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This Month

You, too, can make  Meatsmith’s Fig and Jamon Salad featured in their new cookbook. It’s a great gift idea, too.

Jill Dupleix’s easy festive menu from three top cookbooks of 2023

Why sweat in the kitchen while everyone else is drinking bubbly and opening presents?

  • Jill Dupleix

October

A detail of a page of the Leonardo da Vinci’s “Codex of the Flight of Birds”.

The surprising history of the humble notebook

This history of writing on paper helps explain the enduring allure of the blank page in the digital age.

  • Michael Dirda

August

The founder of digiDirect Shant Kradjian has snapped up online book seller Booktopia where he plans to add 100 jobs.

Booktopia emerges from administration after sale to digiDirect

The company was once worth $400 million. The founder of digiDirect says he intends to invest in the business to turn around its poor performance.

  • Carrie LaFrenz

July

Booktopia CEO Tony Nash (left) and co-founder Steve Traurig at the company’s ASX float in 2020.

Kogan, QBD on the scene at collapsed Booktopia

Booktopia also offers “unique” technology, website assets and systems, and wholesale sales channels into retail and educational markets for a would-be acquirer, sources noted.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

April

Does everything still look better in black and white?

Kobo’s first foray into colour e-book readers would be perfect if it wasn’t for one, small flaw.

  • John Davidson
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December 2023

The books flying off the shelves right now

Richard Flanagan’s “best thing yet”, a graphic novel for teenagers, Trent Dalton’s latest novel and ‘dragons and young love’ are flying off bookshop shelves.

  • Hannah Wootton
Detail from the cover of ‘The Immortals of Motorcycle Racing: the world champs’.

Is this the ultimate stocking filler for motorcycle fanatics?

They’re among the world’s fiercest and most courageous competitors. Veteran race correspondent Darryl Flack has compiled a winning tribute.

  • Tony Davis

November 2023

Rebecca Gibb is an assured storyteller as well as a master of wine. Her new book on wine fraud is enthralling.

Wine books to savour, and what to sip on while you’re reading

Our drinks writer reckons wine pairing doesn’t always have to apply to food. How about some perfectly matched reading material?

  • Max Allen

September 2023

Time is the backdrop for our place in what is now a supremely mechanised world.

Tasks or time? What is a better measure of your worth

Tired of endless tomes on time management? An artist and a watchmaker, no less, share wisdom about this most precious modern resource.

  • Nilanjana Roy
Paul Bangay at Stonefields

Why Australia’s top garden designer is embracing natives

How Paul Bangay, Australia’s most celebrated garden creator, went from sustainability to ostentation and back again.

  • Stephen Clark

June 2023

A $5 million short-term debt facility from AFSG Capital included investment from Booktopia co-founder Tony Nash.

Booktopia raising to fund warehouse consolidation

The two-tranche placement was priced at 12¢ a share, or a 25 per cent discount to the last close. 

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
A general view of the main chamber of the Old Library, The Long Room, in Trinity College University, in Dublin.

Machine learning is breathing new life into forgotten books

Open Road markets older books with a technology that scrapes the internet for any mentions, then develops a marketing plan for pricing, promotions and searchability.

  • Elizabeth A. Harris

May 2023

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka and a ranger track gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Uganda’s first wildlife vet calls for more gorilla tourism

Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka recalls a cheeky monkey that inspired her younger self to dream big. Today, as her country marks the 30th anniversary of gorilla tourism, she’s a key reason for its success.

  • Catherine Marshall
The late master saddler Denis Jackson made the Australian Stock Saddles that Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman rode in in the movie, Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann film.

Bushcraft: R.M. Williams is not the only master of the trade

Taking a trot down history lane to uncover the origins of the Australian stock saddle threw up some intriguing early maestros of the leather trade.

  • Fiona Carruthers

April 2023

A statue of Sherlock Holmes appears to take stock of proceedings in the main square of Meiringen.

The little Swiss town where Sherlock Holmes lives on

Conan Doyle’s fictional detective continues to provide an unlikely boost to Meiringen’s economy – despite the author’s bid to kill him off there.

  • Andrew Eames
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March 2023

When organisations become larger than 150, “weird things start to happen”, academics say.

This is the perfect size for a business (according to science)

Biology research applied to business by Oxford University experts finds the best sizes for management teams, work groups and businesses - and it’s about 150 people.

  • Adrian Wooldridge
Chethams Library is steeped with age and the aroma of the many animal-skin covers on the shelves – everything from lowly pig to goat, buffalo and deerskin.

Inside the library where Marx and Engels wrote ‘The Communist Manifesto’

In continuous use for more than 350 years, Chetham’s is the oldest public library in the English-speaking world and includes books pre-dating the use of paper.

  • Sue Bennett

December 2022

Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka loved a story of a very different kinds of jets.

What our top CEOs watched, read and listened to

Stories of fighter planes, corporate disasters, against-the-odds victories and Indigenous culture inspired Australia’s top business leaders in 2022.  

  • James Thomson and Tony Boyd

October 2022

Juliette Arent (left) and Sarah-Jane Pyke at a house they have recently interior designed, titled ‘Salsa Verde’ in their new book.

House whisperers Arent & Pyke share the secrets of their success

A lavish new book is proof of the interior design duo’s gift for creating what they call “a sense that the finished house has always looked this way”.

  • Stephen Todd

August 2022

The updated ‘Life and Wines of Hugh Johnson’ is still well worth reading, as are two new wine-infused memoirs.

For a novel gift for Dad, here are three books to pair with top drops

Vino veritas, or so they say. These writers certainly know a lot about the finer things in life, and not just wine.

  • Max Allen

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/ebooks-hw4