Category Archives: Top Books

Our best picks and recommendations

Top 5 Books on Community Involvement

Blog, Community, Lifestyle, Top Books, , , , ,

Research has shown that the most common resolutions made each January include engaging more with a local community, building and maintaining friendships, advancing a career and becoming a better person. It is with this in mind that this month we are going to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions alive.

This week we’re looking at ways you can become involved in your local community and the change you can make to make your neighbourhood a better place to live and laugh with others. The top books we have found explore the notion of looking beyond a face and getting to know who is passing us on the street, how to make small changes locally that can take on the world and how to help the next generation value their community.

Oh, and despite the title of this blog… we actually have 6 books – it was just too hard to narrow it down…. Let’s call it a ‘bonus book’.

Let’s get started…

Chapter One by Daniel Flynn

Chapter One is the story of three kids from Melbourne, Australia with zero experience in business who had an idea and the crazy belief that they all had the power to change stuff. It started with the World Water Crisis (and how to end it) but has developed into an award-winning consumer goods brand that empowers millions of people to fight poverty with every munch of muesli, sip of water or pump of hand wash. And that’s just the beginning. This is the story of epic proportions by Thankyou co-founder Daniel Flynn about Thankyou’s gut-wrenching decisions, wild mistakes and daring moves in business, marketing and social enterprise so far. You’ll laugh at their boldness, cry at their failings and be inspired by their determination. But more than that, you’ll understand that, no matter your walk of life, you too have the power to change stuff.

 

The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun

Adam Braun began working summers at hedge funds when he was just sixteen years old, sprinting down the path to a successful Wall Street career. But while traveling he met a young boy begging on the streets of India, who after being asked what he wanted most in the world, simply answered, “A pencil”. This small request led to a staggering series of events that took Braun backpacking through dozens of countries before eventually leaving a prestigious job to found Pencils of Promise, the organisation he started with just $25 that has since built more than 250 schools around the world. The Promise of a Pencil chronicles Braun’s journey to find his calling, as each chapter explains one clear step that every person can take to turn their biggest ambitions into reality. If you feel restless and ready for transition, if you are seeking direction and purpose, this critically acclaimed bestseller is for you. Driven by inspiring stories and shareable insights, this is the book that will give you the tools to make your own life a story worth telling.

 

Humans of New York: The Stories by Brandon Stanton

We are huge fans of Brandon’s work and couldn’t go past showcasing this wonderful title again.  In the summer of 2010, photographer Brandon Stanton began an ambitious project to single handedly create a photographic census of New York City. The photos he took and the accompanying interviews became the blog Humans of New York. His audience steadily grew from a few hundred followers to, at present count, over eighteen million. In 2013, his book Humans of New York, based on that blog, was published and immediately catapulted to the top of the NY Times Bestseller List where it has appeared for over forty five weeks. Now, Brandon is back with the Humans of New York book that his loyal followers have been waiting for: Humans of New York: Stories. Ever since Brandon began interviewing people on the streets of New York, the dialogue he’s had with them has increasingly become as in depth, intriguing and moving as the photos themselves. Humans of New York: Stories presents a whole new group of people in stunning photographs, with a rich design and, most importantly, longer stories that delve deeper and surprise with greater candor. Let Brandon Stanton and the Humans of New York he’s photographed astonish you all over again.

 

Be A Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters by Laurie Ann Thompson

At age eleven, Jessica Markowitz learned that girls in Rwanda are often not allowed to attend school, and Richards Rwanda took shape. During his sophomore year of high school, Zach Steinfeld put his love of baking to good use and started the Baking for Breast Cancer Club.
Do you wish you could make a difference in your community or even the world? Are you one of the millions of high school teens with a service-learning requirement? Either way, “Be a Changemaker” will empower you with the confidence and knowledge you need to affect real change. You’ll find all the tools you need right here: through engaging youth profiles, step-by-step exercises, and practical tips, you can start making a difference today. This inspiring guide will teach you how to research ideas, build a team, recruit supportive adults, fundraise, host events, work the media, and, most importantly, create lasting positive change. Apply lessons from the business world to problems that need solving and become a savvy activist with valuable skills that will benefit you for a lifetime.

 

UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World by Dr Michele Borba

Teens today are forty percent less empathetic than they were thirty years ago. Why is a lack of empathy, which goes hand-in-hand with the self-absorption epidemic Dr. Michele Borba calls the Selfie Syndrome, so dangerous? First, it hurts kids’ academic performance and leads to bullying behaviours. Also, it correlates with more cheating and less resilience. And once children grow up, a lack of empathy hampers their ability to collaborate, innovate and problem solve – all must have skills for the global economy. In UnSelfie Dr. Borba pinpoints the forces causing the empathy crisis and shares a revolutionary, researched based, nine-step plan for reversing it. Empathy is a trait that can be taught and nurtured. Dr. Borba offers a framework for parenting that yields the results we all want: successful, happy kids who are also kind, moral, courageous, and resilient. UnSelfie is a blueprint for parents and educators who want kids to shift their focus from I, me, and mine… to we, us, and ours.

 

100 under $100: One Hundred Tools for Empowering Global Women by Betsy Teutsch

This book is a comprehensive look at effective, low-cost solutions for helping women in the Global South out of poverty. Most books on this subject focus on one problem and one solution; author Betsy Teutsch instead spreads her net wide, sharing one hundred successful, proven paths out of poverty in eleven different sectors including tech, public health, law, finance, and more. A visually striking book full of images of vibrant, strong women farmers, health practitioners, entrepreneurs, and humanitarian tech stars doing exciting, cutting edge work. Eye opening and compelling, 100 Under $100 is an accessible entry point for globally attuned readers excited about using a broad range of tools to empower women and help alleviate poverty in the developing world.

 

Enjoy!

Top Travel Books to Encourage a Getaway

Blog, Lifestyle, Top Books, Travel, , , ,

It’s been a long hot summer here in Melbourne and with February just around the corner, it’s now the time when we all start booking our getaways for later in the year. Whether you relax by spending time on a sandy beach, enjoy immersing yourself in bustling cities or prefer a simple camping trip we have some fabulous books for you to explore.

 

Wander Love by Aubrey Daquinag

Wander Love takes the world of Instagram and travel, and distils it in a beautiful pictorial book that will inspire your own adventures. Author Aubrey Daquinag is a travel blogger and photographer, most often found posting her adventures on her blog The Love Assembly from all corners of the globe. Featuring her incredible photography that shows you a world where travel meets style, her book includes sections on the essentials for a digital nomad office, how to be stylish while on the road, how to upgrade your travel photography skills, advice for solo female travellers, and unique destination guides for countries like Colombia and Morocco. Wander Love is the perfect mix of style, substance and travel adventures to inspire your own.

 

The New York Times Footsteps; From Ferrante’s Naples to Hammett’s San Francisco by The New York Times

Based on the popular New York Times travel column, Footsteps is an anthology of literary pilgrimages, exploring the geographic muses behind some of history’s greatest writers. From the “dangerous, dirty and seductive” streets of Naples, the setting for Elena Ferrante’s famous Neapolitan novels, to the “stone arches, creaky oaken doors, and riverside paths” of Oxford, the backdrop for Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, Footsteps takes a fresh approach to literary tourism, appealing to readers and travel enthusiasts alike.

 

 

 

The New Paris: The People, Places, and Ideas Fueling a Movement by Lindsey Tramuta

The city long-adored for its medieval beauty, old time brasseries, and corner cafés has even more to offer today. In the last few years, a flood of new ideas and creative locals has infused a once-static, traditional city with a new open-minded sensibility and energy. Journalist Lindsey Tramuta offers detailed insight into the rapidly evolving worlds of food, wine, pastry, coffee, beer, fashion, and design in the delightful city of Paris. Tramuta puts the spotlight on the new trends and people that are making France’s capital a more whimsical, creative, vibrant, and curious place to explore than its classical reputation might suggest. With hundreds of striking photographs that capture this fresh, animated spirit, The New Paris shows us the storied City of Light as never before.

 

Havana: A Subtropical Delirium by Mark Kurlansky

During his decade-long tenure as the Chicago Tribune’s Caribbean correspondent in the 1980s, Mark Kurlansky began traveling to Cuba. Since this introduction to the island nation, the journalist grew to know and love the beautiful, messy capital. Drawing on Havana’s history, Kurlansky starts with Columbus’ arrival in 1492 and examines the city’s role in the slave trade and its lasting effects. But he also brings us into the contemporary culture, highlighting the city’s lively music, dance and art scenes, and supplying us with recipes to tasty Cuban dishes.

 

 

 

 

Beaches by Gray Malin

Gray Malin is the artist of the moment for the Hollywood and fashion elite. His awe-inspiring aerial photographs of beaches around the world are shot from doorless helicopters, creating playful and stunning celebrations of light, shape, and perspective, as well as summer bliss. Combining the spirit of travel, adventure, luxury, and artistry, Malin built his eponymous lifestyle brand from a deep passion for photography and interior design. His work forges the synergy between wanderlust and adventure, creating the ultimate visual escape. Beaches features more than twenty cities across six continents.

 

Camping Around Australia by Explore Australia

Now on its third edition, Camping around Australia has become the go-to guide for all recreational campers. And this edition is bigger and better than ever! With over 3200 campsites included across the country, particularly highlighting free and dog-friendly campsites, the problem isn’t finding somewhere to camp – it’s deciding where to camp out of the many great options.

 

 

Enjoy!

The best books for those wanting to start their own business

Blog, Entrepreneur, Personal development, Top Books, Top Tips,

Now that the New Year festivities are behind us, it’s the time of year when people are heading back to work with either a spring in their step or with growing anticipation to take the plunge and start their own thing.

It can be daunting to make the decision to work for yourself so we have scoured the world of books and have come up with a list of great titles (some are old time favourites and others new) that can help you follow your dreams.

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss

When facing life’s questions, who do you turn to for advice? We all need mentors, particularly when the odds seem stacked against us. To find his own, bestselling author and podcast guru Tim Ferriss tracked down more than 100 eclectic experts to help him, and you, navigate life. Through short, action-packed profiles, he shares their secrets for success, happiness, meaning, and more. No matter the challenge or opportunity, something in these pages can help.

You will learn; the three books legendary investor Ray Dalio recommends most often, lessons and tips from elite athletes like Maria Sharapova, Kelly Slater, Tony Hawk and Dan Gable, how and why Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz says ‘no’ to most incoming requests, the meditation and mindfulness practices of David Lynch, Jimmy Fallon, Sharon Salzberg, Rick Rubin, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and others, why TED curator Chris Anderson thinks ‘pursue your passion’ is terrible advice and why actor Ben Stiller likes to dunk his head in a bucket of ice in the morning.

 

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.

Why do some people achieve so much more than others? Can they lie so far out of the ordinary? In this provocative and inspiring book, Malcolm Gladwell looks at everyone from rock stars to professional athletes, software billionaires to scientific geniuses, to show that the story of success is far more surprising, and far more fascinating, than we could ever have imagined. He reveals that it’s as much about where we’re from and what we do, as who we are – and that no one, not even a genius, ever makes it alone. Outliers will change the way you think about your own life story, and about what makes us all unique.

 

 

 

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

This book comes with a lot of recommendations…and we mean a lot! ’If you are an entrepreneur, read this book. If you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, read this book. If you are just curious about entrepreneurship, read this book.’ Randy Komisar, founding director of TiVo. Most new businesses fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that’s being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It’s about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late. Now is the time to think Lean.

 

 

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters.

What valuable company is no one building? The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. This book is about how to get there. Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg both offer praise for this book with Zuckerberg commenting ‘When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of Peter Thiel, read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic’.

 

 

The Working Woman’s Handbook by Phoebe Lovatt

I’ve been dipping in and out of this book since I bought it and it’s great. It’s the ultimate guide to job satisfaction, filled with practical advice on developing and driving a working life you love. Bursting with actionable tips, this book outlines an agenda for making and managing money, setting goals, and establishing success-oriented routines, with worksheets, exercises, and fool-proof “how-to” sections to help chart your course. From the lowdown on launching your own venture to a bullet-point checklist for an essential self-care regime, it will teach you to manage any dilemmas that crop up, and take the stress out of setting a budget. This no-nonsense manual comes packed with author Phoebe Lovatt’s personal insights from her own career as a successful freelance journalist, moderator, and founder of The WW Club, the leading digital resource and global community for working women worldwide. It also includes words of wisdom from various creatives and industry leaders, such as Teen Vogue editor Elaine Welteroth, WAH Nails founder Sharmadean Reid, The Gentlewoman’s Editor-in-Chief Penny Martin, and rising fashion designer Sandy Liang. Whether a first-time freelancer, budding businesswoman, or dedicated professional looking to enhance your prospects, The Working Woman’s Handbook is a go-to career and lifestyle guide for ambitious young women everywhere.

 

 

Purpose: Find your why and the how will look after itself by Lisa Messenger

I unwrapped this goodie on Christmas morning and it was read by the New Year…one of the joys of buying your own Christmas presents! Imagine if you could wake up every morning feeling energised, vibrant and excited for the work day ahead of you. If you could accept every challenge, hurdle and setback because you knew the end goal would be worth it. If you could walk your career path with courage, faith and determination. Because you know, without a doubt, that you’re going in the right direction. This is what happens when you find your PURPOSE. And that is exactly what I want for you. As the founder of Collective Hub, a multimedia platform that aims to help people unleash their full potential, Lisa Messenger has turned her passion into a profession – and now she’s on a mission to help millions of people across the world find a career with meaning. Her secret? Instead of settling for a play-it-safe career, she delved deep, thought big and disrupted an entire industry. And all because she discovered the magical feeling, the vital reason, the one powerful sentence that made her work-life worth living. Now, it’s your turn. In this soul-searching book Lisa discusses her own path to purpose, mixed with guidance and interviews from inspiring entrepreneurs and creatives who have followed their ‘why’ to a place of joy and fulfilment. Drawing on her own experiences and ground-breaking research that shows a sense of purpose makes us happier, healthier and even live longer, Lisa guides readers to find the illusive ‘why’ in their lives, so they can reinvigorate their ambition, unleash their inner rebel and make a real impact in the world.

 

Enjoy!

The Best Novels on Pre Order for 2018

Fiction, New authors, Top Books,

Summer is well and truly here and with the crazy festive season behind us it’s now time to sink into a fabulous new book…here are our top books to pre order.

Brave by Rose McGowan

“My life, as you will read, has taken me from one cult to another. BRAVE is the story of how I fought my way out of these cults and reclaimed my life. I want to help you do the same.” -Rose McGowan.

Rose McGowan was born in one cult and came of age in another, more visible cult: Hollywood.

In a strange world where she was continually on display, stardom soon became a personal nightmare of constant exposure and sexualization. Rose escaped into the world of her mind, something she had done as a child, and into high-profile relationships. Every detail of her personal life became public, and the realities of an inherently sexist industry emerged with every script, role, public appearance, and magazine cover. The Hollywood machine packaged her as a sexualized bombshell, hijacking her image and identity and marketing them for profit.

Hollywood expected Rose to be silent and cooperative and to stay the path. Instead, she rebelled and asserted her true identity and voice. Brave is her raw, honest, and poignant memoir.

 

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children, four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness, sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

This is a sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.

 

Feel Free by Zadie Smith

No subject is too fringe or too mainstream for the unstoppable Zadie Smith. From social media to the environment, Tarantino to Jay-Z to Knausgaard, she has boundless curiosity and the boundless wit, insight and wisdom to match. In Feel Free, pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment: dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary, and considered with a deep humanity and compassion.

This electrifying new collection showcases its author as a true literary powerhouse, demonstrating once again her credentials as an essential voice of her generation.

 

 

The Elizas by Sara Shepard

New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Little Liars Sara Shepard makes her mark on adult fiction with this Hitchcockian double narrative composed of lies, false memories, and a protagonist who must uncover the truth for survival. When debut novelist Eliza Fontaine is found at the bottom of a hotel pool, her family at first assumes that it’s just another failed suicide attempt. But Eliza swears she was pushed, and her rescuer is the only witness. Desperate to find out who attacked her, Eliza takes it upon herself to investigate. But as the publication date for her novel draws closer, Eliza finds more questions than answers. Like why are her editor, agent, and family mixing up events from her novel with events from her life? Her novel is completely fictional, isn’t it? The deeper Eliza goes into her investigation while struggling with memory loss, the closer her life starts to resemble her novel, until the line between reality and fiction starts to blur and she can no longer tell where her protagonist’s life ends and hers begins.

 

This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins

From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins’ highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman today.

Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”, to live as, to exist as, a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for everyone.

Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalised with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle in the larger discussion about inequality. In This Will Be My Undoing, Jerkins becomes both narrator and subject to expose the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large.

 


Still Me by Jojo Moyes

Lou Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam alive across several thousand miles. She is hurled into the world of the super-rich, Leonard and his much younger second wife, Agnes, and a never-ending array of household staff and hangers-on. Lou is determined to get the most out of the experience and throws herself into her job and New York life within this privileged world.

Before she knows what’s happening, Lou is mixing in New York high society, where she meets Joshua Ryan, a man who brings with him a whisper of her past.

In Still Me, as Lou tries to keep the two sides of her world together, she finds herself carrying secrets – not all her own – that cause a catastrophic change in her circumstances. And when matters come to a head, she has to ask herself: Who is Louisa Clark? And how do you reconcile a heart that lives in two places?

 

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers

From the best-selling author of The Circle, the true story of a young Yemeni-American man, raised in San Francisco, who dreams of resurrecting the ancient art of Yemeni coffee but finds himself trapped in Sana’a by civil war and his riveting tale of escape. Mokhtar Alkhanshali grew up in San Francisco, one of seven siblings brought up by Yemeni immigrants in a tiny apartment. At age twenty-four, unable to pay for college, he works as a doorman, until a statue of an Arab raising a cup of coffee awakens something in him. He sets out to learn the rich history of coffee in Yemen and the complex art of tasting and identifying varietals. He travels to Yemen and visits countless farms, collecting samples, eager to bring improved cultivation methods to the countryside. And he is on the verge of success when civil war engulfs Yemen in 2015. The US Embassy closes, Saudi bombs began to rain down on the country, and Mokhtar is trapped in Yemen. Desperate to escape, he embarks on a passage that has him negotiating with duelling political factions and twice kidnapped at gunpoint. With no other options, he hires a skiff to take him, and his coffee samples, across the Red Sea.

A heart-pounding true story that weaves together the history of coffee, the ongoing Yemeni civil war, and the courageous journey of a young man, a Muslim and a US citizen, following the most American of dreams.

Enjoy!

Surviving summer with a great novel

Fiction, Top Books, , , ,

With the chaos of Christmas over it is the perfect time to find a quiet spot on the beach and enjoy a great book. Here are some of our favourites that we highly recommend reading this summer.

We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby

Sometimes you just have to laugh, even when life is a dumpster fire.

With We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., “bitches gotta eat” blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette (she’s “35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something”) detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes, sharing awkward sexual encounters, or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban mums (hang in there for the Costco loot) she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.

 

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

It is September 1995. Selin, a Turkish-American college freshman from New Jersey, is about to embark on her first year at Harvard University, where she is determined to decipher the mysteries of language and to become a writer. In between studying psycho­linguistics and the philosophy of language, teaching ESL to a Costa Rican plumber, and befriending her classmate Svetlana (a Serbian refugee from Connecticut), Selin falls in love with a Hungarian maths student in her Russian class. She spends the summer in the Hungarian countryside teaching English to village children, where sad and comic misunderstandings ensue. Full of the razor-sharp evocations of character and place that have long delighted readers of Batuman’s non-fiction.

 

The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir by Ariel Levy

When Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.

Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life and then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed. Like much of her generation, she was raised to resist traditional rules about work, about love, and about womanhood.

In this deeply human and deeply moving memoir, Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being, in her own words, “a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses.” Her story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed, and of what is eternal.

 

All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg

Who is Andrea Bern? When her therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid – she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh – that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult: her best friend, Indigo, is getting married; her brother – who miraculously seems unscathed by their shared tumultuous childhood – and sister-in-law are having a hoped-for baby; and her friend Matthew continues to wholly devote himself to making dark paintings at the cost of being flat broke. But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart? Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, All Grown Up is a breathtaking display of Jami Attenberg’s power as a storyteller, a whip-smart examination of one woman’s life, lived entirely on her own terms.

 

Happiness: The Crooked Little Road To Semi-Ever After by Heather Harpham

Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant. Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn’t want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends. Mere hours after Gracie’s arrival, Heather’s bliss is interrupted when a nurse wakes her, “Get dressed, your baby is in trouble.”

This is not how Heather had imagined new motherhood – alone, heartsick, an unexpectedly solo caretaker of a baby who smelled “like sliced apples and salted pretzels” but might be perilously ill. Brian reappears as Gracie’s condition grows dire and together Heather and Brian have to decide what they are willing to risk to ensure their girl sees adulthood.

 

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney

Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman, vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. Her best friend and comrade-in-arms is the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and Bobbi catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa’s world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman’s sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick. However amusing and ironic Frances and Nick’s flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy, and Frances’s friendship with Bobbi begins to fracture. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally, terribly, with Bobbi.

Desperate to reconcile her inner life to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances’s intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment. Written with gem-like precision and marked by a sly sense of humour, Conversations with Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth, and the messy edges of female friendship.

Enjoy!

Styling your home in time for Christmas

Blog, Christmas, Gifts, Lifestyle, Top Books, , , ,

It is fast becoming that time of year when friends and families start piling into our homes laden with goodies and treats to share and we frantically tidy the house (and pretend it always looks this good) and decorate it with baubles, fake snow (for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere) and tinsel galore. We’ve noticed that Christmas decorating can certainly divide people…some people like to go all out (especially our children), and others like to rein it in and prefer to celebrate this crazy season with just a ‘touch’ of festive cheer.

So we have scoured the literary world and have found some fabulously inspiring books that can help you style your home in a variety of ways that will both wow guests and also keep your home beautiful long after the festive season…(psst, they make terrific Chrissie pressies too).

 

The Scandinavian Home by Niki Brantmark

Scandinavia is famous for its distinctive style: homes are pared-back and simple, and form and function are combined to create aesthetically pleasing and practical interiors. Scandinavians are inspired by light, having an abundance of it in summer but so little of it in winter, and house designs tend to maximise the amount of natural light that enters the home, and allow the inhabitants to make the most of outdoor life during the summer. Similarly, nature and the weather are major influences: homes are made warm and cosy for the freezing winter months – not just literally with log burners, but also through incorporating wood and natural materials. Here Niki Brantmark, owner of the interior design blog My Scandinavian Home, presents a wide-ranging collection of these beautiful homes and explores how the Scandinavian lifestyle is reflected in them all.

 

How to Decorate by Farrow & Ball

Set to become the bible of home decoration, Farrow & Ball How to Decorate provides a highly practical and inspirational guide to the successful use of paint and paper in any home, large or small, urban or country. Published on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the iconic brand, the book brings together the expertise of Joa Studholme and Farrow & Ball’s creative team to demystify the nitty-gritty of transforming a home – from deciding which colours work best in a north-facing room to creating accents with paint and making the most of a feature wall.

 

Decorate for a Party by Holly Becker

Decorate for a Party is a stunning sourcebook packed with decorating tips and techniques that will ignite your creativity. Whether you are planning a significant celebration or a simple dinner with friends, this book delivers creative ideas for every occasion. All aspects of party planning are covered, from lighting to playlists, hostess gifts, colours and patterns, food ideas, wall decor ideas, DIY projects and hundreds of fun tips that will make your party memorable. With over 200 practical ideas including ten step-by-step projects, ten playlists and ten 6 Ways projects, Decorate for a Party is split into ten sections by theme covering a range of different colour palettes and styles, from bright to moody tones, forest and children’s parties and beautiful boho and modern styles. All themes can be mixed and matched to use for a wide variety of occasions in homes of any size from the sprawling country home to a one-room city apartment. Decorate for a Party encourages you to make the most of what you have, to make things by hand and modify store-bought party supplies, and to infuse your party with personality and style. You’ll find hundreds of quick and beautiful ways to create a party that is meaningful, memorable, budget-friendly and fun!

 

The New Bohemian’s Handbook by Justina Blakeney

The New Bohoemian’s Handbook guides readers in beautifully simple techniques for adding good vibes, and style to living spaces. Packed with hundreds of ideas for bringing positive energy to your home, the book features exercises and activities for thinking about rooms in new ways. With Justina’s expert guidance, learn how to rearrange, paint, prop, and plant your way to a home that’s fresh and inspiring. Uncover your “spirit environment” and learn how to use colour and scent to enhance mood, productivity, and relaxation. Revel in Justina’s encouraging advice, (“you got this!”) and easily and affordably turn any dwelling into a personal sanctuary.

 

It’s Beautiful Here by Megan Morton

Interior fulfilment can be fleeting. Linen cupboards crash from a ten to a two in a blink and couch cushions need to be eternally fluffed. It’s Beautiful Here attempts to capture the moments of domestic paradise without making the mistake of thinking they are permanent, but hoping hard they might be. With her trademark wit and enthusiasm Megan Morton let’s us peek into the abodes of the people who have by luck, chance or determination nailed that ever elusive interiors je na sais quoi. From Paris to New York and even Adelaide, we meet a motley crew of renters, Barbie Dreamhouse owners and accidental interior heroes and learn that a beautiful home doesn’t rest on great design alone it’s shaped by the people who live there.

 

Simple Decorating by Melissa Michaels

If you want to jump-start your style and refresh your home without needing power tools and a winning lottery ticket, make Simple Decorating your go-to resource for can-do decor. Spark your makeover momentum with 50 no-fuss tips and discover how to get unstuck by embracing a style that is your very own, transform your spaces with simple colour, window treatments, and furniture choices, Whether you start with one tip or take these on as a challenge for the month, it’s never been more fun (or possible) to create a home you can’t wait to come home to.

 

Enjoy!

The Top Ten Most Popular Books on Booko for 2017

Blog, Gifts, Lifestyle, Top Books, , , ,

Wowsers, we’re nearly at the end of 2017…is it just us or did it zoom by in a flash?

It’s been a wonderful year in the literary world and although we tried, the Booko team still have a few titles that we wished we’d read…and with summer fast approaching we will be tackling our reading lists with much anticipation.

Here’s the top ten books of 2017 that our Booko community have been reading.

The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

One thing that you’ll find different between this book and any other finance book you have read is that getting on top of your finances gives you enormous freedom. Divorced? Made redundant? Want a change of career? Sort your finances by putting in place the ‘set and forget’ steps covered by Scott Pape and you’re halfway there. For many, this book has been life changing.

 

 

 

 

 

Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls broke records as the most-funded original book in crowdfunding history, and has since become a bestseller in 30 languages. Challenging gender stereotypes, Good Night Stories profiles 100 women – scientists, athletes, politicians – who have contributed to public life. It further celebrates women by highlighting the work of the two authors and 60 illustrators, who produced this striking and colourful volume. Written in the style of fairytales, Good Night Stories is not just for bedtime or for girls – it is inspirational for all children. Adult readers can also enjoy it as a sampler offering ideas for further reading. Volume 2 is available here.

 

 

Wonder by R J Palacio

Auggie wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things – eating ice cream, playing on his Xbox. He feels ordinary – inside. But ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids aren’t stared at wherever they go. Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he’s being sent to a real school – and he’s dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted – but can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, underneath it all? WONDER is a funny, frank, astonishingly moving debut to read in one sitting, pass on to others, and remember long after the final page.

 

 

 

The Subtle Art of not giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up. Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited “not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault.” Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek. There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

 

 

A Season with Richmond by Konrad Marshall

A Season with Richmond reveals the intimate story of the Richmond Football Club through the highs and heartaches of the 2017 season. With unprecedented access to club officials, players and coaches, author Konrad Marshall takes the reader inside the rooms at the key moments the campaign, chronicling the Tigers’ journey towards premiership contention. This is not just a book of wins and losses, it’s the story of a professional football club and how it operates at every level: from the fitness staff, to the coaching panel, the players, and the Board. Football has changed enormously since Richmond’s last flag, in 1980, and Marshall explains in great detail the enormous amount of work and thought that goes into every decision made—on and off the field. Whether the Tigers make it to the last Saturday in September or not, their story is rich and explosive. A Season with Richmond is full of unparalleled access to all the key moments, including frank and occasionally emotional interviews with all the key figures. A Season with Richmond is a compulsory read for all football fans.

 

 

The Circle by Dave Eggers

When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. Run out of a sprawling California campus, the Circle links users’ personal emails, social media, and finances with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of transparency. Mae can’t believe her great fortune to work for them – even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.

 

 

 

 

Tinkering: The Complete Book of John Clarke by Text Publishing

The sudden death of John Clarke in April 2017 cut short the life of a man who was not only a great and much loved entertainer and satirist but a wonderful writer.

Tinkering- The Complete Book of John Clarke represents his work from the 1970s in both Australia and New Zealand, and includes his writing for radio, television, stage and screen, as well some previously unpublished pieces. This collection includes the irresistible commentaries of Fred Dagg, the hilarious and unforgettable absurdities of farnarkeling and selections of his famous quizzes, where he gave the answers and readers had to guess the questions. There are also moving recollections of people and places, many of which he wrote towards the end of his life.

Introduced by Lorin Clarke Tinkering is the perfect way to remember the genius who made us all laugh at ourselves and our society for so many years.

 

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling

With J.K. Rowling writing the screenplay herself, and the casting of Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne in the lead role, Potterheads should be in for a treat.  Fantastic Beasts is first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, as a textbook that Harry and his friends use at Hogwarts. It is supposedly written by Newt Scamander, a famous Magizoologist, and is a guide to the magical creatures found in the Harry Potter universe.  Sales of this book has raised millions for the charity Comic Relief.

 

 

 

 

Robert Kuok: A Memoir by Robert Kuok

Robert Kuok is one of the most highly respected businessmen in Asia. But this legendary Overseas Chinese entrepreneur, commodities trader, hotelier and property mogul has maintained a low profile and seldom shed light in public on his business empire or personal life. That is, until now. In these memoirs, the 94-year-old Kuok tells the remarkable story of how, starting in British Colonial Malaya, he built a multi-industry, multinational business group. In reflecting back on 75 years of conducting business, he offers management insights, discusses strategies and lessons learned, and relates his principles, philosophy, and moral code. Kuok has lived through fascinating and often tumultuous times in Asia – from British colonialism to Japanese military occupation to post-colonial Southeast Asia and the dramatic rise of Asian economies, including, more recently, China. From his front-row seat and as an active participant, this keen, multi-cultural observer tells nearly a century of Asian history through his life and times. Readers interested in business, management, history, politics, culture and sociology will all enjoy Robert Kuok’s unique and remarkable story.

 

Quick and Easy Food 5 Ingredients by Jamie Oliver

Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated – that’s why Jamie’s Quick and Easy 5-Ingredient Food is sure to become your new best friend in the kitchen. It’s all about making the journey to good food, super-simple. Every recipe uses just five key ingredients, ensuring you can get a plate of food together fast, whether it’s finished and on the table super-quickly, or after minimal hands-on prep, you’ve let the oven do the hard work for you. We’re talking quality over quantity, a little diligence on the cooking front, and in return massive flavour. Each recipe has been tried and tested (and tested again!) to ensure the book is packed with no-fuss, budget-friendly dishes that you can rustle up, any day of the week. With over 130 recipes, and chapters on Chicken, Beef, Pork, Lamb, Fish, Eggs, Veg, Salads, Pasta, Rice Noodles and Sweet Things, there’s plenty of quick and easy recipe inspiration to choose from. Think Roast tikka chicken – a whole bird rubbed with curry paste and roasted over golden potatoes and tender cauliflower, finished with fresh coriander. Or, Crazy simple fish pie – flaky smoked haddock, spring onions, spinach and melty Cheddar, all topped off with crisp, golden filo, and ready to tuck into in less than 30 minutes. With every recipe you’ll find a visual ingredient guide, serving size, timings, a short, easy-to-follow method, and quick-reference nutritional information. This is Jamie’s easiest-to-use book yet, and the perfect cookbook for busy people.

 

Enjoy!

The Best Gifts For Everyone On Your Christmas List

Blog, Christmas, Entrepreneur, Gifts, Lifestyle, Top Books, , ,

Pack away the pumpkins and break out the festive tunes…it’s nearly the BEST time of the year!!! Christmas is only SEVEN weeks away and we have saved the day with our top picks for everyone on your Christmas List…you’re welcome!

The Home Lover

 

Plant Style by Alana Langan and Jacqui Vidal

Ferns are back in the bathroom, cacti are sitting on plant stands and hoyas are cascading from hangers. Indoor plants are the ultimate indoor accessory. Softening interiors and readily available, they are a stylist’s best friend.

However, it’s their power to transform a sterile space into an urban sanctuary that makes them more than just an inanimate prop – all you need to know is how to use them.

From the founders of coveted plant-wares studio, Ivy Muse, comes this charming guide on how to turn your home into a jungle-like retreat. With design-savvy tips and expert advice, you’ll learn all there is to know about decorating with plants and botanical styling plus the necessities like light requirements and when to water and feed. From bathroom to boudoir to every room in between, create your very own green oasis with Plant Style.

 

Home For Now by Joanna Thornhill

More people are renting now than ever before, but the rental market remains surprisingly unflexible, with many tenants banned from making even the simplest alterations, such as hanging a picture or painting a wall. Even those who have managed to take that first leap onto the property ladder often find themselves with no cash left to renovate, so their first home is just a short stop-gap to their “forever home”; they resort to a renter’s mindset, unwilling and unable to invest vast sums in the fabric of their property and instead “making do” with quick fixes. Home for Now provides a blend of both inspirational and practical advice, showing how canny tenants have transformed their stepping-stone abodes into stylish spaces.

The Dreamer

The Kinfolk Entrepreneur by Nathan Williams

Pairing insightful interviews with striking images of these men and women and their workspaces, The Kinfolk Entrepreneur makes business personal. The book profiles both budding and experienced entrepreneurs across a broad range of industries (from fashion designers to hoteliers) in cities across the globe (from Copenhagen to Dubai). Readers will learn how today’s industry leaders handle both their successes and failures, achieve work-life balance, find motivation in the face of adversity, and so much more.

 

Working Women’s Handbook by Phoebe Lovatt

In this book, millennial entrepreneur Phoebe Lovatt shares her knowledge with women everywhere who want to learn the best way to set up their own business or freelance enterprise. It’s the ultimate guide to job satisfaction, filled with practical advice on developing and driving a working life you love. Bursting with actionable tips, this book outlines an agenda for making and managing money, setting goals, and establishing success-oriented routines, with worksheets, exercises, and fool-proof “how-to” sections to help chart your course. From the lowdown on launching your own venture to a bullet-point checklist for an essential self-care regime, it will teach you to manage any dilemmas that crop up, and take the stress out of setting a budget. This no-nonsense manual comes packed with author Phoebe Lovatt’s personal insights from her own career as a successful freelance journalist, moderator, and founder of The WW Club, the leading digital resource and global community for working women worldwide.

The Student

Melts by Fern Green

Everyone loves a melted cheese sandwich – they are cheap, quick and easy to make, and don’t involve much cooking skills or special equipment. This book includes over 50 imaginative and delicious toasted sandwiches, perfect for hurried dinners, tight budgets, quick snacks or when you just don’t feel like cooking a big meal.Featuring a list of tasty bread suggestions, from filling sourdoughs and seeded multigrain to sweet brioche and fruity loaves, grilled sandwiches don’t need to be boring. Try a Bacon, guacamole and cheddar, Pulled pork and cheese or Corned beef with wholegrain mustard and gruyere. Meat-free delights include a Beetroot, rocket and goat’s cheese and a game-changing Kimchi and stilton that is to die for.They don’t all have to include cheese, either! A toasted Curry and mango chutney sandwich and a Peanut butter and honey will change the way you view this humble comfort food. And yes, there’s a whole section on sweet sandwiches that will have you drooling: Blueberries, honey and cream cheese, a Raspberry, Nutella and mascarpone, and, the most decadent of all, Roasted strawberries, brie and dark chocolate.Melted, grilled and piping-hot: it’s the only way you’ll want to eat a sandwich again.

 

Breddos Tacos by Nud Dudhia and Chris Witney

Breddos Tacos revels in being a non-traditional but incredibly inventive taco cookbook with the over 75 recipes taking flavour combinations and ingredients from cuisines from almost every continent in the world, in order to create the ultimate combination of one perfectly cooked taco piled high with complex layers of flavouring. The recipes cover tacos, tostadas & plates and are divided into beef, poultry, pig, seafood, lamb and vegetables, featuring dishes such as Barbecoa beef cheeks, Yucatan Chicken with mango habanero sauce, Green Chorizo& duck egg and Scallop Aguachile. However, the breddos recipes don’t just cover tacos (although most of the recipes can be piled onto taco-esque’edible plates’) as they also offer street food staples such as the Iberico ham cheese burger and Yucatan spatchcock chicken with Dong’s flatbreads. The guys also share the breddos story to ultimate taco-dom fame; detailing their epic taco-fuelled Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas-esque road-triparound Mexico, Miami, the Deep South and Los Angeles devised solely to discover the greatest flavour combinations in all America – on a taco. This book will sate even the greatest taco fanatic whilst also revolutionising the ingredients and dishes you can create from the miniature taco hero.

The Gentleman

More Men in This Town by Guiseppe Sanataria

More Men In This Town is an extension of Gieuseppe Santamaria’s successful first books Men In This Town and Women In This Town. In this, his third book, his focus is once again men’s fashion, but seasonally based – winter (polka dots – representing snowflakes) and summer (pin stripes – representing sunbeams).

He has once again travelled broadly to capture candid street shots of men in Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, London, Paris, Florence, Madrid, New York and LA. As well, the book includes written profiles (mini interviews on style and fashion choices) with men in different cities and notes on his subjects’ different style directions.

 

Man Made by Dan Jones

With the rise of perfectly preened sports stars, online dating, and the dreaded selfie stick, every man worth his salt wants to look his best. Male grooming is no longer about being vain: it s essential. A real man has a stylish haircut, conditions his beard, manscapes, moisturises, wears decent shoes, takes the right vitamins, and is probably hitting the gym right now to hone his physique. Feeling confused? Fear not, because Dan Jones is here to guide you through everything you ever needed to know about personal grooming. From man-buns and mustaches to eye cream, facials, and buying a decent suit, this is a dapper DIY guide for all men, from teens to dads, who want to look their best year-round.

The Crafter

Roped In by Gemma Patford

Let Gemma rope you in to create a range of fun, accessible DIY projects all aimed to help you dress up the everyday. Gemma employs her famous ropework and all around craft genius to offer a range of projects and crafty tricks to make your life more fabulous. Looking for a macramé plant hanger to spruce up your living room? Want to create a swanky dog lead for your favourite pet? Looking to give your next dinner party some added class? Keen to make yourself a beautiful blouse that will have your friends demanding one of their own? This book is full of fun, accessible DIYs to help you decorate, entertain, and celebrate in style, no matter your skill level or the size of your living space.

 

Sunshine Spaces by Beci Orpin

Sunshine Spaces is about bringing a little of the outdoors into your home. Inspired by the colour and beauty of nature, designer Beci Orpin shares her ideas and guides you step-by-step through fun projects for indoors, outdoors, party and play. Featuring some of Beci’s favourite materials, including wood, fabric, plants and recycled objects, Sunshine Spaces will tell you everything you need to know about bringing the sunshine into your life and home. Sunshine Spaces is Beci’s fourth book see her others here.

 

Enjoy!

Spooky Reads for All Ages This Halloween

Blog, Children, Gifts, Illustration, Top Books, , ,

That time of year is upon us again…where we dress up ourselves and our homes with cobwebs and spiders, visit our neighbours in search of treats and scare ourselves silly with spooky movies and books. It’s a ridiculously fun night dedicated to mischief, frights, and, most of all, treats.

But if you don’t fancy joining in with the neighbourhood there are plenty of ways you can still get in the spirit of the holiday. You can curl up on the couch on a dark and windy night (actually here in Australia it’s warm and the sun is up for ages) and watch your favourite old horror movies, or you can see how quickly you can frighten yourself with the help of a terrifying book, because there is nothing that gets you in the Halloween mood better than a good scary story.

 

Here are a few of our favourites…

 

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place…

The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?

Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women’s prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously absorbing father/son collaboration between Stephen King and Owen King.

 

The Grip of It by Jac Jemc

A chilling literary horror novel about a young couple haunted by their newly purchased home. Julie and James settle into a house in a small town outside the city where they met. The move prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check is quick and seamless. Both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But this house, which sits between lake and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to settle into their home and their relationship, the house and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The architecture claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms becomes unrecognisable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall contracting, expanding and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mould spores taint the water that James pours from the sink. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbours and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before Julie and James. Written in creepy, potent prose, The Grip of It is an enthralling, psychologically intense novel that deals in questions of home: how we make it and how it in turn makes us, inhabiting the bodies and the relationships we cherish.

 

Friend Request by Laura Marshall

A paranoid single mother is forced to confront the unthinkable act she committed as a desperate teenager in this addictive thriller with a social media twist.

Maria Weston wants to be friends. But Maria Weston is dead. Isn’t she?

1989: When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren’t. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends.

2016: Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.

Louise has always known that if the truth ever came out, she could stand to lose everything. Her job. Her son. Her freedom. Maria’s sudden reappearance threatens it all, and forces Louise to reconnect with everyone she’d severed ties with to escape the past. But as she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there’s more to the story than she ever knew. To keep her secret, Louise must first uncover the whole truth, before what’s known to Maria, or whoever’s pretending to be her, is known to all.

 

…and something for the little people in our lives…

 

Lady Bug Girl and the Dress Up Dilemma by Jacky Davis

Ladybug Girl gets dressed up for Halloween in the newest hardcover addition to the “New York Times” bestselling series. It is Halloween and Lulu must decide on a costume. Should she be Ladybug Girl or something new? She tries many different costumes, but nothing seems right. Maybe she’ll think of the perfect costume as she enjoys the autumn day with her family by pumpkin picking and going on a hayride. But it isn’t until Lulu and Bingo help a little girl who is lost that Lulu discovers who she was meant to be for Halloween Ladybug Girl, of course after all, she “is” Ladybug Girl and it is important to be true to yourself.

 

Ten Orange Pumpkins by Stephen Savage

From a sneaky spider to a ghostly chef to a sly mummy and crafty witch, join your favourite spooky creatures as ten orange pumpkins disappear in a countdown to a Halloween surprise. Bright, bold, and fun, Ten Orange Pumpkins is a perfect read-aloud and is sure to capture the imagination of the littlest trick-or-treaters.

 

 

 

The Dark by Lemony Snicket

Laszlo is afraid of the dark. The dark lives in the same house as Laszlo but mostly it spends its time in the basement. It doesn’t visit Laszlo in his room. Until one night it does.

This beauty of a book has wonderful illustration from the very talented Jon Klassen (illustrator of the hilarious Hat stories).

 

 

 

 

Enjoy!

Heroes for our children

Blog, Children, Feminism, Gifts, Politics, Top Books, , , ,

Heroines and female villains outnumbered heroes and male baddies in a literary poll of memorable children’s novel characters in the UK marking World Book Day last year. Six of the top 10 heroes voted for were female, including Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games series while seven out of 10 villains were female. This made us wonder just who is next in the stakes for amazing heroes for our children.

Here’s a few titles that we found with some pretty marvellous heroes for our children to admire.

Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli, Francesca Cavallo

What if the princess didn’t marry Prince Charming but instead went on to be an astronaut? What if the jealous step sisters were supportive and kind? And what if the queen was the one really in charge of the kingdom? Illustrated by sixty female artists from every corner of the globe, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls introduces us to one hundred remarkable women and their extraordinary lives, from Ada Lovelace to Malala, Elizabeth I to Serena Williams. Empowering, moving and inspirational, these are true fairy tales for heroines who definitely don’t need rescuing.

Volume 2 is coming out in time for the festive season you can have a look at the preview here.

 

Little People Big Dreams; Rosa Parks by Lisbeth Kaiser

In the Little People, Big Dreams series, discover the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists, to scientists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. Rosa Parks grew up during segregation in Alabama, but she was taught to respect herself and stand up for her rights. In 1955, Rosa refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her decision had a huge impact on civil rights, eventually leading to the end of segregation on public transport. Rosa was described as “the mother of the freedom movement.” This inspiring story of Rosa’s life is moving, and approachable for young readers.

 

She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton

She Persisted is for everyone who has ever wanted to speak up but has been told to quiet down, for everyone who has ever tried to reach for the stars but was told to sit down, and for everyone who has ever been made to feel unworthy or unimportant or small. With vivid, compelling art by Alexandra Boiger, this book shows readers that no matter what obstacles may be in their paths, they shouldn’t give up on their dreams. Persistence is power. This book features: Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, Clara Lemlich, Nellie Bly, Virginia Apgar, Maria Tallchief, Claudette Colvin, Ruby Bridges, Margaret Chase Smith, Sally Ride, Florence Griffith Joyner, Oprah Winfrey, Sonia Sotomayor—and one special cameo.

 

I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy

Get to know celebrated Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the first picture book about her life as she proves that disagreeing does not make you disagreeable! Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime disagreeing: disagreeing with inequality, arguing against unfair treatment, and standing up for what’s right for people everywhere. This biographical picture book about the Notorious RBG, tells the justice’s story through the lens of her many famous dissents, or disagreements.

 

 

 

Young Charlotte, Filmmaker by Frank Viva

Young Charlotte is a filmmaker who loves everything that s black and white, including spiders, penguins, and the old movies that she sees with her dad at the Golden Theatre (where the floors are sticky). With her camera at the ready wherever she goes, she finds inspiration for movies everywhere she looks. But when her colourful parents and colourful classmates just don t get her, she is ready to give up until a lucky encounter with a film curator at The Museum of Modern Art in New York changes her perspective. Inspired by the films she sees at MoMA and stories of other pioneering directors, Charlotte gets to work. And it is hard work but when her movie finally premieres at the Museum, Charlotte is thrilled to be doing exactly what she loves best. A follow-up to Frank Viva’s “Young Frank, Architect” and perfect for film lovers, aspiring directors, and artists of all stripes, “Young Charlotte, Filmmaker” is an inspiring tale.”

Enjoy!