Our resident foodie Chris Gordon chats with chef Yotam Ottolenghi about his gorgeous new cookbook.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently called you ‘the man who sexed up vegetables’. What’s the one ingredient you couldn’t live without to spice up a veggie dish?

As it takes two to tango, I’ll definitely need more than one, please!

Something to provide the background strength to a dish – tamarind paste, for example, which I’m using a lot at the moment. It’s very easy…

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Kyle Hughes-Odgers is the illustrator of Meg McKinlay’s Ten Tiny Things and has just released his first solo picture book, On A Small Island. Kyle is also a street artist who gets commissioned to produce large-scale public artwork. We were interested to find out about the process for each. Here is Kyle’s response.

Street art from Perth International Airport

I often get asked if it’s hard to switch between creating artwork across different scales and mediums, particularly children’s books…

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In our new monthly column, we share news from our five shops.

Hawthorn

Yotam Ottolenghi is universally adored by the staff here at Hawthorn and after a long, cold winter we are happy to be celebrating spring and its produce by cooking recipes from Ottolenghi’s new book Plenty More. We’ve been busy with lots of events, the rowdiest of which was Andy Griffiths’s, who entertained a packed shop and signed books like a rock star. He is so popular…

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After several staff members read, and loved, Clare Atkins’ debut novel Nona and Me, we were excited to make it our Young Adult Book of the Month. Here, Clare talks on the challenges of setting a book in an Aboriginal community.

I suspect that many non-Aboriginal writers are scared of writing Aboriginal characters. I know I was. It is so easy to misrepresent. Or reinforce negative stereotypes. Or gloss over negative character traits in order to counter prejudice, and…

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If you are the parent or grandparent of boys aged between five to 12, chances are you are familiar with Minecraft, a computer game. Minecraft has spawned a range of official books, rather ugly affairs, which the developers insist can only be printed at one particular European printer. As the whole demographic worldwide wants these books, it’s often hard for the printer to keep up. For local publisher, Hardie Grant Egmont, the book has been a bonanza. In…

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Our wise bookseller Agatha answers all your tricky questions. If you have a question for Agatha please email [email protected].

Readings recently suggested The Scarecrow’s Wedding as a cute gift for a couple getting married (see here). I like the idea but think scarecrows are quite creepy. Do you know of any other kids books that would work just as well?

Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver are the brains behind Baby Lit – a stylish series that recreate classic…

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My Story by Julia Gillard

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi

This House of Grief: The Story of a Murder Trial by Helen Garner

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Through the Seasons by Annabel Langbein

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein

A Rightful Place: Race, Recognition and a More Complete Commonwealth (Quarterly Essay…

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On one point Erik Jensen is emphatic when discussing his book Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen: ‘This book is not about art. It’s a character study.’ Adam Cullen was a Sydney artist who flamed out in his forties on alcohol and drugs. He won the Archibald Prize for his portrait of David Wenham but was also notorious for his headline bad-boy behaviour. Because I live in New York, I had never heard of Cullen. Not…

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A couple of years back I had the honour of judging the Commonwealth Book Prize for a best first book. When it came to final deliberations, it was an almost unbearable choice between two of the regional winners: Lisa O’Donnell’s terrific The Death of Bees, and Nayomi Munaweera’s wondrous Island of a Thousand Mirrors. O’Donnell got the gong, as it turned out, but I’m ever so glad to see that Munaweera, formerly published only in Sri Lanka, is…

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Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Kara Nicholson is reading This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein

I’ve just started reading Naomi Klein’s latest book. If the no-nonsense front cover and title are anything to go by, I’m in for a serious and thought-provoking read. Klein’s last book, The Shock Doctrine, was a sobering and…

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