Category Archives: Personal development

Self help and personal development

Booko’s Gift Guide for Yourself this Christmas

2021, Christmas, Design, Food, Gifts, Lifestyle, Music, New Release, Personal development, Recipe Books, Recommended, ,

There are a number of different ways that people shop for Christmas; some wait until the last minute, others buy well ahead of time, some take their time shopping for the perfect gift for each special person in their lives. Then there’s that group of special individuals (just like a few Booko team members) that are brilliant, in fact masters, at shopping for themselves and love to reward their Christmas shopping capabilities with a ‘one for you and one for me’ gifting approach.

Today’s post is for all of you that love to wrap a little something to yourself and pop it under the tree. Top tip – you can keep this up for years if you say it’s from the family pet.  

Taste – My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

From award-winning actor and food obsessive Stanley Tucci comes an intimate and irresistible memoir of life in and out of the kitchen. Before Stanley Tucci became a household name with The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, and the perfect Negroni, he grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the table. Taste is an intimate reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about growing up in Westchester, New York, preparing for and filming the foodie films Big Night and Julie Julia, falling in love over dinner, and teaming up with his wife to create conversation-starting meals for their children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burnt dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last. Written with Stanley’s signature wry humour and nostalgia, Taste is a heartwarming read for anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal.

Why Did I Buy That? Fashion mistakes, life lessons by Kirstie Clements

Musings, style tips and thoughts on being a woman from Australia’s leading fashion insider, internationally-bestselling author and former editor of Vogue, Kirstie Clements – all delivered with a good dose of wit, common sense and chutzpah. Kirstie Clements has seen trends come and go, from the sublime to the ridiculous, but she knows real style when she sees it. This is about how to spot those wardrobe gems, from a classic loafer that makes you feel comfortable in your own skin, to a beautiful winter coat to take you through more than one season. Why Did I Buy That? is for those with an interest in style and fashion who want to know what to wear, what to buy and how to age stylishly in these changing times. Sharing personal stories, musings on fashion trends and thoughts on everything from gender to selfies, Why Did I Buy That? is about how to successfully edit your wardrobe and lifestyle, how to live decadently on a budget and how to spend your money more wisely. Oh, and how to kick ass in your career with a well-chosen blazer. It’s also for those of us who want to look good in our thirties and beyond without becoming a slave to fashion (or the surgeon’s knife). Including loads of clever style hints and tips and a foreword by Brooke Boney, Why Did I Buy That? will take you by the hand and help you confidently navigate the often-challenging world of fashion trends and impulse buys. Seasonal updates allowed.

Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love by Yotam Ottolenghi

This is Ottolenghi, unplugged. The Ottolenghi Test Kitchen team takes you on a journey through your kitchen cupboards, creating inspired recipes using humble ingredients. Relaxed, flexible home cooking from Yotam Ottolenghi and his superteam. Whether they’re conjuring up new recipes or cooking for themselves at home, the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen team do what we all do – they raid their kitchens. But then, they turn whatever they find into approachable creations with an ‘Ottolenghi’ twist. This instinct is in perfect sync with recent times, when we’ve all been standing in front of our kitchen shelves, our cupboards and our fridges, wondering what to cook with what we’ve got; how to put a can of chickpeas or a bag of frozen peas to good use, instead of taking an extra trip to the shops. For the first time, the team welcome us into their creative space. These dishes pack all the punch and edge we expect from Ottolenghi, but offer more flexibility to make them our own, using what we’ve got to hand. There’s the ultimate guide to creamy dreamy hummus, a one-pan route to confit tandoori chickpeas and a tomato salad that rules them all. This book is all about feeding ourselves and our families with less stress and less fuss, but with all the ‘wow’ of an Ottolenghi meal. It’s a notebook to scribble on and add to, to take its ethos and absolutely make it your own.

The Flower Hunter: Seasonal flowers inspired by nature and gathered from the garden by Lucy Hunter

Lucy’s evocative, gently humorous words accompany her glorious photographs and exquisite floral arrangements, as she encourages the reader to marvel at the intricate cycles of the natural world, develop their own innate creativity and to look for beauty in the everyday. Her garden provides the raw materials for Lucy’s floral artistry; breathtaking naturalistic arrangements with the painterly beauty and flourish of a Dutch still life. Simple projects accompany Lucy’s text, from drying garden flowers for an autumnal wreath to making your own journals and natural dyes to assembling lavish arrangements that showcase the voluptuous beauty of garden roses. Lucy believes that we all have a creative voice buried deep within. The Flower Hunter will encourage you to find your own creativity and help it to blossom.

The New Hustle: Don’t work harder, just work better by Emma Isaacs 

What if we’ve been served a big, fat lie about what it takes to be successful at work? Pro-hustlers will tell you living in a work-more, sleep-less world is how we get ahead. But on the back of the pandemic, entrepreneur and Business Chicks founder Emma Isaacs believes the hustle is now dead. Moreover, traditional ways of working – long commutes, unproductive meetings and outdated systems of bureaucracy – actually don’t work at all. Emma believes we don’t have to work harder; we just need to work better. In fact, we can slash our hours, take shortcuts and still get more done – without feeling depleted. In The New Hustle, Emma condenses her wisdom into 77 anti-rules for maximum efficiency. Drawing inspiration from her team, Business Chicks members and the many entrepreneurs and leaders who have graced the Business Chicks stage, she will teach us to embrace radical flexibility, make quick decisions, work smarter and say no to the things that don’t matter, so we can say yes to the things that do. Written with humour, insight and a serving of tough love, The New Hustle is your go-to for more productive, creative and meaningful work by one of Australia’s most unconventional and effective entrepreneurs: a best-selling author, mum of six – and a woman determined to start an anti-hustle revolution.

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl

So, Dave Grohl wrote a book! Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (‘It’s a piece of cake! Just do four hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!’), He decided to write stories just as he has always done, in his own hand.

“The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child. This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters…the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement”.

Enjoy!

Christmas Gift Guides: Gift Guide for Your Best Friend

Christmas, Design, Friendship, Gifts, Homemade, Homes, houseplant, Ideas, Lifestyle, My Next Read, New authors, New Release, Non-fiction, Recommended, Top Books, Top Tips, , , , ,

It’s inching closer to Christmas and Team Booko is here to help with six suggestions of which books to gift your style-loving Bestie this festive season. We have scoured the best of the best home decorating and style guides and we know the books below are going to be enjoyed by anyone who is lucky enough to unwrap them this December. 

Sit back and get clicking. Also, just a little reminder that this is the time of year that posties get a little inundated so it may be worthwhile ordering sooner rather than later and allowing a little longer for delivery. 

How We Love: Notes on a life by Clementine Ford

How We Love is a deeply personal exploration of love in all its forms from a feminist icon and bestselling author of Fight Like a Girl and Boys Will Be Boys. Clementine Ford is a person who has loved deeply, strangely and with curiosity. She is fascinated by love and the multiple ways it makes its home in our hearts and believes that the way we continue to surrender ourselves to love is an act of great faith and bravery. This tender and lyrical memoir explores love in its many forms through Clementine’s own experiences. With clear eyes and an open heart, she writes about losing her adored mother far too young, about the pain and confusion of first love (both platonic and romantic) and the joy and heartache of adult love. She writes movingly about the transcendent and transformative journey to motherhood and the similarly monumental path to self-love. How We Love is heartfelt, funny, confessional, revelatory, compassionate, and essential reading. It shows us to ourselves in moments of unwavering truth and undeniable joy.

Three Birds Renovations Dream Home How-To by Bonnie Hindmarsh, Erin
Cayless, Lana Taylor

The long-awaited next instalment from the authors of Australia’s number 1 home improvement book (you can see that here) Australia’s favourite Birds are back with bigger home transformations, bolder extensions, breathtaking new builds and hundreds of new tips. Jam-packed with reno goodness, this book is a visual feast overflowing with ideas and inspiration from Three Birds projects in glorious detail, including their most ambitious new build to date: a family home that channels an idyllic island getaway (year-round staycation, anyone?). Go behind the scenes to see how the Birds make over their own spaces for work and play. First up, a tour of Three Birds HQ guaranteed to spark ideas and help you turn a humble home office into boss-worthy territory. Next, their spin on Christmas decorating, stuffed full of frugal and festive DIY hacks, will come in handy every year whether you rent, own or live in a caravan. The cherry on top of this inspiration smorgasbord comes courtesy of their very own savvy students! In a bonus chapter, graduates of the Birds’ super-popular online Reno School share images and advice from their own incredible projects, dream spaces created using tips and money-saving tricks learned from the Three Birds. Proving, once again, that anyone can make reno magic with the right know-how.

A Year at the Chateau by Dick and Angel Strawbridge

Like many couples, Dick and Angel had long dreamed of living in France, but where others might settle for a modest bolthole in the French countryside, the Strawbridges fell in love with a 19th-century fairytale chateau, complete with 45 rooms, seven outbuildings, 12 acres of land and its own moat. Throwing caution to the wind, Dick and Angel swapped their two-bedroom flat in East London for an abandoned and derelict castle in the heart of the Loire valley and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime with their two young children Arthur and Dorothy. Sharing their full journey for the first time, A Year at the Chateau follows Dick and Angel from when they first moved to France in the depths of winter and found bedrooms infested with flies, turrets inhabited by bats, the wind rattling through cracked windows, and just one working toilet, which flushed into the moat, through to the monumental efforts that went into readying the chateau for their unforgettable wedding and their incredibly special first Christmas. Along the way we’ll read glorious descriptions of rural life in France, with charming characters, delicious food and wonderful seasonal produce, together with the extraordinary list of renovations and restorations Dick and Angel completed, many of which were never shown on TV. As warm and entertaining as their much-loved show, A Year at the Chateau is a truly irresistible story of adventure and heart, epic ambitions and a huge amount of hard graft.

A Room of Her Own: Inside the Homes and Lives of Creative Women by Robyn Lea

A Room of Her Own features the dazzling homes of twenty extraordinary women around the globe. Across sitting rooms and studios, salon-style hangs and table settings, this is a book of daring inspiration. In this new Renaissance period – a time of artistic, cultural and intellectual rebirth – these women have chosen to carve out their own space to live creatively. Artists, designers, makers and curators invite us into their domestic and professional domains to reveal a world of meaning and purpose beyond status and consumerism. Now, more than ever, we are searching for new ways of thinking, new ways of living. These pages are filled with beautiful rooms, but Robyn Lea’s gorgeous photography and evocative texts look beyond the aesthetics to explore the ideals and practices of these women and guide us all on a new and exciting path forward. A Room of Her Own is a manifesto for the 21st century.

Principles of Style by Sarah Andrews

In Principles of Style, Sarah Andrews presents her unique take on teaching design, drawing on her experience of working in the industry and as a teacher in her school, which has reached cult status around the world. Importantly, Principles of Style aims to be a timeless learning tool for readers, no matter their own personal style, with Sarah revealing many of the ideas, tips and skills she has accumulated along the way. She does this by examining some of her key projects and favourite rooms, as well as by focusing on her ten rules of styling, formulated both through hands-on experience and studies in the science of design. Sarah believes that everyone has the ability to create interiors that are right for them; in this inspiring and eminently practical book, she aims to demonstrate just how to do so.

Nature Style: Cultivating Wellbeing at Home with Plants by Alana Langan,
Jacqui Vidal

It’s no secret that time spent in nature is good for us. Nature helps us thrive, improves our health and wellbeing, decreases stress and increases happiness. But if you don’t have the luxury of a forest at your doorstep, bringing the outside in can provide an immediate connection to the natural world and the many benefits that come with it. From the founders of the botanical emporium Ivy Muse comes a practical guide to styling the home for health and harmony, using nature as a blueprint. With expert advice on houseplants and how to style them, as well as pro-tips on the choice of decor and materials, finishes and furnishings, this book shows how natural elements can be incorporated into almost every room in the house – both effectively and affordably. Nature Style is for all those who seek to restore body and mind in a natural and nurturing home environment where houseplants are the heroes.

Enjoy!

Making lists just got fun, social and super clever

2021, Booko, Christmas, Community, Gifts, Hacks, How to Guide, Lifestyle, Lists, My Next Read, New Feature, Organisation, Recommended, Top Books, Top Tips

We are all about clever shopping at Booko, whether that’s finding the best price, shopping internationally, choosing second hand or setting your own prices. We have a brand spanking new feature on Booko that we know will make your lives a little easier. 

Sometimes we have no idea what to read and just need a recommendation, other times we’re looking for books to give as gifts but have no idea what the recipient would enjoy. Today, we are taking all of the guesswork away and are launching the ‘following’ function in our hugely popular list section. 

Now you can follow a number of lists which suggest books to read, movies to watch or even ideas for Santa. 

Let’s start by having a look at our current list function. 

When you log into your Booko account a drop down menu appears to the left hand side of the site and you will see Lists and Following as options. 

When you click on Lists you are shown all of the lists you have created on Booko. 

You can also add more lists here. We often suggest making lists for all different reasons such as books for each course at uni, gift ideas, a wishlist of books that you’d love to read this summer, bookclub books, movies you want to watch oneday… the options are endless. 

You can change the settings on these lists by clicking on the little pencil icon to the side. Here you can choose to make your list private, sharable or discoverable. 

Private means only you can see what is on the list, sharable allows you to send a copy of the list via a link (super handy when you are giving Grandma ideas for Christmas presents) and finally, discoverable is our new option. It allows you to share your list with everyone and they can follow along as you add more books to your list. 

Because your privacy is super important to us, you can change the setting of your lists whenever you like, you can easily switch from private, shareable and discoverable by clicking on the pencil icon. 

When you click on Following in your drop down menu, it shows all of the lists that you follow, these include all of your own private lists, any that have been shared and sent to you via a link, along with any of the discoverable lists you have decided you’d like to follow. Again, you can unfollow any list at any time by clicking the ‘unfollow’ button to the right hand-side of the list. 

How to find a list to follow.

In the menu bar at the top of the Booko website you’ll see Blog, History, Alerts and Lists as options that you can click (along with the super handy country flag which allows you to shop in different countries and currencies). When you select Lists, a dropdown menu appears with Manage My Lists and Discover More Lists along with all of the lists you have previously created. Manage My Lists takes you straight to the list function above where you can change settings on your lists, along with adding and removing books, adding a description about the list and renaming the list. 

Discover More Lists is where you will find book recommendations galore. 

All of the lists that Booko and our community of users have set to ‘discoverable’ will show up here. We have made a few lists to get you started and will continue to add to them but it is also a space where the Booko community can share topics, authors, genres, gift ideas and favourite books. To follow a list, simply click on the orange ‘follow’ button to the right. If you’d like to take a closer look at the list, just click on the list title and a new page will open showing all of the books in the list along with their blurb. You can then click on the book image and add it to one of your own lists, set a price alert, or even buy it straight away!

As always, prices are constantly being refreshed behind the scenes so it doesn’t matter how old the book is, how long it has been on someone’s list, we will always show the most recent price. 

We were inspired by our book loving community to create this new feature, you have so generously recommended books in the past and we wanted to give you a space so that this can continue. So get clicking, make a list, add your favourite books to it, set it to discoverable and we’ll follow along.

As usual, we’d love your feedback on this new feature so we can make sure it serves our community’s needs best. Drop us a line at booko@booko.com.au with your thoughts and suggestions.

Enjoy!

Six of the newest memoirs hitting bookshelves now

2021, Author, Awards, Change, Comedy, Learning, Lifestyle, Memoirs, My Next Read, New authors, New Release, Non-fiction, Personal development, Recommended, Top Books, Writing

Autobiographies, biographies and memoirs, there is something magical about reading insights into people’s lives and learning from lessons they have grappled with. Perhaps it’s the unspoken trust that comes with them sharing stories so personal with us that makes reading an autobiography inspiring. 

We are excited to share these six memoirs that are hot off the press. We know you are going to enjoy them. 

Whose memoir do you recommend? Be sure to share with us in the comments below so we can add it to our reading list. 

The Asparagus Wars by Carol Major

The Asparagus Wars is a deeply moving memoir about the battles waged against terminal illness and a mother’s struggle to comprehend the battlefield in its wake. While some family members wage war against her daughter’s disease with natural therapies, and doctors fight on using the latest developments in medical science, she longs to take her daughter to Paris instead, the city that inspired the young woman’s writing and art. The Asparagus Wars asks questions about notions of victory at all costs. Shot through with fearless wit and resonant description, this story will break your heart but leave you richer for the experience.

I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke

This is a memoir as wry, funny, moving and vivid as its inimitable subject himself. This book will be a joy for both lifelong fans and for a whole new generation. John Cooper Clarke is a phenomenon: Poet Laureate of Punk, rock star, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator. At 5 feet 11 inches, in trademark dark suit, dark glasses, with dark messed-up hair and a mouth full of gold teeth, he is instantly recognisable. As a writer his voice is equally unmistakable and his own brand of slightly sick humour is never far from the surface. I Wanna Be Yours covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, from Bernard Manning to Linton Kwesi Johnson, Elvis Costello to Gregory Corso, Gil Scott Heron, Mark E. Smith and Joe Strummer, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner, Plan B and Guy Garvey. Interspersed with stories of his rock and roll and performing career, John also reveals his boggling encyclopaedic take on popular culture over the centuries: from Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe to Pop Art, pop music, the movies, fashion, football and show business – and much, much more, plus a few laughs along the way.

No. 91/92 A Parisian Bus Diary by Lauren Elkin

In Autumn 2014, Lauren Elkin began keeping a diary of her bus commutes in the Notes app on her iPhone 5c, using it to take in the world around her. During that year, the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred and Lauren had an ectopic pregnancy, requiring emergency surgery. At that point, her diary of dailiness became a study of how we digest major events personally and collectively as a city, observed from the height of the bus. No. 91/92 is a love letter to Paris and a meditation on how it has changed in the two decades the author has lived there. It’s a celebration of community and a time when we could all observe each other in our fleshy up-closeness. 

The Audacity by Katherine Ryan

From the star of The Duchess and the host of ‘Telling Everybody Everything’, the debut book from superstar comedian Katherine Ryan. ‘While I’ve been very blessed to have worked in comedy for over a decade, The Audacity gives me the opportunity to connect with people more fully and honestly than a panel show allows. I’ve learned to be a sharp-shooter on stage, but there are so many stories that I’m eager to tell in more sincere, longer form. I hope it gives people a laugh, an insight, and hopefully some encouragement on how to live their most fulfilled, authentic lives.’ The Audacity details Katherine’s journey from a naive ex-Hooters waitress fresh off the boat from Canada to comedy megastar, chapters cover How to Potty Train Your Baby at 10 Months, How to Cut Off Your Racist Aunties, How to Marry Your High School Boyfriend and How to Co-Parent when you’re a Single Mum. The Audacity combines Katherine’s unerring ear for the perfect line with the warmth, compassion and hard-won wisdom that makes up a life on and off stage.

Coming Clean by Liz Fraser

Coming Clean is a searingly honest memoir of loving an alcoholic both through the heaviest drinking years and into recovery. When Liz Fraser’s partner fell into a catastrophic vortex of depression and alcoholism, Liz found herself in a relentless hailstorm of lies, loneliness and fear, looking after their young child on her own, heartbroken, mentally shattered and with no idea what was happening or what to do. As she and her family moved between Cambridge, Venice and Oxford, she kept the often shocking truth entirely to herself for a long time, trying in vain to help her partner find a path to sobriety, until she herself finally broke from the trauma and started to speak out only to find she was one of hundreds experiencing similar things, also living in silence and fear. Part diary, part travel journal and part love letter, Coming Clean is the true story of addiction of many kinds, mental collapse and heartbreak. Above all, it offers a voice of deep human compassion, strength and hope for recovery.

Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes by Phoebe Robinson

Written in Phoebe’s unforgettable voice and laced with her unparalleled wit and with spot-on pop culture references. From the values she learned from her parents (including, but not limited to, advice on not bringing outside germs onto your clean bed) to her and her boyfriend, lovingly known as British Baekoff, deciding to have a child-free union, to the way the Black Lives Matter movement took centre stage in America, and, finally, the continual struggle to love her 4C hair, each essay is packed with humour and humanity.

It’s insightful, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartfelt, Please Don’t Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes is not only a brilliant look at our current cultural moment, but a collection of essays that will stay with you for years to come.

Enjoy!