects of fish cookery. From sourcing and butchering to dry ageing and curing, it challenges everything we thought we knew about the subject and invites readers to see fish for what it really is – an amazing, complex source of protein that can, and should, be treated with exactly the same nose-to-tail reverence as meat. Featuring more than 60 recipes for dozens of fish species ranging from Cod Liver Pate on Toast, Fish Cassoulet to Roast Fish Bone Marrow.

Scandi Bites by Trine Hahnemann

This is the perfect little gift for Scandi fans who want to bring some Nordic charm into their kitchen. With over 60 sweet and savoury recipes for all sorts of snacks, treats, fingerfood, bakes and pastries, it will provide plenty of inspiration for every occasion throughout the year. Doyenne of Danish baking, Trine Hahnemann, shares all her favourite treats in this cute cookbook so that you can make your own delicious cardamom buns, almond cookies, honey bombs, coconut macaroons and smoked salmon open sandwiches, among many others.

Pana Chocolate, The Recipes by Pana Barbounis

Cacao Crunch, Cardamom Dream, Spiced Chocolate Chai, Butterscotch Apple Crumble! Pana Chocolate, The Recipes is the book vegans and health-conscious sweet tooths have been waiting for. It includes 60 beautiful recipes that cover the spectrum: from fillings for your own raw chocolate creations; to fancy but achievable plated desserts using raw chocolate; to traditional desserts that you can make raw; to raw desserts for kids’ parties (think chocolate crackles and honey joys) to breakfast (chia pudding, granola, buckwheat porridge!) The recipes are all raw, organic, vegan, free from dairy, gluten, soy and refined sugar.

Chefs Host Christmas Too by Darren Purchese

Hot on the heels of his highly successful Chefs Eat Toasties Too, Darren Purchese is sharing his take on Christmas with us in his 2nd book in the Chefs…Too series. With Chefs Host Christmas Too there’s no need to be stressed about Christmas – at least not when it comes to hosting and feasting. It’s time to play with Christmas – and we don’t mean having a starring role in a pageant, but being the star of your own show. The approach here is fresh, fun, lighthearted and accessible, with an enticing and cleverly put-together line up of Christmas greats, and new twists on how to prepare them. Chefs Host Christmas Too includes everything you need to keep the throng fed and entertained during this festive time, including family favourites, all the chef tips and tricks, and new takes on some classic fare.

Mary Berry Cooks Up A Feast by DK

Mary Berry makes cooking for gatherings of family and friends easier with over 160 recipes that work well for both small and large numbers of guests. Discover how she cooks for her family and friends during the Christmas party season, and for other occasions and celebrations throughout the year. Her timeless guidance and expert tips will help you cater smoothly and successfully on a small scale for dinners and lunches around a table, or on a larger scale for drinks parties, buffets and teatime. Adapting quantities is made easy. Each recipe provides two sets of ingredients for serving either 6 or 12 guests, plus there is new, detailed advice on how to scale up recipes for any number. Discover tips for preparing in advance and simple shortcuts and cook up a feast the stress-free way.

Just Desserts By Charlotte Red 

You’d butter believe this is the only baking book you’ll need this Christmas! Instagram sensation Charlotte Ree is famous for her simple and delicious sweets … and her love of puns. Her easy, user-friendly creations are designed to taste amazing, rather than just look pretty (though pretty they most certainly are!). Just Desserts showcases 30 of Charlotte’s most popular and delicious cake, biscuit, slice and dessert recipes in one outrageously gorgeous little package. Featuring essentials, such as chocolate brownies, shortbread caramel slice and chocolate-chip cookies through to show stoppers, such as layered berry pavlova and chocolate ganache & blackberry bundt, Just Desserts is the ideal gift for the baker and sweet-lover in your life – even if that’s you!

Enjoy!