Modern Australian

Oprah Winfrey has been surprising her guests with makeovers, cars, reunions, and any kind of gift you can think of for 25 years, but a surprise celebrity-studded farewell for the talk show legend left her in tears. A host of Oprah’s celebrity friends including Madonna, Tom Hanks, and Tom Cruise made up the secret guest […]

One in 100 Australians suffer from coeliac disease, an auto-immune disorder caused by gluten in food. Dietician Karen Inge reports on the popularity of gluten-free diets and who actually needs to be on them. It’s amazing how the popularity and availability of gluten-free foods has increased in recent years. No longer do you have to […]

What are your smart strategies to stop the kilo creep this year? Here's a top 10 list to give you some ideas.

What are your smart strategies to stop the kilo creep this year? Here’s a top 10 list to give you some ideas: 1. Tread well: One of the easiest, foolproof ways to train in the sun, hail or rain is on a home treadmill. If you’re a first timer, a great idea is to hire […]

As the sex scandal surrounding the International Monetary Fund chief rages on, Bryce Corbett questions whether the French have it right when it comes to sexual mores. The arrest in New York at the weekend of International Monetary Fund chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has caused shockwaves around the world, and once again raised the topic of […]

Caribou Island by David Vann, Penguin, $24.95. When Vann ‘s first work of fiction, Legend Of A Suicide, was published in 2009, it shot across the literary world like a comet, blazing a tail of prizes and critical acclaim that took pretty much everyone — including the author — by surprise. This novel proves it […]

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, Atlantic, $32.99. A fascinating book about the way computers and the internet are changing the way we read and absorb information. The basic premise is this: after centuries of linear, literary thinking, book-type thinking, our minds are being rewired into a new kind of mind that operates in short, disjointed, […]

Batavia by Peter FitzSimons, Random House, $49.95. I would rather sail around Antarctica on the Titanic twice than cruise the coast of West Australia on the Batavia. Not only did 74 per cent of women survive the sinking of the Titanic, none of them or their husbands and children were murdered, or compelled to kill, […]

The Shelly Beach Writers’ Group by June Loves, Viking, $29.95. It’s not that her unpleasant husband dumped her that bothers 50-something Gina Laurel, it’s the fact he beat her to it and she hadn’t quite come up with plan b. That’s how former corporate high-flier Gina finds herself house- and dog-sitting at Shelly Beach, with […]