From family recipes to the life of British royalty – these books are exciting, informative and definitely a must-read!
A YEAR OF SIMPLE FAMILY FOOD, JULIA BUSUTTIL NISHIMURA
Cook, author and teacher Julia Busuttil Nishimura has created a gorgeous recipe book with a mix of quick recipes and those that require more time to bubble away
on the stove. Using seasonal products, the recipes include a mix of Italian and Asian-inspired delights. For summer, think spaghetti with fennel and prawns; autumn, a miso-roasted chicken, or silverbeet and ricotta malfatti with brown butter sauce for spring.
JOY AT WORK, MARIE KONDO
KonMari method pioneer Marie Kondo and organisational psychologist Scott Sonenshein come together to help you refocus your mind on what’s important at work. They give advice on how to organise your desk, get through all those emails and how to identify your most joyful way to work. They maintain that once you’ve found order in your work life, you’ll feel more empowered and confident, and energised and motivated to create the career you really want.
GUIDING LIGHTS – THE EXTRAORDINARY LIVES OF LIGHTHOUSE WOMEN, SHONA RIDDELL
Imagine crossing icy walkways, scaling dangerous heights to clean the outside lantern glass, rescuing sailors and fishermen, filling lantern baths with mercury, keeping detailed logs of weather conditions and, in some cases, burning your retinas from the hot glare of the lighthouse lamp. Or, when there was thick fog, ringing a loud bell or sounding a horn every few minutes until the fog lifted.
These were just some of the things that a lighthouse keeper had to do. Initially, it was only men who were employed yet their wives were an integral part of running the stations and had to cook, clean and bring up the children.
With satellite navigation now available, most lighthouses are now automated, however there are still a few in France, Italy and Canada that are staffed, and there are a number of lobbyists who are keen to preserve the remaining lighthouses and keep them open for tourists. In some cases, people eagerly sign up to look after a few remote lighthouses for 6-12 months at a time, mostly for doing research on an isolated island.
CSIRO LOW-CARB DIABETES DIET & LIFESTYLE SOLUTION, PROFESSOR GRANT BRINKWORTH AND DR PENNIE TAYLOR
Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, has brought out this great book featuring 80 recipes, twelve weeks of meal plans and exercises and loads of information specifically for managing preventable and lifestyle-related metabolic diseases, controlling blood glucose levels, obesity and type-2 diabetes prevention and management.
The diet lowers the proportion of carbohydrate relative to protein and unsaturated ‘healthy’ fat and encourages readers to follow a regular exercise routine. The recipes are fairly simple but not bland.
THE ABSTAINER, IAN MCGUIRE
It’s 1867 in Manchester, England and James O’Conner, exiled from Dublin for too many alcoholic benders, is employed to assist the Manchester police with quelling the Fenian (a secret society intent on ending British rule in Ireland) uprisings against the British.
Stephen Doyle arrives from New York to help the Fenian cause in Manchester and seek vengeance for three recent hangings. O’Conner and Doyle’s fates become intertwined as they seek revenge and honour. Moving from the filthy streets of Manchester to the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, this is a story that has the most unexpected and gut-wrenching ending that will catch readers by surprise.
THINK LIKE A MONK: TRAIN YOUR MIND FOR PEACE AND PURPOSE EVERY DAY, JAY SHETTY
If you want to train your mind to find peace, calm and purpose, monks are the experts. They have learned to withstand temptations, refrain from criticising, deal with pain and anxiety, quieten the ego and build lives that brim with meaning.
Shetty grew up in a family where you could become one
of three things – a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. Instead, he headed to India to become a monk. After three years one of his teachers recommended that he return to the real world to share his experience and wisdom with others, and he soon started coaching his friends on wellbeing, mindfulness and purpose. Since then he has become one of the world’s most popular influencers and his podcast, On Purpose, consistently ranks as the world’s #1 Health and Wellness podcast.
In this empowering non-sectarian book, Shetty reveals how to overcome negative thoughts, use your fear, learn from everyone you meet and access the calm that each of us has. We can all apply his lessons and advice to reduce stress, improve relationships and use the gifts we have been given.
FINDING FREEDOM: HARRY AND MEGHAN AND THE MAKING OF A MODERN ROYAL FAMILY, OMID SCOBIE AND CAROLYN DURAND
Over the years, royal correspondents Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand often covered Meghan and Harry’s private and public events, and while the Sussexes have denied reports they gave interviews for this book, it is rumoured they cooperated with the journos to get their side of the story out.
The book is an up-close portrait of an influential and confident couple who haven’t been afraid to break with tradition. It has a number of eye-openers about the family feud that ultimately led to Megxit. With the couple’s engagement, Harry felt that the staff, family and even his brother were ‘condescending’ and suspicious towards her.
Whether you are keen on the couple or not it’s an interesting read, and the suggestion that Meghan and Harry discussed leaving the Royal Family even before they got married and had made firm decisions nine months out from telling the family in January 2020 was not surprising.
THE TOLSTOY ESTATE, STEVEN CONTE
In the doomed World War II German invasion of Russia, surgeon Paul Bauer helps establish a field hospital at Yasnaya Polyana – the former estate, and now museum, of Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace. Bauer, who learned Russian as a teenager while reading War and Peace, is enthralled to be in Tolstoy’s former home and soon forms a tentative friendship with the hostile caretaker, Katerina Trubetzkaya, who also has a love of literature.
The compelling story unfolds over six weeks, during the onset of a brutally cold winter that sees the tide turning against Germany. The surgeons are faced with horrifying casualties, inadequate resources, exhaustion, and a commanding officer who fuels himself with a cocktail of amphetamines and becomes unhinged and erratic as everything starts to unravel.
Half-way through the book, chapters are interspersed with letters written between Bauer and Katerina and the reader is offered a glimpse of what happened to the main characters after the six weeks at Tolstoy’s home. The overall story is absorbing and touches on the brutality of war and the ensuing emotional, physical and moral limits people must face. It’s also a bittersweet love story with an unexpected ending.