Well the Greater Sydney lockdown officially ended this week and hasn't our sister store Berry Newsagency been busy with visitors from Sydney & Wollongong since. For those of you interstate or who are not yet able to get away, here at Books N Gifts we have also been very busy this week unpacking our stock of new book releases. Browsing online is also a great way to select your new book release before visiting in-store and of course our click and collect option is a great way to save time if you want to spend more time out of the crowds and relaxing on our fabulous beaches. Whilst we are hearing of supply issues coming up to Christmas we are certainly not experiencing these yet at Books N Gifts
Here are just some of the great new book releases that have arrived in store this week:
It Wasn't Meant To Be Like This
Lisa Wilkinson
Memoir/Autobiography
The long-awaited autobiography from one of Australia's most popular, much-loved and enduring media stars, Lisa Wilkinson.
Lisa Wilkinson has lived much of her life in the public eye. One of Australia's most respected journalists and media personalities, her warm, intelligent and elegant presence has graced our television screens for many years, where she has shared, shaped and even shifted many important national conversations. But it all could have been so different ...
Subjected to horrific bullying as a teenager, Lisa survived by making herself as small as possible. But she swore when she left school that no one was ever again going to determine who she was - or limit what she was capable of. That determination and drive led to Lisa blazing an unprecedented and enormously successful trail through the Australian media and cultural landscape for more than four decades.
An early ground-breaking career in publishing - at 21, Lisa was the youngest editor ever appointed to take charge of a national magazine, Dolly, before spending ten years as editor of the iconic Cleo magazine - then led to a stunning television success story. This included spending more than a decade as co-host of the Nine Network's Today show, before she caused a media storm across Australia and the world on the issue of the gender pay gap, when she moved to the Ten Network as co-host of its prime-time award-winning program The Project.
It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This is the story of how a young girl from Sydney's western suburbs came to be such a force in Australian cultural life. It is a
Lisa Wilkinson has lived much of her life in the public eye. One of Australia's most respected journalists and media personalities, her warm, intelligent and elegant presence has graced our television screens for many years, where she has shared, shaped and even shifted many important national conversations. But it all could have been so different ...
Subjected to horrific bullying as a teenager, Lisa survived by making herself as small as possible. But she swore when she left school that no one was ever again going to determine who she was - or limit what she was capable of. That determination and drive led to Lisa blazing an unprecedented and enormously successful trail through the Australian media and cultural landscape for more than four decades.
An early ground-breaking career in publishing - at 21, Lisa was the youngest editor ever appointed to take charge of a national magazine, Dolly, before spending ten years as editor of the iconic Cleo magazine - then led to a stunning television success story. This included spending more than a decade as co-host of the Nine Network's Today show, before she caused a media storm across Australia and the world on the issue of the gender pay gap, when she moved to the Ten Network as co-host of its prime-time award-winning program The Project.
It Wasn't Meant to Be Like This is the story of how a young girl from Sydney's western suburbs came to be such a force in Australian cultural life. It is a
My Adventurous Life
Dick Smith
Memoir/Autobiography
Dick Smith is a remarkable and proud Australian. He has been part of our national consciousness for over fifty years as an innovative and astute businessman, a ground-breaking adventurer, a generous philanthropist and a provocateur for the causes he feels deeply about. Yet, despite his great successes and achievements, Dick has remained down to earth and close to his roots.
So how did the young boy who was one of the most academically hopeless in class become the national living treasure he is today? And what was it within that kid with a speech impediment that allowed him to create three successful businesses, and take on some of the world's greatest and most dangerous aviation challenges?
In My Adventurous Life, Dick shares his inspiring story and the lessons he's learned about staying true to yourself. He has welcomed the freedoms that wealth brings, but has found the simple life more fulfilling. His responsibility is to the world and the people we share it with.
So how did the young boy who was one of the most academically hopeless in class become the national living treasure he is today? And what was it within that kid with a speech impediment that allowed him to create three successful businesses, and take on some of the world's greatest and most dangerous aviation challenges?
In My Adventurous Life, Dick shares his inspiring story and the lessons he's learned about staying true to yourself. He has welcomed the freedoms that wealth brings, but has found the simple life more fulfilling. His responsibility is to the world and the people we share it with.
Threebirds Renovations - Dream House How To
Bonnie Hindmarsh, Erin Cayless & Lana Taylor
Home/Lifestyle
The long-awaited next instalment from the authors of Australia's number 1 home improvement book
Australia's favourite Birds are back with BIGGER home transformations, BOLDER extensions, BREATHTAKING new builds and hundreds of new tips.
Jam-packed with reno goodness, this book is a visual feast overflowing with ideas and inspiration from Three Birds projects in glorious detail, including their most ambitious new build to date: a family home that channels an idyllic island getaway (year-round staycation, anyone?).
Go behind the scenes to see how the Birds make over their own spaces for work and play. First up, a tour of Three Birds HQ guaranteed to spark ideas and help you turn a humble home office into boss-worthy territory. Next, their spin on Christmas decorating - stuffed full of frugal and festive DIY hacks - will come in handy every year whether you rent, own or live in a caravan.
The cherry on top of this inspiration smorgasbord comes courtesy of their very own savvy students! In a bonus chapter, graduates of the Birds' super-popular online Reno School share images and advice from their own incredible projects - dream spaces created using tips and money-saving tricks learned from the Three Birds. Proving, once again, that anyone can make reno magic with the right know-how.
Australia's favourite Birds are back with BIGGER home transformations, BOLDER extensions, BREATHTAKING new builds and hundreds of new tips.
Jam-packed with reno goodness, this book is a visual feast overflowing with ideas and inspiration from Three Birds projects in glorious detail, including their most ambitious new build to date: a family home that channels an idyllic island getaway (year-round staycation, anyone?).
Go behind the scenes to see how the Birds make over their own spaces for work and play. First up, a tour of Three Birds HQ guaranteed to spark ideas and help you turn a humble home office into boss-worthy territory. Next, their spin on Christmas decorating - stuffed full of frugal and festive DIY hacks - will come in handy every year whether you rent, own or live in a caravan.
The cherry on top of this inspiration smorgasbord comes courtesy of their very own savvy students! In a bonus chapter, graduates of the Birds' super-popular online Reno School share images and advice from their own incredible projects - dream spaces created using tips and money-saving tricks learned from the Three Birds. Proving, once again, that anyone can make reno magic with the right know-how.
Dog Days A Year with Olive & Mabel
Andrew Cotter
Memoir/Autobiography
Now with more than 87 million views on YouTube, lockdown superstar Labradors Olive and Mabel are back with a second book about their meteoric year of fame.
In Dog Days- A Year with Olive & Mabel, join Andrew Cotter as he takes you behind the scenes and into the pages of his diary to reveal just how extraordinary the year has been, and what really happened after his lockdown superstar Labradors chewed up the internet and found it was quite tasty.
For Olive, Mabel and Andrew, the last year has been like no other. With normal work cancelled or scaled back for so long, it has been a time to take stock and share experiences - both the everyday and the decidedly odd. Here Andrew takes a sharply observed and often hilarious walk through the strangest of days for all of us, reflecting on how precious our time really is, especially the time we have with our dogs.
Beautiful, comical, endlessly optimistic and eternally hungry Olive, Mabel (and Andrew) have padded around from the Cheltenham Literary Festival to 60 Minutes Australia, from their living room studio with ABC News Breakfast to an appearance on Good Morning America, and from obscurity to excited whispers of "Is that really Olive & Mabel?" wherever they go. Not to mention the lucrative merchandise and advertising deals that were turned down by the dozen, and the odd phone call from Hollywood.
Through it all, Olive and Mabel have always done exactly what they do best, being themselves and being there for Andrew - and for all of us who have loved watching their brilliant videos and following their progress online. If you're a fan of Olive, Mabel and Andrew, this funny, touching and extraordinary account of a year like no other is an unmissable treat.
In Dog Days- A Year with Olive & Mabel, join Andrew Cotter as he takes you behind the scenes and into the pages of his diary to reveal just how extraordinary the year has been, and what really happened after his lockdown superstar Labradors chewed up the internet and found it was quite tasty.
For Olive, Mabel and Andrew, the last year has been like no other. With normal work cancelled or scaled back for so long, it has been a time to take stock and share experiences - both the everyday and the decidedly odd. Here Andrew takes a sharply observed and often hilarious walk through the strangest of days for all of us, reflecting on how precious our time really is, especially the time we have with our dogs.
Beautiful, comical, endlessly optimistic and eternally hungry Olive, Mabel (and Andrew) have padded around from the Cheltenham Literary Festival to 60 Minutes Australia, from their living room studio with ABC News Breakfast to an appearance on Good Morning America, and from obscurity to excited whispers of "Is that really Olive & Mabel?" wherever they go. Not to mention the lucrative merchandise and advertising deals that were turned down by the dozen, and the odd phone call from Hollywood.
Through it all, Olive and Mabel have always done exactly what they do best, being themselves and being there for Andrew - and for all of us who have loved watching their brilliant videos and following their progress online. If you're a fan of Olive, Mabel and Andrew, this funny, touching and extraordinary account of a year like no other is an unmissable treat.
Love to Cook
Mary Berry
Cooking
Celebrate the unique power of home cooking, with 120 new recipes, with full photography, to accompany Mary Berry's new 6-part primetime BBC2 series in Autumn 2021.
'I'm excited to share over 120 irresistible, no-fuss recipes that I hope will bring happiness into your kitchen.
Each beautifully photographed dish celebrates the delicious ingredients and flavours I love, and which make cooking at home such a joy.'
In this brand-new tie-in book to the BBC series, Love to Cook, Mary Berry will help you see your meals in an entirely new light. Every recipe is infused with her love of simple home cooking and fresh ingredients that feed the body and mind.
Whether you're trying your hand at Mary's fragrant Kashmiri chicken curry or baking her mouth-watering Lemon limoncello pavlova, it's hard to beat the unique pleasure of making a dish from scratch and enjoying food with family and friends.
'I'm excited to share over 120 irresistible, no-fuss recipes that I hope will bring happiness into your kitchen.
Each beautifully photographed dish celebrates the delicious ingredients and flavours I love, and which make cooking at home such a joy.'
In this brand-new tie-in book to the BBC series, Love to Cook, Mary Berry will help you see your meals in an entirely new light. Every recipe is infused with her love of simple home cooking and fresh ingredients that feed the body and mind.
Whether you're trying your hand at Mary's fragrant Kashmiri chicken curry or baking her mouth-watering Lemon limoncello pavlova, it's hard to beat the unique pleasure of making a dish from scratch and enjoying food with family and friends.
The First Shots
Brendan Borrell
Science/History
An enthralling real-life thriller that tells the full inside story of the high-stakes race for a lifesaving vaccine to end the COVID-19 pandemic
The full inside story of the high-stakes global race for the lifesaving vaccine to end the pandemic
Heroic science. Chaotic politics. Billionaire entrepreneurs. In The First Shots, award-winning journalist Brendan Borrell brings to life the defining story of our times through absorbing, first-time reporting on those leading the fight against a vicious virus.
Borrell draws on exclusive, high-level access to take us inside the intense competition among brilliant scientists and the epic rivalries among Washington power players. His propulsive narrative depicts key players such as infectious-diseases expert Michael Callahan, who was secretly on the ground in Wuhan to gauge the terrifying ravages of 'disease X'; Robert Kadlec, one of Operation Warp Speed's architects, whose audacious plans ran straight into the buzz-saw of the Trump White House factions; and Stephane Bancel of Moderna Therapeutics, the upstart company that went toe to toe with pharma behemoth Pfizer.
A real-life thriller playing out over eighteen months of fear, resolve and triumph, The First Shots lays bare the stunning story behind the medical-science 'moonshot' of our lifetimes.
The full inside story of the high-stakes global race for the lifesaving vaccine to end the pandemic
Heroic science. Chaotic politics. Billionaire entrepreneurs. In The First Shots, award-winning journalist Brendan Borrell brings to life the defining story of our times through absorbing, first-time reporting on those leading the fight against a vicious virus.
Borrell draws on exclusive, high-level access to take us inside the intense competition among brilliant scientists and the epic rivalries among Washington power players. His propulsive narrative depicts key players such as infectious-diseases expert Michael Callahan, who was secretly on the ground in Wuhan to gauge the terrifying ravages of 'disease X'; Robert Kadlec, one of Operation Warp Speed's architects, whose audacious plans ran straight into the buzz-saw of the Trump White House factions; and Stephane Bancel of Moderna Therapeutics, the upstart company that went toe to toe with pharma behemoth Pfizer.
A real-life thriller playing out over eighteen months of fear, resolve and triumph, The First Shots lays bare the stunning story behind the medical-science 'moonshot' of our lifetimes.
Seven and a Half
Christos Tsiolkas
Adult Fiction
A man arrives at a house on the coast to write a book. Separated from his lover and family and friends, he finds the solitude he craves in the pyrotechnic beauty of nature, just as the world he has shut out is experiencing a cataclysmic shift. The preoccupations that have galvanised him and his work fall away, and he becomes lost in memory and beauty ...
He also begins to tell us a story ...
A retired porn star is made an offer he can't refuse for the sake of his family and future. So he returns to the world he fled years before, all too aware of the danger of opening the door to past temptations and long-buried desires. Can he resist the oblivion and bliss they promise?
A breathtakingly audacious novel by the acclaimed author of The Slap and Damascus about finding joy and beauty in a raging and punitive world, about the refractions of memory and time and, most subversive of all, about the mystery of art and its creation.
He also begins to tell us a story ...
A retired porn star is made an offer he can't refuse for the sake of his family and future. So he returns to the world he fled years before, all too aware of the danger of opening the door to past temptations and long-buried desires. Can he resist the oblivion and bliss they promise?
A breathtakingly audacious novel by the acclaimed author of The Slap and Damascus about finding joy and beauty in a raging and punitive world, about the refractions of memory and time and, most subversive of all, about the mystery of art and its creation.
Bluey Christmas Swim
Childrens Book
Based on the hit ABC KIDS TV show!
It's Christmas Day and it's the perfect weather for a family swim! Bartlebee is Bluey's new toy - how will he cope with his first Heeler Christmas? A gorgeous hardback book that will make the perfect Christmas gift.
Bluey is an award-winning preschool show about Bluey, a blue heeler pup, and her family. Airing on ABC KIDS, the show has amassed legions of dedicated fans and hugely popular ranges of books, toys, clothes, games and more.
It's Christmas Day and it's the perfect weather for a family swim! Bartlebee is Bluey's new toy - how will he cope with his first Heeler Christmas? A gorgeous hardback book that will make the perfect Christmas gift.
Bluey is an award-winning preschool show about Bluey, a blue heeler pup, and her family. Airing on ABC KIDS, the show has amassed legions of dedicated fans and hugely popular ranges of books, toys, clothes, games and more.
Somebody's Land
Adam Goodes & Ellie Laing
Illustrated by David Hardy
Childrens Book
For thousands and thousands of years,
Aboriginal people lived in the land we call Australia.
The land was where people
built their homes,
played in the sun,
and sat together to tell stories.
When the white people came,
they called the land
Terra Nullius.
They said it was nobody's land.
But it was somebody's land.
Somebody's Land is an invitation to connect with First Nations culture, to acknowledge the hurt of the past, and to join together as one community with a precious shared history as old as time.
Adam Goodes and Ellie Laing's powerful words and David Hardy's pictures, full of life, invite children and their families to imagine themselves into Australia's past - to feel the richness of our First Nations' history, to acknowledge that our country was never terra nullius, and to understand what 'welcome to our country' really means.
Aboriginal people lived in the land we call Australia.
The land was where people
built their homes,
played in the sun,
and sat together to tell stories.
When the white people came,
they called the land
Terra Nullius.
They said it was nobody's land.
But it was somebody's land.
Somebody's Land is an invitation to connect with First Nations culture, to acknowledge the hurt of the past, and to join together as one community with a precious shared history as old as time.
Adam Goodes and Ellie Laing's powerful words and David Hardy's pictures, full of life, invite children and their families to imagine themselves into Australia's past - to feel the richness of our First Nations' history, to acknowledge that our country was never terra nullius, and to understand what 'welcome to our country' really means.
The Boy & the Elephant
Freya Blackwood
Childrens Book
The powerful new picture book from Greenaway Medallist and seven-time CBCA winner, Freya Blackwood
The boy lives in a city, where everything is fast and loud. But amidst the bustle and the noise, the boy has a secret ...
In the overgrown lot next to his apartment building, deep within the green, he has a friend.
But one day progress arrives, bringing with it plans for something new, and the boy must find a way to save his friend before it's too late ...
From award-winning illustrator and storyteller Freya Blackwood comes a magical and tender wordless picture book about the world we live in and our ability to change it.
The boy lives in a city, where everything is fast and loud. But amidst the bustle and the noise, the boy has a secret ...
In the overgrown lot next to his apartment building, deep within the green, he has a friend.
But one day progress arrives, bringing with it plans for something new, and the boy must find a way to save his friend before it's too late ...
From award-winning illustrator and storyteller Freya Blackwood comes a magical and tender wordless picture book about the world we live in and our ability to change it.
So I hope you enjoy my selection of new book releases this week and don't forget to check out all the latest book arrivals online at www.booksngifts or if you are down in Berry please come in and visit our sister store Berry Newsagency
Head Bookseller
Tammy