An american author weighs in on the laid-back aussie nature. I thank the customs agent who has graciously allowed me to enter Australia. “No worries,” he says. This stops me for a second. It sounds as if he is absolving me from some sin rather than simply responding to my perfunctory gratitude. In the cab, […]

NOTE: To ensure safety, use only 25W light globes in each of the lamps featured here. Materials Newspaper Cube shapes wire frame (available at selected craft and hobby stores) Japanese handmade paper Scissors Craft glue Blunt knife Step 1 Make a newspaper template of half of the lamp frame, allowing an extra 2cm along both […]

Angel On My Shoulder – An Autobiography by Natalie Cole, (written with Digby Diehl), Warner Books, $19.95. The Grammy Award-winning singer and daughter of the legendary Nat King Cole dishes up her amazing life story with honesty and bravura. Told in straightforward and simple prose, Cole resembles a prize fighter the way she manages to […]

Worrying thoughts drive the vicious circle of anxiety. With every worrying thought, anxiety rises a little more. Challenging such thoughts enables you to jump out of the vicious circle and stop anxiety rising. As we’ve seen, worrying thoughts can be challenged with three questions: What is the evidence for what I thought? What is the […]

First, examine the pattern of worrying thoughts that can lead to stress. Now that you’ve worked through these four practice exercises, you may find it helpful to compare your responses with the various possibilities that follow. Possible response to Practice 1 What is the evidence for what I thought? When anxious I feel as if […]

Working nights may lead to more than just sleep deprivation, according to a study published in the American Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which reported a startling 60 per cent increased risk of breast cancer for women who had worked nights for more than three years. Why? Researchers think that night workers produce less […]

The word is out… The Sydney Writers’ Festival (May 19-25), will feature an all-star line-up of 150 writers from Australia and the world. Most of the festival unfolds at Wharf 4/5 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay with these writers already lined up: Janette Turner Hospital, Iain Banks, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Dessaix, Jackie French, Louis Nowra and […]

CATHERINE GILDINER, author of the award- winning best-seller, Too Close To The Falls – A Memoir (Flamingo $21.95), which has been selected as the Great Read in the March issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. A touching and hilarious story, set in the 1950s in a small town, near Niagara Falls. Catherine is a wild […]

Meet MARILYN MONROE in an exclusive extract from March Great Read: Too Close To The Falls – A Memoir by Catherine Gildiner (Flamingo, $21.95) The Marilyn Monroe saga: It is 1952 and four year old Cathy and Roy are delivering a prescription to Marilyn Monroe on the set of the movie Niagra, which is being […]

Our Great Read for February is The Sunday Wife by Cassandra King (Allen and Unwin). Look out for it in your local bookshop, bearing the Great Read Sticker! I ENDED UP AT Grayton Beach because I came to Crystal Springs first. It was three years ago, the first Wednesday in June, that Ben and I […]