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Category Archives: Top Tips
Summer reading with Booko: Greenlights
All right all right all right
Greenlights is on our summer reading list. It’s an unconventional memoir with raucous stories, wisdom, and lessons about living.
How to have a clever Christmas online (and how to shop local both here and overseas)
It’s that time of year with just over two weeks left to frantically wrap parcels and pop them under the tree. This year has been somewhat bonkers and so we thought we would show you how to have a Clever Christmas shopping from your sofa and let the postie wrestle with your gift delivery instead…no matter where in the world you’re shipping to.
Here’s a little table we whipped up for you to remind you when the postie will be making his final rounds.
Handy Hint: If you are sending parcels overseas and have missed the dreaded cut off dates, fear not! You can simply change the location setting at the top right hand corner on the Booko website and shop like a local in that country.
We have made you a clever guide stepping you through the process which you can read here.
Stuck for gift ideas? Not to worry, the Booko team has been keeping an eye on which books have been popular this festive season for all ages. Sit back, have a read and then get clicking.
Mary Berry’s Simple Comforts by Mary Berry
Mary is always a crowd pleaser and her baked creations never fail to delight. While you may want to keep this for yourself, if you do gift it, then there is always a chance that the recipient will invite you back for dinner! Win win.
Mary Berry shares over 120 of her ultimate food recipes, all made simply and guaranteed to get smiles around your kitchen table in her new cookbook. Mary’s utterly reliable recipes are perfect for days when you want tasty and dependable food. Come home to the delicious simplicity of a Whole Roasted Squash with Garlic and Chilli Butter, or a warming Spicy Sausage and Red Pepper Hot Pot. Treat your family to Slow Roast French Lamb with Ratatouille, and spoil everyone with a decadent Frangipane Apple and Brioche Pudding. Featuring all the recipes from Mary’s new series, plus many more fresh from Mary’s kitchen, every single dish is accompanied by a photography of the finished food, so you know exactly what you’re making. Each recipe includes Mary’s trademark no-nonsense tips and techniques for getting ahead, and has been rigorously tested to make your cooking stress-free.
Nadiya Bakes by Nadiya Hussain
Here’s another gift that may offer you a dinner (or possibly dessert) invitation. Nadiya Bakes is one series on Netflix that our family binged during our first lockdown and inspired the children to hop into the kitchen and whip up a storm.
At last, Nadiya returns to baking. This is her long-awaited reunion with her true love incredible cakes and bakes that we can all achieve at home. It’s a fact that baking makes us happier and this book is bursting with recipes that will bring a little sunshine into your world and the lives of your friends, family and neighbours. Nadiya explores all areas of baking, conquering cakes and tray-bakes, no-bake bakes, tarts and pies, desserts, celebration bakes, biscuits and buns as well as breads and savouries. Recipes include Money-Can’t-Buy-You-Happiness Brownies, Baked Chilli Churros, a beautiful Baked Rhubarb, Rosemary and Olive Oil Polenta Cake and a wow-factor Layered Honey and Soured Cream Cake. Yummo!
Guinness World Records 2021 by Guinness World Records
All aboard Guinness World Records 2021 for a life-changing journey of discovery! This year, there is a chapter devoted to the history of exploration, starting with the story of the very first circumnavigation, along with a “History of Adventure” timeline, featuring a host of remarkable achievements. The fully revised and updated best-seller is packed with thousands of incredible new feats across the widest spectrum of topics, providing a whistle-stop tour of our superlative universe. Travel through the Solar System and see the planets come to life with a free augmented-reality feature. Encounter the cutest, weirdest, most dangerous and exotic creatures on our home planet. Meet the world’s tallest, shortest, hairiest and heaviest humans. Marvel at the latest high scores, speed runs and players at the top of their game in eSports and beyond. Get the lowdown on the world’s most successful and prolific actors, musicians, TV stars and influencers. Review the greatest sports achievements from the past year and celebrate today’s top athletes.
Code Name Bananas by David Walliams
David Walliams’ stories are a delight to read, and always make us giggle. Code Name Bananas is his newest book and is sure to be a crowd-pleaser. Eleven-year-old Eric spends his days at the place that makes him most happy: London Zoo. And there’s one animal in particular he loves: Gertrude the gorilla. With bombs falling all over London, Eric must rescue Gertrude. Together with his Uncle Sid, a keeper at the zoo, the three go on the run. But while hiding out at the seaside they uncover a top-secret Nazi plot… Join David Walliams on this action-packed, laugh-out-loud adventure for all the family!
Brickman’s Family Challenge Book by Ryan McNaught
We’re slightly biased with this book (ahem…Booko has a new website in the family www.bricko.info in case you need to buy for a LEGO fanatic).
Challenge each member of your household to a building competition that is the brainchild of Brickman himself, star judge of smash hit TV show LEGO® Masters and a LEGO Certified Professional. Each of the 30 challenges can be attempted at beginner, intermediate or advanced levels. So whether you’re 5 or 105, an infrequent brick builder or a huge LEGO fan, these challenges will get you off your screens and get your creative juices flowing with even the most basic of LEGO collections. Including: Maze runner: build a maze with obstacles and design themes, Get crazy: roll a die to determine which hybrid model you need to build in under 2 hours – a Supersonic Banana Plane, anyone? Self-portrait: one of the hardest things to build with LEGO is curves, but Brickman helps you crack the techniques for building a recognisable 3D portrait of yourself. Packed with pro tips and suggestions on how to take your builds to the next level, as well as a ‘know your bricks’ glossary, this book will turn you into a Master LEGO Builder in no time. Do you know someone up to the challenge?
Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
From the duo behind the massively successful and award-winning podcast Stuff You Should Know comes an unexpected look at things you thought you knew. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant started the podcast Stuff You Should Know back in 2008 because they were curious. Curious about the world around them, curious about what they might have missed in their formal educations, and curious to dig deeper on stuff they thought they understood. As it turns out, they aren’t the only curious ones. They’ve since amassed a rabid fan base, making Stuff You Should Know one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Armed with their inquisitive natures and a passion for sharing, they uncover the weird, fascinating, delightful, or unexpected elements of a wide variety of topics. The pair have now taken their near-boundless “whys” and “hows” from your earbuds to the pages of a book for the first time. Featuring a completely new array of subjects that they’ve long wondered about and wanted to explore. Each chapter is further embellished with snappy visual material to allow for rabbit-hole tangents and digressions, including charts, illustrations, sidebars, and footnotes. Follow along as the two dig into the underlying stories of everything from the origin of Murphy beds, to the history of facial hair, to the psychology of being lost.
Enjoy!
#tuesdaychat
Remember gifts don’t have to cost the earth, sometimes something made is just as thoughtful and lovely, and it’s the little things that make some of the best gifts; a smile, hug or favour for a neighbour.
Summer Reading with Booko: The Lying Life of Adults
Elena Ferrante has become one of the world’s most read and beloved writers. In The Lying Life of Adults, we discover another gripping, highly addictive, and totally unforgettable story.
The Ultimate Kris Kringle Gift Guide
It is that time of year when the tinsel is glistening, carols can be heard everywhere and the Christmas cheer is a welcome sight. While our working life has been rather different this year and the tradition of the office Kris Kringle may take a slightly different approach, it’s always fun to give a little gift that brings a smile to a friend’s face.
We have rounded up six of our favourites from the three Booko family websites. Oh yes, you read that right, THREE. Dan has had the busiest of lockdowns where he not only baked sourdough and pieced together thousands of puzzle pieces, he has also made shopping that little more clever for everyone. We now have Bricko and Popz.deals. They both work in the same vein as Booko; scouring the world for the best prices on LEGO and Pop Vinyls, showing shipping prices and converting it all into your local currency. You can even make lists and set price alerts on each site. Pretty clever really.
Here are our picks to make your Kris Kringle smile this year.
From Booko
Pizza: History, recipes, stories, people, places, love by Thom Elliot and James Elliot
Everyone loves pizza, right? Saver of parties, empty fridges and hangovers the world over – pizza has come to the rescue of the human race more times than is worth counting. So, if your Kris Kringle can’t imagine your world without dough, cheese and tomato, then this is the book for them. All things pizza are here, from its history and family tree, to world famous pizzerias and even an exploration into the pizza variants we love to hate (hamburger crust pizza anyone?). The Pizza Pilgrims, Thom and James Elliot, have spent years researching the best pizza that the world has to offer, and producing their own pizzas across 16 restaurants in the UK (and counting). Alongside pizza maps of their favourite global pizza cities the book is also packed with over 30 recipes to make sure you finally delete your local takeaway from speed dial #1. From an NY slice, to true Neapolitan pizza made in a frying pan, Pizza offers classic and new creations, including guest chefs’ signature takes, and the Pilgrims’ very own Nutella pizza ring! Oven fresh and packed with interviews, pizza facts, movie scenes, world records and even pizza tattoos, Pizza is illustrated with all manner of pie-based fun and written with a hearty dose of humour. The perfect companion for the pizza lover in your life. Fact.
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
From the Academy Award-winning actor comes an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction. “I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges, how to get relative with the inevitable, you can enjoy a state of success I call ‘catching greenlights’. So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It’s a love letter. To life. It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights-and to realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.”
From Popz.deals
Star Wars: The Mandalorian The Child Baby Yoda
It’s the series that’s taking the galaxy by storm. Set five years after the fall of the Empire as depicted in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, and before the emergence of the First Order, Star Wars: The Mandalorian follows an independent Mandalorian bounty hunter “in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic”. In Chapter 1, the Mandalorian takes a job to collect a 50 year-old bounty, which is actually “The Child”, or as he’s commonly referred to as “Baby Yoda” (even though we all know it’s not actually Yoda). You can now gift your Kris Kringle the cutest star wars character ever in a pop vinyl format.
Elf Movie: Buddy Collectable Vinyl Figure
Buddy was accidentally transported to the North Pole as a toddler and raised to adulthood among Santa’s elves. Unable to shake the feeling that he doesn’t fit in, the adult Buddy travels to New York, in full elf uniform, in search of his real father. As it happens, this is Walter Hobbs, a cynical businessman. After a DNA test proves this, Walter reluctantly attempts to start a relationship with the childlike Buddy with increasingly chaotic results. It’s a great feel-good movie with a delightful character…this Pop Vinyl will remind your Kris Kringle about the joy of Christmas.
From Bricko
Super Mario Adventures with Super Mario Starter Course Building Kit
For the past 35 years, Super Mario has been running, jumping, and saving the Mushroom Kingdom from bad guys. Now you can give the gift of Mario to your Kris Kringle this Christmas with this great starter course kit.
Star Wars Resistance Y-Wing Starfighter Set
Inspire your Kris Kringle with this LEGO Star Wars Resistance Y-Wing Starfighter model. This updated version of the classic fighter-bomber, a.k.a. wishbone, featured in the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie, has a new colour scheme, open cockpit with space for a minifigure inside. This starship playset makes a great addition to any fan’s collection.
Enjoy!
Christmas Delivery Dates 2020
2020 has been a year of ups and downs and with COVID restrictions changing all over the world, postage and deliveries have taken a little longer than usual. It’s with this in mind that we have had a little dig around the internet and have rustled up this little delivery date table to help you with your festive shopping.
We’ll keep an eye on key delivery dates and update the table when stores share their final dates.
Luckily we can make the festive season even easier and with a few clicks you can have your parcels delivered directly to friends and family overseas so you don’t have to wrestle with ribbons and sticky tape. Some stores even offer the option of free gift wrapping (Readings is one store offering this). You can read through the step by step guide for buying for friends and family overseas here.
There are three top tips to keep in mind this festive season.
- Make sure you order early to avoid unnecessary postage delays
- Check the stock levels before purchasing if you can (many websites have some fine print underneath the price to let you know if the item is in stock)
- and finally double check the delivery details for the recipient – just in case you’ve sent your parcel to the neighbours instead!
While we were clicking we found six great titles that would make fabulous pressies this Christmas.
Code Name Bananas by David Walliams
Go back in time with bestselling author David Walliams for a whizz-bang epic adventure of action, laughter and secret plots along with the extraordinary friendship between a little boy and a huge gorilla that just might save the day…
1940. Britain is at war with Nazi Germany. Eleven-year-old Eric spends his days at the place that makes him most happy: London Zoo. And there’s one animal in particular he loves: Gertrude the gorilla. With bombs falling all over London, Eric must rescue Gertrude. Together with his Uncle Sid, a keeper at the zoo, the three go on the run. But while hiding out at the seaside they uncover a top-secret Nazi plot… Join David Walliams on this action-packed, laugh-out-loud adventure for all the family!
Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
Something wicked is taking hold of Nevermoor. In Morrigan Crow’s third Wundrous adventure, she faces her most dangerous challenge yet. Morrigan Crow and her friends have survived their first year as proud scholars of the elite Wundrous Society, helped bring down the nefarious Ghastly Market, and proven themselves loyal to Unit 919. Now Morrigan faces a new, exciting challenge: to master the mysterious Wretched Arts of the Accomplished Wundersmith, and control the power that threatens to consume her. Meanwhile, a strange and frightening illness has taken hold of Nevermoor, turning infected Wunimals into mindless, vicious Unnimals on the hunt. As victims of the Hollowpox multiply, panic spreads. There are whispers, growing louder every day, that this catastrophe can only be the work of the Wundersmith, Ezra Squall. But inside the walls of Wunsoc, everyone knows there is a new Wundersmith – one who’s much closer to home. With Nevermoor in a state of fear and the truth about Morrigan threatening to get out, the city she loves becomes the most perilous place in the world. Morrigan must try to find a cure for the Hollowpox, but it will put her – and everyone in Nevermoor – in more danger than she could have imagined.
The Magpie Society: One for Sorrow by Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch
Illumen Hall is a boarding school of tradition and achievement. But tragedy strikes when the body of a girl, a student, is discovered – on her back is an elaborate tattoo of a magpie. For new student Audrey, it is just another strange and unsettling thing about her new surroundings. And for her roommate Ivy, well, she’s just annoyed she has to share with the new girl from America. As an unlikely friendship develops, the two are drawn deeper into the mystery of this strange and terrible murder. They will discover that something dangerous is at the heart of their school. Welcome to The Magpie Society.
Gary Ablett: An Autobiography by Gary Ablett
Reliving key moments and events in his life, this memoir not only explores Gary’s great success at the very top of the AFL, but also his journey to get there. Drafted in 2001, Gary’s incredible career has spanned two great clubs, two Grand Finals and two Brownlow medals among many other accolades. In his book, Gary takes readers through the trials and triumphs of his life: his close bonds with his family; his famous father Gary Ablett Senior’s influence on his life; joining Geelong Football Club along with his brother Nathan; becoming a star player and the pressure that brings from the media; taking on new challenges when he left his home town to join the newly minted Suns football team on the Gold Coast; becoming a captain and leading the Suns; dealing with injury and the pressure that you come under then; the joy of returning home to Geelong Football Club even though it was accompanied by a tragic family event; settling back in Victoria with his wife Jordan and baby Levi and a future that will no doubt always have football somewhere in it. Illustrated with many never-before-seen photographs from private collections, and including contributions from Joel Selwood, Mark Thompson, Gary’s mum, Sue, and Gary Ablett Snr, this book is packed with images and stories that will bring the book to life and remind the reader of the many great moments in Gary’s career. From childhood to his zenith as a player, Gary’s story will be a book to read and re-read about a player without equal.
Speedy Bosh! by Henry Firth and Ian Theasby
BOSH! are back with over 100 mouthwatering plant-based dishes you can get on the table in 20 minutes or less The fourth cookery book from Sunday Times No.1 bestselling authors Henry and Ian, aka ‘the vegan Jamie Olivers’, packed with outrageously tasty, super speedy dishes made without meat, eggs or dairy, perfect for weeknight dinners after a long day, fast breakfasts to supercharge the family, or Sunday meal prep for the week ahead. In just 20 minutes flat, you’ll be creating fragrant curries, hearty stews, comfort food for cold nights, indulgent puds, delicious tasty rice and noodle dishes, and one-pan wonders. No fancy kit, no out-there ingredients. You’ll be able to get all the bits and pieces you need from your nearest major supermarket. Everything has been tried and tested and is bursting with flavour. Let vegan food never be called bland, because – honestly? – this might just be their tastiest collection of recipes yet as well as their quickest.
Skate Like A Girl by Carolina Amell
In ever-increasing numbers, girls and women are gathering at skate parks and competing in skateboarding events on nearly every continent. Filled with stunning full-colour photographs of 40 remarkable female skaters in action, this book pays homage to the incredible range of styles, ethnicities, and ages that make up a rapidly growing community. There’s Emily Pross, one of the top downhill skaters in the world, who is known as the “fastest woman on four wheels,” Lucy Osinski and Danielle Francine, cofounders of GRLSWIRL, a grassroots all-female skate community, and Bunga Nyimas Cinta, the youngest ever medalist at age 12 in the Asian Games in women’s street. There are skate coaches, longboard dancers, skate filmmakers, and skateboard makers. You’ll meet skaters who are mums, artists, models, surfers, and architects. What they all have in common is that skating is their way of life. Each profile offers its subject’s own words of wisdom about going after your dreams, falling hard, and getting right back up. The book also includes pages of practical information on everything from skateboarding organisations that champion women, to crews, schools, and camps for girls all over the world. Filled with empowering images and inspiring words, this book will encourage girls and women of every age to get on a board and shred!
Enjoy!
Building a better world with Booko: Six Weeks to Zero Waste
We all know the importance of reducing our environmental footprint and Six Weeks to Zero Waste is both an accessible and aspirational programme to help us eliminate waste.
There’s more to life than being happy
Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but what if there’s a more fulfilling path? Emily Smith offers four pillars of a meaningful life in this Ted talk.
Building a better world with Booko: Low Tox Life
Ever stopped to read the list of ingredients in the products you use every day? In Low Tox Life, activist and educator Alexx Stuart gently clears a path through the maze of mass-market ingredient cocktails, focusing on four key areas: Body, Home, Food and Mind.