It’s an Awesome World with Dallas – WIN!

When American writer Dallas Clayton decided to write a book for his young son, he knew the book’s theme would be on dreaming big. Penning the text in 10 minutes and taking 6 months to complete the illustrations, Clayton may have chosen a big dreams theme for his story, but he surely never dreamed how big his book would become.

Truly one of the most inspiring literacy stories of the past decade, Clayton self-published An Awesome Book a little over a year ago, and began selling it from his website for US$15 a pop. Currently, his sales tally has eclipsed a mind-boggling 35,000 copies – from his website alone, and the book is still going strong.

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Love and Land Management with Rachael Treasure

Rachael Treasure (pictured) is the bestselling author of Jillaroo, The Stockmen and The Rouseabout. In her latest novel, The Cattleman’s Daughter, Rachael draws on her own experience of riding horses and droving cattle in the snow gum country of Eastern Victoria. This book is a love story, but at the heart of this novel is a message about conservation and reconciliation.

Rachael Treasure doesn’t just write about rural Australia, she lives it. Born and raised in rural Victoria, she now lives on a farm in Tasmania with her husband John and their two children. Read more

Grandmother Turned Children’s Author, Mimi King

When Australian grandmother of eight, Robyn Smith, took on the exotic nom de plume of Mimi King, it wasn’t the only major change in her life. After a lifetime of teaching and reading countless children’s books to both her students and her own children, King took the only logical step necessary – she wrote her own children’s book.

“Being a published author has not been a specific goal of mine,” King tells Australian Women Online, “But I have wanted to produce children’s books for a long time. I’m not sure if that makes sense but to me, being a published author is a side benefit that comes from  producing a book in order to bring pleasure to children.” Read more

In Search of Angels

When her 14 year old niece was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, respected journalist, radio producer and TV researcher, Janise Beaumont (pictured), set off in search of a miracle. What she found will warm your heart and perhaps, restore your faith in humanity.

Eight years ago life hurt like crazy. Janise Beaumont felt she had failed in every area of her life and no matter what she did, or how hard she tried, happiness always seemed to elude her. Then a woman she barely knew gave her a little picture book about angels which she kept by her bed just to remind herself that ‘We are not alone whatever the circumstances.’ When her niece Georgia, fell gravely ill Janise began collecting the stories of people who have encountered angels Read more

The Butterfly Effect: A New Positive Approach to Raising Happy, Confident Teen Girls

There is something poignant in the title of The Butterfly Effect – a book that gently prises open the cocoon surrounding teenage girls; those delicate creatures caught half-way between a lengthy and often difficult metamorphosis into womanhood.

Like butterflies, teenage girls are in the process of blossoming into a life of full-blown potential, but the metaphorical cocoon of teen life that encapsulates our girls can both nurture and smother this process – a balance parents (or more specifically, mothers) all over the world struggle with.

The author of The Butterfly Effect, Dannielle Miller (pictured), also refers to the book’s title in terms of its basis in the chaos theory of sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Read more

Children’s Author Ingrid Jonach

Oh, I love a kids’ chapter book that aims so directly at its audience, you can hear the bulls-eye thud of its literary arrow.

Talented young Australian author, Ingrid Jonach (pictured), has created a warm, funny and frank character in her Frank Frankie series of books aimed at 7-12 year olds. The first in the series – The Frank Frankie: The Newspaper That Helps People – follows the story of ten-year-old Anne Googanstein (known as Frankie to her friends) and her passion for local news. Frank local news. Read more

Do You Want Sex With That?

Journalist for The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Claire Halliday (pictured), was asked to write a book on Australian’s attitudes to sex. As well as providing a fascinating look inside Australia’s sex industry and the organisations that oppose it, Do You Want Sex With That? discusses the impact of sex in the media on our society. Sex is everywhere you look these days – on billboards, television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. Sex sells and particularly if you’re a parent, sex in the media terrifies.

The backlash against the old advertising mantra ’sex sells’ has given rise to a new brand of conservatism in Australia which saw the artist Bill Henson publicly criticised for producing photos of naked juveniles and the Federal Government proposing mandatory filtering of sex and violent content on the Internet. Read more

Lisa Williams – Life Among the Dead

Since 2006 Lisa Williams (pictured) has been hosting her own cable TV show, Life Among the Dead, which airs in Australia on W. On 14th September the popular medium and clairvoyant spoke to me by telephone from her home in England.

It was the evening before my 40th birthday and I was hoping Lisa Williams would deliver a message from one of my dead relatives. I don’t know what I was expecting. A birthday greeting from the other side perhaps? A few choice words of wisdom from Uncle Jack? According to her autobiography, Lisa had been delivering messages from the dead to complete strangers in supermarkets and on the street, for many years and I knew from reading Lisa’s book that her gift could extend over telephone wires. So what’s the problem? Read more

Children’s Book Review: A Taste for Red by Lewis Harris

“…What happens if your sixth-grade science teacher is also your immortal enemy..?”

I must admit, I’m a little bit chicken. Part lioness, part monkey, part chicken. I’ve watched legions of fans devour the Twilight series (some young enough to be my own kids) whilst standing from afar with a wreath of garlic around my neck and my knees clacking. But most of these readers seem to have survived this sordid tale of vampire romance.

For me, vampires are just downright creepy, but with such a deep global fascination for these creatures, it got me to thinking: what am I missing out on?

Enter: A Taste For Red by US author Lewis Harris (pictured). I e-met the worldly, intelligent and very funny Harris by chance recently, and was intrigued to learn about his new book aimed at very young vampire fans — those aged 8-12.

If 8-12 year olds could read this, surely this lioness-monkey-chicken woman could give it a go? Still, it was with a little trepidation that I began reading this gorgeously bound, bright red hardback novel. Read more

The Real Man’s Tool Box: A DIY Health Manual for Men

Released in time for Fathers Day, The Real Man’s Tool Box by Tammy Farrell is the most important book your husband, father, brother, son, or male friend, will read all year.

In May 2009, the Senate’s Select Committee on Men’s Health released its report on the state of men’s health in Australia. The Committee reported that men have an average life expectancy of nearly 5 years less than women, a gap that widens even further in rural and regional areas of the country. They also found almost twice as many men die each year of conditions which could have been prevented or treated. It’s clear more has to be done to raise awareness about men’s health in Australia.

Raising awareness about men’s health is what Tammy Farrell’s book, The Real Man’s Tool Box, is all about. The book looks at the most common causes of chronic illness and premature death in men, including heart disase, prostate cancer, diabetes and depression. The aim of the book is to educate men so they can make informed decisions about their health and take a more active role in maintaining their own health and well-being, well into old age.

A registered nurse and health consultant, the author of The Real Man’s Tool Box, Tammy Farrell, first became interested in men’s health when her two brothers and their workmates, began calling on her to answer their health related questions. Tammy would later write in the introduction to her book: ‘As years passed and I was still answering questions, I came up with a question of my own: why do men take their car to the mechanic as soon as there’s even a little rattle, but they run in the other direction from a doctor when they need to look under their own hood?’

Tammy Farrell told Australian Women Online, “There is a huge gap in knowledge for the average Aussie bloke and if they don’t know anyone in the medical profession, they generally won’t discuss their health with anyone.”

“Health promotion for me has become a passion because I experienced a few young deaths that were from drugs when I was working in the ICU. To sit there with parents and help them wash the body of an eighteen year old girl – there is so much room for education out there and that’s why I wanted to go down this path. I still enjoy ICU but I can’t do it all the time because it takes too much out of you.”

Tammy became passionate about promoting men’s health while giving talks to miners in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales.

“When I gave my intial talk to the miners I was asked to talk about heart disease. My background is in intensive care and cardio-cath-lab nursing, so I went along intially to speak about the heart and why it is important to look after the blood pressure – and their questions at the end of the talk were excellent. I was then asked to come back and talk about other health issues. Men don’t discuss their health issues in the workplace and I found that giving these talks really opened up a forum so that they actually felt comfortable to discuss among their colleagues, certain issues that they probably don’t discuss with anyone.”

Tammy added, “I was really impressed because I walked in there with the attitude that men don’t care about their health. But that’s not the case at all.”

Okay ladies, I know what some of you are thinking: ‘My husband wouldn’t read a health book’ and in some cases, there may well be some resistance to the idea. After all, there is almost five times as much information available on women’s health, as there is on men’s health and let’s face it, if it ain’t readily available, most guys aren’t going to search for it.

Just last week Tammy was speaking to a farmer about The Real Man’s Tool Box when he shook his head and said to her, “Oh no, I won’t be reading it. I’ll give it to my wife to read and then she’ll tell me what to do!”

If you make the information readily available (eg, place a copy of this book in his hand) most men will read it, or at the very least, make an attempt to read it. Don’t let the tough guy image fool you ladies, just like women, men want to live a long, happy and healthy life.

Written in plain English and blessedly devoid of medical jargon, The Real Man’s Tool Box was written for the working man who enjoys sport, motor cars and a cold beer after work. Contents include:

• A healthy ticker: your human heart
• The mysterious world of the prostate
• The bowel does what?
• The not-so-good night’s sleep
• What every bloke needs to know about mental un-health
• Men’s sheds
• Diabetes: the sugar rush that’s no fun at all
• Gout: is it really God’s way of telling me I drink too much beer?
• Sex: or, your bits, her bobs and what you need to know about them
• The crown jewels
• The curse of the sun
• Who does what

The book also includes Secret Women’s Business, a chapter on ‘why women’s bodies throw up more challenges than mens and how he can help the woman or women his life to navigate them’.

Tammy Farrell says there is a lot about women’s bodies that men don’t understand. She answers all the most common questions men ask about women’s health and presents the information in a clear, no-nonsense, get to the point woman the game’s about to start, format.

“The two points I really want to try and highlight to people is that we need to be aware of our family’s medical history – that it shouldn’t be a taboo subject in the home and we need to discuss this openly. The other point I wanted to make is that your health doesn’t just affect you, it affects those around you as well.”

The Real Man’s Tool Box: A DIY Health Manual for Men by Tammy Farrell is published by Hatchette Australia and is available now at book retailers for AU$29.99 (recommended retail price).

For more information about the author Tammy Farrell visit her website www.corehealthconsulting.com.au

YOU CAN BUY THIS BOOK ONLINE AT:
Fishpond.com.au – AU$23.51
SeekBooks.com.au – AU$23.99
TheNile.com.au – AU$26.99

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