‘I couldn’t put it down’: Spying the bookshelves of Australia’s A-list

Neil Perry, chef and ambassador for Cobram Estate

Ester: Australian Cooking by Mat Lindsay and Pat Nourse is more than a cookbook, it’s a great read that delves into Mat’s thoughts and recipes through Pat’s pen. Mat runs one of Australia’s best restaurants, Ester, and worked for me years ago. I love that I can make his dishes and see the effect that working with me had on his approach to great produce and ingredients.

RUNNER-UP: My Shanghai by Betty Liu.

Janice Petersen, SBS newsreader

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan is the perfect summer read if you have ever been drawn to the magic and magnetism of surfing – you definitely don’t have to be a surfer to get what’s so spellbinding about hitting the waves. This is much more than a sports book or a straight memoir, though – it has bagged a Pulitzer for biography. It’s also a coming-of-age story, a travelogue and political history lesson. Finnegan says that to be any good at surfing you need to take it up before the age of 14. I did. The results were unimpressive. But even with my surfing prowess pushing the needle at zero to none, I have felt the pure joy and buzz of my own version of a perfectly timed take-off, pop-up and ride. Finnegan’s breezy prose takes me back to those long, lazy days when my biggest responsibility was choosing between a chocolate or banana Paddle Pop. This book served as a reminder to occasionally hurl myself into Mother Nature and be awed and humbled by her might.

RUNNER-UP: The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair

Nicole Nabour, actor in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne

Kate Grenville’s Restless Dolly Maunder tells the imagined story of her maternal grandmother so compellingly. Kate is literary but accessible, informative yet entertaining, and it’s the book I couldn’t put down this year. She celebrates the stories of women of a certain era who gave us modern women choices. Her grandmother grew up in the Depression, a courageous woman denied the chance to become a teacher so as not to shame the family, but who married a man who appreciated her independence. She wanted to be more than a wife and had to fight for that recognition. It’s very inspiring.

RUNNER-UP: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.

Thomas Cocquerel, actor in Paper Dolls on Paramount+

I couldn’t put down Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I love the idea of
a rebirth in life; a strong theme here. It tells the story of two friends whose friendship spans over 20 years, first meeting as children in a hospital and bonding over video games. They make video games and the plot follows their lives – it captures love, loss and tragedy and the way some people come into our lives. I never played video games growing up, but I like that aspect of video games: when you die, you get to go again. And the same can be said about life – we can reinvent ourselves and start again if we need to.

RUNNER-UP: The Frenchman by Jack Beaumont.

Lorna Jane Clarkson, founder of Lorna Jane activewear

Glossy: The Inside Story of Vogue by Nina-Sophia Miralles gives us inside access into Vogue magazine from when it was first published in 1892. I loved the profiles of key characters such as Anna Wintour, while looking at Vogue from a cultural, social and business standpoint. The behind-the-scenes of the magazine world is fascinating and the constant rivalry between Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar is also astonishing. As a fashion designer, I was hooked.

RUNNER-UP: The Barbizon by Paulina Bren.

Diana Chan, Australian Open 2024 fusion feast celebrity chef

I am a huge Sex and the City fan and had to read Pat in the City by stylist Patricia Field. I love biographies and enjoyed Pat’s account of starting out as a designer in the 1960s through to creating fashion trends with her styling and running a boutique in New York where drag queens and the club scene loved to hang out. I have watched every episode of SATC at least three times; here we get a taste for how costume styling comes together and what clothes say about who we are. Field is a trailblazer and this book is essential for a fashion fan.

RUNNER-UP: Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey.

Rachel Griffiths, actor in Total Control, season three airing on ABC TV in 2024

A Brilliant Life by Rachelle Unreich gave me a profound insight into the life of her mother Mira, who I had the privilege to know for more than a decade. It’s also an affirmation of the miraculous nature of the human mind to make sense of humanity’s worst inclinations, not just survive them. [Mira was held in four World War II concentration camps.] Mira escaped death many times, sometimes by small acts of kindness, yet didn’t carry her trauma in any perceptible way. After the war, Mira chose to raise her family far from centuries of Jewish persecution [in Europe], yet her Australian grandchildren are living with an almost unprecedented wave of antisemitism.

RUNNER-UP: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Rhys Nicolson, comedian and contestant on Taskmaster season two on Network 10 in 2024

Britney Spears’ The Woman in Me is a tumultuous read, but also a great audiobook as it’s partly narrated by actress Michelle Williams. I thought this would be a restful read, but the story is harrowing and a reminder of how we don’t look after people and then watch them explode. We are in this great moment, between Britney Spears and author Jennette McCurdy [I’m Glad My Mom Died], where we are seeing women be frank with these experiences. But we have to be careful not to start fetishising it. We don’t want this sort of story to become the new gossip; we’re starting to obsess over unlikeable characters. The book made me rethink fandom but is nonetheless compelling.

RUNNER-UP: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Brian Ritchie, Mona Foma curator and violent femmes bass player

Pessoa: An Experimental Life is the story of Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese writer whose work has been translated by Richard Zenith, the author of this biography. Pessoa wrote in different languages and had distinct personalities, with more than 75 noms de plume. He was way beyond most other authors in terms of imagination, and one of the best writers of the 20th century, but few people know about him.

RUNNER-UP: A Mammal’s Notebook: The Writings of Erik Satie, edited by Ornella Volta.

Kate Miller-Heidke, composer of the 2024 Sydney Festival show Bananaland

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver is my new favourite book of hers. I am a Charles Dickens fan too, so I love Kingsolver’s bold audacity to interpret Dickens. Like David Copperfield, it’s full of plots, a rollicking story that is underpinned with tragic themes and a window into a world I hadn’t seen this vividly depicted before. She takes us into Appalachia, its entrenched poverty and opioid crisis, and her writing is beautiful and laced with humour. The book’s about entrenched inequality, the class divide, and the sad futility experienced by kids who grow up in those situations.

RUNNER-UP: The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt.

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