What does it mean to be Australian? Sydney Scoop has selected five books for gift giving that will make every Aussie happy and contented. Whether you are giving the gift to someone else or yourself - here you go you lucky things.
Ultimate Coastal Road Trips: Australia from Hardie Grant Explore is Lee Atkinson’s completely new guidebook for Australia’s best road trips near the water, a perfect companion to her bestselling Ultimate Road Trips: Australia.
This comprehensive guide covers 40 seaside road trips around the country including the Great Ocean Road, Western Australia’s Coral Coast, the Grand Pacific Drive, and K’gari, Flinders and Bruny islands. All trips in the book focus exclusively on the coast and offer a wealth of detail for those planning a beach holiday, as well as some worthwhile side trips inland.
For each road trip there is a day-by-day itinerary with information on road conditions, what to see and do, rainy-weather options, best time to go and how long it will take. There are also stunning images of our most spectacular stretches of coastline and detailed maps.
Fish Butchery from award-winning author and culinary game-changer Josh Niland is his next book and the ultimate guide as the title explains to fish butchery with expert techniques and groundbreaking recipes that are an urgent call for action on culinary sustainability.
Josh believes that when a fish arrives to market, like an animal to a butcher, there are disciplined practices that we need to follow. No butcher in the world would only strip the loins off a pig and then throw the rest away as waste. And yet essentially this is what we do every day all around the world with fish. It is estimated that 50 per cent of the world’s fish caught is wasted. Of the 50 per cent we use, another 50 per cent of this is overlooked by the Western world, which overwhelmingly prefers to consume only the fillet. Fish Butchery intends to disrupt this thinking, inspire, challenge and hopefully encourage the next generation. This book is as much about intentionality as it is sustainability.
Fish Butchery is designed to show the reader – and the industry at large – the vast range of possibilities that exist when fish is treated correctly, from those initial moments of capture and transport through to being butchered and processed and, finally, making an appearance on the plate. Split into three sections that reflect this journey – Catch, Cut and Craft – the opportunities for adding value to fish at each stage are examined in detail, with step-by-step breakdowns of various cuts and the recipes involved in transforming the building blocks into desirable finished products.
Fish Butchery is about creating a workable system for the industry that allows families and individuals to conveniently access approachable fish dishes that extend the use of one fish further, whether that be in the form of fish sausages, burger patties, fish fingers, fishcakes pâté, mortadella, bacon and more.
With stunning photography from award-winning photographer Rob Palmer and thought-provoking illustrations for acclaimed artist Reg Mombassa, Fish Butchery published by Hardie Grant is as bold and brilliant as it is informative and entertaining. It reimagines our relationship with this precious resource and is an urgent call to minimise waste and build a more sustainable food system.
Halliday Wine Companion bestselling annual book sets the benchmark for winemakers, collectors, and wine lovers alike featuring the newest top scores, notes, wineries, and the latest industry information. The 2024 edition is a sentiment to James himself, with the front cover a landscape of Halliday’s view at Coldstream Hills, overlooking the vineyard where it all started.
Across 744 pages, a team of Halliday expert share their insight and knowledge on wine with over 8,500 tasting notes, as well as key wine regions, wineries, winemakers, vineyard sizes, opening times and contact details to ensure your next winery trip is executed perfectly. It also includes a special Australian vintage 2023: a snapshot that can only be accessed by purchasing the book. This go-to guide is available in-stores nationally for RRP $45.00 or via the Halliday website.
STARTED OUT JUST DRINKING BEER – THE mental as anything STORY by Stuart Lloyd is a superbly researched and written account of one of Australia’s most popular bands, with unfettered access to all the key players, and a de facto social history of a time when living in Sydney was cheap and fun, the 1980s!
One thing that might surprise people is that Mental as Anything had more charting singles than any other band in the great Oz Rock era (they had 26 singles in the charts compared to INXS 17).
Author, Stuart Lloyd is mates with the band, so he’s had great access to them (plus those in their inner sanctum including wives and ex-girlfriends), resulting in very frank, revealing human portraits. And as an authorised biography, it contains a lot of amusing and amazing behind-the-scenes stories. Stu “takes us behind the showbiz curtain” as Jane Gazo writes. It wasn’t all beer and skittles.
Published by Puncher & Wattman, this is the story of the riotous rollercoaster ride of one of Australia's greatest bands from 1976 - 2019.
Australian Bush Pubs new 3rd edition book has just been released. This popular visual pub crawl across outback Australia, first published in 2010, is one of Boiling Billy’s bestselling books. Lavishly illustrated with striking and fascinating full colour photographs, Australian Bush Pubs features an eclectic collection of historic outback watering holes, including such classics as Queensland’s famous Birdsville Hotel and New South Wales’ characterful Silverton Hotel. The accompanying text portrays a short history of each establishment along with any unusual aspects, such as happenings, famous patrons and even ghosts! This third edition introduces a handful of new pubs and brings up to date many of the stories and photographs of the old favourites.
Previous editions have been so appreciated that many travellers take Australian Bush Pubs on their adventures to get it autographed in those pubs they visit. Sounds like a plan to us!
Authors Craig Lewis and Cathy Savage are long-term travel writers and photographers, mostly writing about Australian bush travel. On their almost continuous wanderings throughout the backblocks the pair have found themselves forced to visit many a bush pub (all in the name of research of course). This book is the result of those endeavours. Craig and Cathy created the Boiling Billy imprint in 1996 and are based in the High Country of NSW. For the third edition, they have had the assistance of authors and photographers Louise Denton, Erin Jordan and Simon Punch.
Image from the cover of Ultimate Coastal Road Trips: Australia
