Readings.com.au: Bestselling Non-Fiction of 2009

Dreams From My Father

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American.

It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident.

This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance.

Guide To Ethical Supermarket Shopping 2009

We live in a time of human rights abuse, animal cruelty, genetically modified foods and the massive impact of industry on the environment. These can often seem beyond our control and quite removed from our everday life. However, the fact is that every time we buy something, our spending dollar endorses a company and its activities, whether we are aware of it or not – whether we like it or not.

By avoiding companies with a negative track record and buying products from companies who have a positive impact, we can send a strong message for change and support the practices that make our world a better place to live in. Companies need our money to stay in business - money talks, and your dollar literally is your vote.

This shopping guide provides information on the environmental and social record of companies behind the brand names of common supermarket products.This is based on assessment gathered from over 25 sources including the work of organisations such as Greenpeace, Choose Cruelty Free, Corporate Monitor, Reputex, Responsible Shopper and Sustainability Victoria.

Hide & Seek Melbourne

Hide & Seek Melbourne is a funky and compact guide to Melbourne's hidden treasures. From restaurants and shops to live music venues, the book features 40 secret and intriguing places that you won’t find in any regular travel guide. Each place is featured over a double-page spread with information, images and a handy location map. There are also overview maps of the CBD and inner suburbs, and pages at the back where you can list your own Melbourne discoveries.

Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search For Everything

It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby - and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance. So she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains twenty-five pounds, an ashram in India, where she finds that enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to scrub the temple floor, and Bali where a toothless medicine man of indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up on her.

The Pleasures and Sorrows Of Work

We spend most of our waking lives at work — in occupations often chosen by our unthinking sixteen-year-old selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what it might mean for us.

Equally intrigued by work's pleasures and its pains, Alain de Botton here heads out into the under-charted worlds of the office, the factory, the fishing fleet and the logistics centre, ears and eyes open to the beauty, interest and sheer strangeness of the modern workplace. Along the way he tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we can ask about work: Why do we do it? What makes it pleasurable? What is its meaning? And why do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also the planet?

Characteristically lucid, witty and inventive, Alain de Botton's 'song for occupations' is a celebration and exploration of an aspect of life which is all too often ignored and yet as central to us as our love lives.

Meet Me At Mike's

From Melbourne’s best loved crafty store comes Meet Me at Mike’s, a cornucopia of crafty fun and inspiration. Queen of Crafters Pip Lincolne has gathered 25 of the best projects from the country’s most creative cleverbods -everything from baby yoga pants and clutch purses to hankies and softies. You can sew, knit, crochet, collage and screenprint yourself into a frenzy! Each cute and quirky project comes with easy-to-follow instructions and full-size fold out patterns. With such a fabulous range of ideas, you’ll find something to make for all your favourite pals. If you’re looking for fun and creative things to brighten up everyone’s day, have a peek inside and get crafty!