Lifestyle
Book Club: 10 books to help you move, eat and live better
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Best-selling author Allison Tait shares 10 new books to inspire a new lease on life. Time for a change?
By Allison Tait
With the weather warming up and the days getting longer, there’s a sense of possibility in the air. Often that means we start to assess what we’re doing in our lives and think about making changes – perhaps we’ll exercise more, or eat more salad, or try something new.
To help you make the most of that air of optimism, we’ve collected 10 new books that might inspire you to think differently, act differently or feel differently about the world around you. Worth a look, right?
‘Eat Yourself Healthy’ by Jamie Oliver
It’s hard to remember a time when Jamie Oliver wasn’t in our lives in some way, either popping up on tele to show us how 5 ingredients make a meal or overhauling school lunches (and chicken nuggets), or on our cookbook shelves teaching men/women/kids/families how to cook. Now he’s back with a new, simple plan to encourage us to eat ourselves healthy including a stack of easy-to-follow recipes and a 2-week ‘kickstart’ to get us going.
‘Once I was a giant’ by Zeno Sworder
In the way of the best picture books, this is both a work of art, a meditation and a life lesson all in one – and a book for all ages. An ode to trees and their relationship with humans, written from the perspective of the tree itself, it’s a powerful story that reminds us of our connection to nature. Exploring the cyclical nature of life, it’s a book to ponder, pore over and share with the young people in your life. If nothing else, you’ll never look at a pencil in the same way again.
Wild by Design: Naturalistic Gardening for Modern Australian Landscapes by Tim Pilgrim
If you’re sick of mowing lawns and clipping hedges, this one is for you. Tim Pilgrim is an advocate for the joys of ‘naturalistic gardening’ or creating gardens that reflect the dynamic beauty of untamed plants, and respond to the environmental realities of our time. Balancing artistry, site-specific plant choices, biodiversity and climate-proofing, this detailed pictorial guide to 100 of Pilgrim’s most trusted and useful plants for naturalistic compositions will inspire any gardener to take a walk on the wild side.
‘Unbreakable: A Woman’s Guide To Ageing with Power’ by Dr Vonda Wright
With a slew of new ‘menopower’ books on the shelves, this one stands out because Dr Vonda Wright has decades of experience as an orthopaedic surgeon and longevity specialist. She draws on that experience, and more, to offer a guide to nutrition, training and lifestyle that can be personalised to your body and needs. Wright helps you work out where you’re at right now and what to do to add more health to the years ahead of you.
‘The Weekly Grocery Shop’ by Nabula El Mourid
In an ideal world, we’d all be eating organic produce sourced from farmers’ markets and baking sourdough from scratch – but that’s not the reality for most of us. Nabula El Mourid understands that and set out to make lives easier with her Supermarket Swap app, which offers shoppers real-time information to the products with the best ingredients for them. Now she brings us a book to explain how best to navigate that brands (and lengthy ingredients lists) on offer in most supermarkets, and shares 70+ recipes to help you plan your meals (and grocery shopping).
‘Walking Sydney’ by Belinda Castles
If you’re looking for inspiration to move more, this book invites you to walk through Sydney with some of the city’s best writers acting as your guide. From suburban streets to the shores of Sydney Harbour, Castles has walked the city with fifteen different writers, offering readers the opportunity to see the city afresh. Allow it to inspire you to follow in their footsteps.
‘How to Art’ by Kate Bryan, illustrated by David Shrigley
This book is subtitled ‘Bringing a fancy subject down to earth so we can all enjoy it’, and it offers a funny and engaging invitation to learn to ‘art’ on your own terms. Kate Bryan describes herself as being ‘on a mission’ to help everyone understand how making and looking at art enriches all our lives. If you’ve ever stood in front of a painting in a gallery and wondered what you were meant to think about, this one is for you.
‘Property Secrets Of The Rich’ by Allan Mason
No matter what your stage of life, Allan Mason – billed as ‘Kerry Packer’s former accountant’ – has practical tips to help you navigate the world of property investment in Australia. Offering concrete advice for your first property purchase (home or investment property), age-specific investment strategies, case studies, how to leverage the Australian tax system, and more, it’s a straightforward guide from a Chartered Accountant who has worked with some of Australia’s wealthiest people.
‘The Money Reset’ by Gemma Mitchell
One thing we know about life is that it rarely goes to plan – and that our finances can often take a hit as a result. Financial advisor Gemma Mitchell offers a 12-step plan to help you get back on track after divorce, job loss, illness or other unexpected shake-up, beginning with assessing your new reality and offering tips to help you move forward.
‘The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create The Future We Want’ by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
Is AI going to take over the world? Will our kids and grandkids have jobs? Whichever way you look at it, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not going to let us ignore it, so we need to take steps to understand what’s going on. Bender and Hanna were both ‘AI Insiders’ who are now well known as two of AI’s greatest critics and this book is designed to expose the lies and hype surrounding AI. Understanding what’s going on will arm you to push back against AI at work and in your daily life.
Allison Tait is a bestselling author, dedicated reader and co-founder of the Your Own Next Read and Your Kids Next Read Facebook groups. Find her on Instagram.
All book images sourced from Amazon, used with permission. Citro may receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using the links in this article.
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