Latest news with #Hachette
Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
‘I was hounded out of my publishing job over gender-critical beliefs'
A publisher has claimed she was hounded out of her job because of her gender-critical beliefs. Ursula Doyle sued Hachette, a large publishing house, where she worked until coming under fire from pro-transgender activists for publishing the 2021 book Material Girls. The work by Kathleen Stock is critical of gender ideology, the belief that people can self-identify as men or women. Ms Doyle claimed she was 'effectively punished' by Hachette for publishing the book and for her own gender-critical beliefs. She resigned last year after being 'hounded out' of the company, which had 'created a hostile working environment for me and anyone else who shares my views'. 'Battle for sex realism' She claimed this included Hachette rolling out a transgender inclusion policy that allowed biological men to use women's bathrooms in the office. Following a legal battle funded by £63,000 in donations, Ms Doyle has now reached an undisclosed settlement with Hachette, according to her legal team. She said in a statement: 'In bringing this case, I hoped to demonstrate conclusively that employers cannot allow staff to be subjected to abuse because of their lawful views, nor ignore women's rights to single-sex spaces. 'The battle for sex realism continues,' she added. When launching her crowd-funded legal battle last year, Ms Doyle raised concerns that activists deliberately targeted the publishing industry to suppress free speech and stifle criticism of gender ideology. She wrote: 'When you consider the impact these books have had on the conversations around sex and gender, it is easy to understand why publishing has been a key strategic target for gender identity activists. 'Their attempts to suppress all dissent at source have made the sector a hostile environment for anyone who dares to stand up for reality and freedom of expression. 'These tactics mean it is difficult for gender-critical books to find a publisher, and almost impossible for any authors who want to sell books on other topics to speak up on this subject.' Online abuse Ms Doyle claimed Hachette did nothing to protect her from online abuse directed at her for publishing Material Girls. She said the policy allowed 'men who say they are women to use women's toilets and shower facilities', adding that it discriminated against women who worked for Hachette. She also claimed Hachette undermined her by shifting responsibility for the paperback editions of Material Girls to another part of the company, which damaged her reputation as a publisher. 'Heavy five o'clock shadow' Ms Doyle's legal battle came following a string of other rows over the influence of gender ideology in publishing. In 2023, Gillian Philip, the children's author, claimed she was dropped by her employer after publicly supporting JK Rowling's critical views on transgender issues. She ultimately lost her legal battle. That same year, Sibyl Ruth, the gender-critical editor, said she was dropped by a literary consultancy after stating that the idea of someone with a 'heavy five o'clock shadow' being a woman 'blows my mind'. Works by authors sceptical of transgender activism became the subject of an internal 'grievance' within the library service of Calderdale council, a local authority affiliated with the controversial LGBT charity Stonewall. The Telegraph revealed in 2023 that books critical of gender ideology were removed from public view by staff working for the council libraries service, and stashed out of sight in an off-limits storage space. Hachette has not admitted any liability, Ms Doyle said despite the settlement.
Newsroom
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
This week's biggest-selling books at King's Birthday Weekend
FICTION 1 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 'She [Chidgey] seems to get a ridiculous amount of promotion through your column,' moaned Newsroom reader Louise Bryant in the comments section this week. Oh well! Here we go again, then, paying too much heed to the author widely regarded as the best living New Zealand novelist who appears to be at her peak, with her latest novel settling into its Number 1 bestseller position for the third consecutive week and likely holding onto that status for quite some considerable time to come as word of mouth continues to recommend The Book of Guilt as a scary, literary, absorbing story of children kept as lab rats. A free copy was up for grabs (alongside Delirious by Damien Wilkins) in last week's giveaway contest. The entries were so interesting – readers were asked to make some sort of comment about Chidgey – that I wrote a story about them on Thursday. The winner is Madeleine Setchell, chairperson of Fertility NZ, 'a small but mighty charity that walks alongside all New Zealanders facing infertility'. Huzzah to Madeleine; she wins Delirious by Damien Wilkins, as well as a copy of the cheerfully over-promoted The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey. 2 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 3 See How They Fall by Rachel Paris (Hachette, $37.99) 4 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin Random House, $38) A free copy of this tough new tale of Grey Lynn noir is up for grabs in this week's giveaway contest. Hoey is a sort of literary establishment outsider. So, too, is American writer Alex Perez, who posted an apparently controversial rant on Substack this week about one of the themes of Hoey's novel, the crisis of masculinity. He writes, 'The literary man is constantly haunted by the specter of masculinity. This is obviously an elite—and striver—problem, because working-class men, unless they somehow meet a New Yorker staffer on the construction site, haven't been aware that this discourse has been ongoing for a decade. The non-online man, warts and all, just is. He might be misogynist; he might be a brute. But he's just whatever kind of dude he is, and that's that. Most of my time is spent hanging out with regular dudes who aren't obsessed with their masculinity, so the neurotic behavior of the literary man is always jarring …' To enter the draw to win 1985, read Perez's Substack argument, and remark upon it at whatever length in an email to stephen11@ with the subject line in screaming caps A WORKING CLASS HERO IS SOMETHING TO BE by midnight on Sunday, June 1. Good cover. 5 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38) 6 Black Silk and Buried Secrets (Tatty Crowe 2) by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, $37.99) 7 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $26) 8 The Good Mistress by Anne Tierman (Hachette, $37.99) 9 Sea Change by Jenny Pattrick (David Bateman, $37.99) 10 All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Hachette, $37.99) I very briefly ran into the author at the recent Auckland Writers Festival. I got a bit lost trying to find the correct venue to watch Noelle McCarthy chair a Norwegian author, blundered into a room I thought was right, but instead saw Shilo Kino waiting to go onstage with Jeremy Hansen in a session about humour. Shilo said, 'Hi Steve!' I replied, 'Hi Shilo!' Then I turned and fled, pausing to say to Jeremy, 'You look younger every time I see you.' Anyway, it must have been a good session; Shilo's very funny novel was published over a year ago, but sales at the AWF have resurrected it into the top 10. NONFICTION 1 Whānau by Donovan Farnham & Rehua Wilson (Hachette, 29.99) 2 Full Circle by Jenny-May Clarkson (HarperCollins, $39.99) 'Over time,' writes the presenter of Breakfast in her new memoir, 'the scrutiny wears you down. Not just the actual things that people say but the awareness of what they might say. When I started in television, the comments were mostly about my appearance. But, as I settled into my role at Breakfast, that started to change. Of late, a lot of the negative comments I get have been centred on who I am. My Māoritanga. I don't look at them, don't even get the Breakfast inbox emails on my computer, because if I had to read some of what comes in, I just wouldn't ever be able to say anything again. But every now and then, I'll catch something someone's said before I've been able to look away. 'The other day, I spotted a comment where someone was complaining about my use of te reo Māori. 'Don't like watching her, sick of her pushing too much Māori on to people, just speak English.' That sort of thing. Worse, usually. You know the style. I used to get absolutely thrown by comments like that but they don't rock me now. I just think, How bizarre. And how sad. Because it is sad. Sad that someone thinks it's okay to talk about another person like that. Sad that they don't accept that my reo is a big part of who I am as a person and that I am not only selected but endorsed by my employer, TVNZ. Sad that they don't realise te reo Māori is one of the official languages of our country, so there's no such thing as 'too much'. Sad that they don't know how precious and amazing it is that we have our reo.' Striking cover. 3 Everyday Comfort Food by Vanya Insull (Allen & Unwin, $39.99) 4 Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $39.99) 5 No Words for This by Ali Mau (HarperCollins, $39.99) 6 Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins, $36.99) 7 Fix Iron First by Dr Libby (Little Green Frog Publishing, $39.95) Self-helper all about iron. Blurbology: 'When iron levels are low, everything feels harder. Your energy fades. Your mood shifts. Your resilience diminishes … What's not recognised often enough is that low iron doesn't just make you tired. It can alter your brain chemistry, slow your metabolism, impact your thyroid, disturb your sleep and lower your emotional resilience … This book is for anyone who has ever felt persistently tired, anxious, low in mood, or disconnected from their spark – and not known why. It's for parents watching a child struggle with energy or concentration. It's for women navigating the rhythms of their menstrual cycle or the shifts of perimenopause. It's for anyone who feels like they're doing everything right but still doesn't feel like themselves – or who has tried, unsuccessfully, to restore their iron levels and is still searching for answers.' 8 Northbound by Naomi Arnold (HarperCollins, $39.99) Two excellent books about the great New Zealand outdoors have been published in 2025. Northbound is the author's account of walking the Te Araroa track; Fire & Ice: Secrets, histories, treasures and mysteries of Tongariro National Park by Hazel Phillips is an illustrated book about the central plateau, and was reviewed very favourably this week. 9 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 10 Hine Toa by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins, $39.99)
The Advertiser
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Beyoncé's mum offers rare insights into famous family
New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright. Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99. Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99. "If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.) Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99. Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more. Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control. Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99. In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser. Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99. For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her? Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99. The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life. Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99. The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is? Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease. New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright. Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99. Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99. "If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.) Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99. Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more. Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control. Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99. In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser. Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99. For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her? Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99. The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life. Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99. The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is? Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease. New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright. Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99. Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99. "If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.) Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99. Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more. Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control. Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99. In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser. Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99. For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her? Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99. The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life. Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99. The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is? Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease. New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright. Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99. Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99. "If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.) Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99. Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more. Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99. The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control. Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99. In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser. Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99. For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her? Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99. The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life. Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99. The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is? Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease.
ABC News
13-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- ABC News
Situationships, risks and growing pains — Jemma Sbeg on surviving your 20s
When Jemma Sbeg started recording a podcast about her quarter life crisis, in the back of her Subaru, she had no idea just how many people she would reach. But other people her age were desperate for guidance through their 20s - a decade a lot of us romanticise before we get there, and after we leave. It's a decade of massive growth for humans, when we make big decisions about relationships, careers and our own identities, but Jemma felt like she had no idea HOW to make the right choices. She had studied psychology at university, and so looked to psychological research papers to help her and her friends navigate attraction, heartbreak, friendship, imposter syndrome, career anxiety, burn out, mental health and living a happy life. Jemma's biggest lesson is realising while time is finite, we do have so much of it to "figure it out", and chances are you'll still be working many things out in your 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Further information Person in Progress: A Roadmap to the Psychology of Your 20s is published by Hachette Australia. Jemma's podcast is called The Psychology of your 20s.
Los Angeles Times
12-05-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Exhausted by cardio? This alternative may be key to a better workout
It was, of all things, a Reddit post that changed the trajectory of Casey Johnston's life in 2013. Up until that point, her workouts and diet were informed by tips from magazines, radio and other media that promised she'd look good and stay fit if she watched her calories and kept up her cardio. But the post she stumbled upon, in which a woman shared results from her new weightlifting workout, seemed to contradict that advice. 'Here's this person who's doing everything the opposite of what I was doing,' Johnston said. 'She wasn't working out that much. She was eating a lot. Her workout seemed pretty simple and short and she was not trying to lose weight. But aesthetically, she looked smaller and more muscular. I though you could only make that change by working out more and more and by eating less.' That was enough to plunge Johnston into an entire subculture of women who were trading the latest exercise trend for a barbell. When Johnston decided to follow in their path, she was not only surprised by how her body changed, but the mental shift that came along with it. That journey inspired her to create her long-running 'She's a Beast' newsletter, and more recently, a book. 'A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting,' (Hachette) charts Johnston's transformation through weightlifting in captivating scientific and emotional detail, articulating the sneaky ways that gender can inform body image, and what women in particular can do to reclaim both their literal and figurative strength. The Times spoke with Johnston, an L.A. resident, about how she braved the weightlifting gym as a beginner, her previous misconceptions about caloric intake and the way building muscle gave her the confidence to reshape other parts of her life. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Your book describes the journey you took to make your body stronger alongside your own mental evolution. Why was it important for you to tell both of those stories? There's so much more interplay between our bodies and our minds and our personal backgrounds than we afford it in our day-to-day life. As I was getting more into health, I realized that I hate the way we talk about it. It's a lot of shoving it into corners. Like, Oh, it should be easy. Just eat less, or just take the stairs instead of the escalator. The more I thought about it, I was like, these are big forces in my life: How I've been made to think about food, or made to think about exercise. Let's say you maybe you don't like your bank, but how often do you deal with your physical bank location? Not that much, twice a year for me, maybe. But stuff like eating breakfast, or you're supposed to work out a few times a week. These are everyday things. It's like a cabinet that you have to open every day, but it's broken. It's worth trying to understand it and have a good relationship with it, because it's something that you're doing all of the time. We're so, so used to shutting it down. Because of that, I spent a lot of time digging into my own personal background, being like: Why do I think about food the way that I do, or exercise? I think that there's an important aspect of accountability there too. You have somebody who's telling you it's easy, like, Just do X, Y, Z. Well, it's not easy for me. Why is it easy for you? Those are valuable questions that people don't ask, or are discouraged from asking. And then when it's not easy for them, they just feel guilty that it's not easy, and then they blame themselves. We are all bringing different stuff to this, so to show somebody what I'm bringing to it will help, hopefully help them think about: What are they bringing to it? Your book talks about the belief system that dictated your exercising and dieting habits. Where did it come from? Magazines, for whatever reason, played such a big role in my conception of how bodies work. But also TV and infomercials and Oprah and even radio. I mentioned in the book a SELF magazine cover. There was a whole study about disordered eating in there, how prevalent it was. It was all the way in the back of the magazine. The conclusions of it were something like, three quarters of women have some form of self-chiding that they're doing about, you know, oh, I ate too much. Or, I need to lose weight, or I hate the way my stomach looks. And that study was not on the cover of the magazine. Everything on the cover was about how to lose weight, how to eat fruit to lose weight, 26 tricks to fit in your bikini. I don't remember what it was exactly, but that was the conversation. Even with awareness of things going on under the surface, it was still this overwhelming amount of messaging about it. It was, of all things, a Reddit post that challenged these ideas for you. What did your subsequent research reveal to you? There were a lot of posts like that. It was not just her, it was this whole subculture. There's this middle ground of people who have this relationship with lifting weights that's more normal than I thought it could ever be. I was used to people lifting weights who need to be extremely strong or extremely huge and muscular, because they're bodybuilders. I had not really heard of anyone lifting weights if they weren't trying to be one or both of those things. So I didn't know that this was an available modality to me. What are some misconceptions that you were harboring about muscles and caloric intake? I had not been aware that by eating too little, you can deplete your muscle mass. Muscle mass is like the main driver of our metabolism. So the less muscle mass you have, the more you destroy through dieting. The lower your metabolism is, the harder it is to lose weight. Also, the longer you've been dieting, the lower your metabolism is going to be. So it becomes this vicious cycle of the more you diet, the harder it is to diet, and the less results — as they would say — you're going to have. I was like, Okay, that's really bad. But you can also work that process in reverse. You can eat more and lift weights and build back your muscle, restore your metabolism. So I had been asking myself, Why does it feel like I have to eat less and less in order to stay the same way? Am I just really bad at this? Am I eating more than I thought? And it was like, No, I'm not. I'm neither bad at this nor imagining it. It's literally how things work. It was very gratifying to find out, but then also a relief that I could undo what I had done. And the way to do it was by lifting and by eating more protein. Muscles are protein, basically. So by lifting weights, you cause damage to your muscles. And after you're done working out, your body goes in and repairs them with all the calories and protein that you eat, and repairs them a little bit better than they were the next time. And you could just do this every time you work out. That same cycle repeats. Your muscles grow back. You get stronger and you feel better. People are really intimidated by gyms. Even more so when it comes to weightlifting in them. You pinpoint this feeling in your book when you describe the moment you realize you would have to 'face the bros.' How were you able to overcome your fears in that department? I wanted so much to see if this worked and how it worked, that I was able to get to the point of OK, I'm gonna give this a try and accept that I might be accosted in an uncomfortable way, or not know what I'm doing, and I will figure it out at some point. I was definitely very scared to go into [a weightlifting] gym, because it felt like the worst thing in the world to be in someone's way, or be using the equipment wrong, or to be perceived at all. But I was buoyed along by wanting to give all of this a chance, and I knew that I couldn't give it a chance if I didn't get in there. That doesn't mean that I didn't get in there and immediately was like, Oh, I'm too afraid to use the spot racks. There was an on-ramp. But what I tell people now in my capacity as an advice-giver is you have to give yourself that space to get used to something. It's like starting a new school or starting a new job. You don't know where the pens are. You have to give yourself a few days to figure it out. You've written so much in your newsletter about functional fitness and compound movements. Why is that so much more valuable than machine lifting? Machines are designed to work usually a limited amount of muscles, or even one muscle at a time. And they do that by stabilizing the weight for you in this machine. You're moving on a gliding track for almost everything you could do. When we are handling weights, loads of things, like a child, groceries, boxes of cat litter, bags of dog food, I hear often you're not doing it on like a pneumatic hydraulic. Your body is wiggling all over the place if you're not strong. So learning to stabilize your body against a weight is sort of an invisible part of the whole task. But that's what a free weight allows you to learn: to both hold a heavy weight and move in a particular direction with it, like squat, up and down with it, but at the same time, your body is doing all this less visible work of keeping you upright, keeping you from falling over. And your body can't learn that when a thing is like holding the weight in position for you while you just move it in this one very specific dimension. One of the uniting themes of your book is this idea of fighting against your body versus trusting it. Would it be safe to say that you began your fitness journey in the former and landed in the latter? I definitely started off fighting my body. I just thought that's what you do with your body. All of the messaging we get, it's like deep in our American culture, this Protestant denial of your physical self and hard work. If it's not hard, you're not doing it right. And I did make a transition from it being hard to listening to my body, trusting it. Just by learning that there was this different dynamic between food, working out and myself that I wasn't aware of for most of my life. And once I got into lifting, I learned that all of these things can work better together. But an integral part of it was: You can't get into lifting without [asking], That rep that I just did — how did that feel? Was it too hard? Was it too easy? Was the weight too high? Is my form weird? I ate a little more yesterday … do I feel better in the gym? Running had been about pushing down feelings in the way that I was accustomed to from my personal life. You're pushing through, you're feeling pain, but trying to ignore it and go faster and faster. It was a lot of like, You got to unplug and disconnect. So lifting, the dynamic of lifting through asking how do things feel, refracted into the rest of my life. How does it feel when somebody doesn't listen to you at work? Or your boyfriend argues with you at a party? Lifting opened me up to this question in general, of how things made me feel. A lot of us are used to thinking of ourselves as your brain is this and your body is that. You are your brain and all of the horrible parts that are annoying and betray you are your body. But there's so much interplay there. It's like your body is the vector that tells you, and when you learn to ignore it, you don't learn to really meaningfully understand your own feelings. I had learned in my life to ignore those signals. When lifting built up my sense of: How does my body feel when it does certain things? It opened up my awareness of the experience of: How does my body feel when bad things or good things happen in the rest of my life?
