Confessions of a Once Fashionable Mum


Book Description

Successful hubbie? Tick. Facebook-worthy baby? Tick. Bikini-body six weeks after giving birth? Um … not so much. Fashion PR exec Ally Bloom got her happy ending. Okay, her marriage might be showing the odd crack, her battleaxe mother-in-law might have come to stay, and she might not be the yummy mummy she'd imagined, but it's nothing a decent night's sleep and a firm commitment to a no-carb diet won't fix. But when Ally returns to work and finds she'll be reporting to a 22-year-old airhead, she decides to turn her back on life as a professional fashionista and embrace her inner earth mama instead. So it's out with the Louboutins and champagne and in with the sensible flats and coffee mornings with the Mummy Mafia. From attending her first grown-up dinner party only to discover that placenta is top of the menu to controlling her monster crush on local playgroup hottie Cameron, Ally must find her feet in the brave new world of the stay-at-home mum.




Confessions of a Once Fashionable Mum


Book Description

Successful hubbie? Tick. Facebook-worthy baby? Tick. Bikini-body six weeks after giving birth? Um ... not so much. Fashion PR exec Ally Bloom got her happy ending. Okay, her marriage might be showing the odd crack, her battleaxe mother-in-law might have come to stay, and she might not be the yummy mummy she'd imagined, but it's nothing a decent night's sleep and a firm commitment to a no-carb diet won't fix. But when Ally returns to work and finds she'll be reporting to a 22-year-old airhead, she decides to turn her back on life as a professional fashionista and embrace her inner earth mama instead. So it's out with the Louboutins and champagne and in with the sensible flats and coffee mornings with the Mummy Mafia. From attending her first grown-up dinner party only to discover that placenta is top of the menu to controlling her monster crush on local playgroup hottie Cameron, Ally must find her feet in the brave new world of the stay-at-home mum. ‘Sharp and funny, Madden’s novel captures the realities of new-mummyhood. The perfect nap-time read, and by nap I mean wine.’ —Meg Mason, author of Say It Again in a Nice Voice ‘[A] hilarious satire about modern motherhood’ —Practical Parenting ‘Nothing wrong with extreme exaggeration in pursuit of a good laugh. I'd love to see Madden doing stand-up.’ —Country Style ‘Slick, smart and skilful’ —Debbish ‘Confessions of a Once Fashionable Mum is a highly enjoyable read that reads like The Devil Wears Prada, but with dirty nappies and Happy Mummies groupies and the odd piece of fashion advice. 4⁄5 stars.’ —Never Ending Bookshelf ‘Every now and then I read a book and I think, “Damn, I wish I wrote that!” That’s totally how I feel about Confessions of a Once Fashionable Mum. I’m only half way through, but her novel is already so witty, entertaining and ... relatable ... it’s so nice to read a funny book that chronicles the joys of motherhood in such a humorous and honest way.’ —Summer Land ‘Confessions of a Once Fashionable Mum will make you giggle as you fly through the pages. I enjoyed it so much, I binge read it and knocked it over in a day.’ —Woogsworld ‘If you are looking for a book to escape into under some bubbles, either in the bath or the champagne variety, this is a good one as it is easy to read, actually funny and allows you to voyeuristically follow the misadventures of someone far more disorganised and vague than yourself.’ —Wellington Times Georgia Madden is an interiors journalist and a frequent contributor to a range of home and lifestyle magazines in Australia and the UK. She lives in Sydney.




Confessions of a Bad Mother: The Teenage Years


Book Description

When you’re pregnant you think: ‘I’m having a baby’, not a person who will eventually catch trains by themselves, share a fridge with ten strangers, go to a festival in Croatia without succumbing to a drug overdose, and one day, bring you a gin and tonic when your mother is dying. We imagine the teenage years as a sort of domestic meteor strike, when our dear, sweet child, hitherto so trusting and mild, is suddenly replaced by a sarcastic know-all who isn’t interested in the wisdom we have to pass on. But with great honesty and refreshingly bracing wit, Stephanie Calman shows that adolescence in fact begins much earlier, around the age of seven. And having nurtured them through every stage of development, from walking to school by themselves to their first all-night party, you find yourself alone – bereaved even – as they skip off to university without a second glance. Candid, touching and very, very funny, Confessions of a Bad Mother: The Teenage Years offers hope to despairing and exhausted parents everywhere. Read it and discover that your teenager is not the enemy after all.




Theatre Record


Book Description




Ladies' Home Journal


Book Description




The Confessions of Frannie Langton


Book Description

This breathtaking debut, winner of the Costa First Novel Award, is a murder mystery that travels across the Atlantic and through the darkest channels of history. A brilliant, searing depiction of race, class, and oppression that penetrates the skin and sears the soul, it is the story of a woman of her own making in a world that would see her unmade. All of London is abuzz with the scandalous case of Frannie Langton, accused of the brutal double murder of her employers, renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentric French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, eagerly following every twist, while the newspapers print lurid theories about the killings and the mysterious woman being tried at the Old Bailey. The testimonies against Frannie are damning. She is a seductress, a witch, a master manipulator, a whore. But Frannie claims she cannot recall what happened that fateful evening, even if remembering could save her life. She doesn’t know how she came to be covered in the victims’ blood. But she does have a tale to tell: a story of her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist who stretched all bounds of ethics, and the events that brought her into the Benhams’ London home—and into a passionate and forbidden relationship. Though her testimony may seal her conviction, the truth will unmask the perpetrators of crimes far beyond murder and indict the whole of English society itself.




Pacific Rural Press


Book Description




Ancient Light


Book Description

The Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea gives us a brilliant novel about an actor in the twilight of his life and his career: “a devastating account of a boy’s sexual awakening and the loss of his childhood…. Seamless [and] profound ... An unsettling and beautiful work.” —Wall Street Journal Is there a difference between memory and invention? That is the question that haunts Alexander Cleave as he reflects on his first, and perhaps only, love—an underage affair with his best friend’s mother. When his stunted acting career is suddenly, inexplicably revived with a movie role playing a man who may not be who he claims, his young leading lady—famous and fragile—unwittingly gives him the opportunity to see, with startling clarity, the gap between the things he has done and the way he recalls them. Profoundly moving, Ancient Light is written with the depth of character, clarifying lyricism, and heart-wrenching humor that mark all of Man Booker Prize-winning author John Banville’s extraordinary works.




High Tide in Tucson


Book Description

"Clever. . . magical. . . beautifully crafted. Kingsolver spins you around the philosophic world a dozen times." — Milwaukee Sentinel "There is no one quite like Barbara Kingsolver in contemporary literature," raves the Washington Post Book World, and it is right. Kingsolver's critically acclaimed writings always entertain and touch her legions of loyal fans. In High Tide in Tucson, she returns to her familiar themes of family, community, the common good, and the natural world. The title essay considers Buster, a hermit crab that accidentally stows away on Kingsolver's return trip from the Bahamas to her desert home, and turns out to have manic-depressive tendencies. Buster is running around for all he's worth—one can only presume it's high tide in Tucson. Kingsolver brings a moral vision and refreshing sense of humor to subjects ranging from modern motherhood to the history of private property to the suspended citizenship of human beings in the Animal Kingdom. Beautifully packaged, with original illustrations by illustrator Paul Mirocha, these wise lessons on the urgent business of being alive make it a perfect gift for Kingsolver's many fans.




Agnes Grey


Book Description

As the daughter of a modest minister, Agnes Grey has low prospects in life. After her father loses most of the family’s savings, Agnes is determined to help out and takes a position as governess for a wealthy family. Being a governess turns out to be more challenging than she could have predicted as she has to manage spoiled children and petty parents, while dependent on their approval for her livelihood. Agnes Grey is the first novel by Anne Brontë, published in 1847, and today considered an everlasting classic. Like the famous Jane Eyre, by Anne’s sister Emily Brontë, it deals with the precarious position of the governess and how the young women taking on that role were treated. It is a poignant and insightful novel that explores rigid class structures and the challenges it poses to women. ANNE BRONTË [1820-1849] was an English poet and novelist. She was the youngest of the three Brontë authors, her older sisters being Emily and Charlotte. Anne died young, probably from tuberculosis, having published the novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the latter hailed today as one of the first feminist novels.