It's a rare writer who can link the deep-science world of particle physics with the incomprehensible business of hedge-fund management - and make you want to read on.
The Fear Index by Robert Harris, Hutchinson, $19.95
It’s a rare writer who can link the deep-science world of particle physics with the incomprehensible business of hedge-fund management — and make you want to read on.
But Robert Harris does the trick with this edge-of-the-seat thriller about a mathematical genius, Dr Alex Hoffman, designer of a complex computer program which taps into human fear and panic to predict movements on the stock exchange.
He’s now filthy rich (“one billion, ballpark”) and about to launch VIXAL-4, the ultimate, failsafe version of his dealer-machine — when someone breaks into his mansion and things start to unravel.
Because VIXAL-4, like Hal in 2001:A Space Odyssey, is developing a will of its own, threatening not just its creator, but the entire financial system.
Can Hoffman stop his monster in time? The ingenious plot skirts so close to reality it’s hard to know the truth from fiction, making this book not just fun, but genuinely scary.
It's a thought-provoking look at crime and rehabilitation wrapped up in a thriller that will have you compulsively flipping pages well into the small hours.
Eleven-year old Jade from the notoriously bad Walker family is never left in any doubt that she won’t amount anything, while young Bel Oldacre is abused by her rich mother and stepfather.
They’re two damaged girls who spend just one day together, one day in which they’re charged with the murder of a four-year old girl.
Years later crime reporter Kirsty Lindsay and funfair cleaner Amber Gordon bump into each other in a grim English seaside town, two women living with a shameful secret, protected by their new names.
But which is Bel and which is Jade? And who is killing young women in this seedy holiday destination?
Alex Marwood interweaves the story of the two girls, and the women they grew up to be with great skill.
It’s a thought-provoking look at crime and rehabilitation wrapped up in a thriller that will have you compulsively flipping pages well into the small hours.
There's much more to the particularly disturbing murder of prostitute Bernice Hogan than police are letting on and journalist Jack Gannon is determined to discover the truth.
There’s much more to the particularly disturbing murder of prostitute Bernice Hogan than police are letting on and journalist Jack Gannon is determined to discover the truth.
He also wants to know what happened to her friend Jolene Peller who went missing on the night of the murder, just when she was about to leave town to start a new life.
Gannon’s instincts are spot on. Police appear to suspect one of their own, the heroic Karl Styebeck who’s famous for saving a family from the burning house.
But this story could prove to be the undoing of Buffalo’s finest crime reporter. He’s forced to go it alone, digging deep into the Styebeck family’s buried past, with increasing urgency, as more and more girls are found dead.
This is the first Jack Gannon novel from thriller writer Rick Mofina, and it’s a ripper, ten out ten for intensity.
Aaron Woolcott works in the family's small publishing business writing beginner's guides to just about everything, but when his wife Dorothy is killed, he doesn't have a clue where to start.
The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler, Chatto & Windus, $29.95
Aaron Woolcott works in the family’s small publishing business writing beginner’s guides to just about everything, but when his wife Dorothy is killed mid-argument by a falling oak tree he doesn’t have a clue where to start.
Dorothy’s apparent return from the dead just under a year later doesn’t perturb him but he does find the reactions of others a little strange.
They prefer not to look at her, even when she gives one of her characteristic dry chuckles.
The Beginner’s Goodbye is a quietly quirky post-mortem of an unremarkable marriage. Aaron tells his story in the first person, and as he slowly begins to understand his relationship, his dead wife and himself, so do we.
Dead Dorothy is less happy with her marriage than she seemed to be in life.
But her intermittent reappearances give her and Aaron time to resolve their differences and lost opportunities. A wise, gently funny, charming novel.
Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood, Allen & Unwin, $22.99
The Honourable Phryne Fisher is a glamorous, gutsy, and gloriously wealthy detective in 1920s Australia.
Miss Fisher adores lobster mayonnaise with cucumber, gowns of liquid satin, and catching the criminals who roam the well-appointed drawing rooms and seedy backstreets of Melbourne.
Kerry Greenwood’s novels have often been compared to those of Agatha Christie, and while similarities and cheeky references abound, Miss Fisher is quicker, kinder, racier, and much more democratic than any character sprung from the pen of Dame Agatha.
Phryne starved “like Billy-o” until she was twelve years old and three people between her father and his inheritance died.
It’s an experience that’s given her an appealing irreverence and fearlessness, and in Cocaine Blues she’s something of an action hero.
The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries have been re-released to coincide with Phryne’s debut on Australian television, so if you haven’t fallen for her yet prepare to be seduced.
When it comes to money talk, sometimes it's just easier to bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best. Take charge now by asking yourself the following questions.
It is essential for all families to have a household budget and stick to it. If you spend more than you earn, it can quickly land you on the rollercoaster of debt. Look for ways to reduce spending such as using discount petrol dockets, buying generic brand groceries, taking your own lunch to work and cutting back on take-away dinners. Use one of the many online budget trackers provided by financial institutions.
A strategy for paying off debts?
One of the biggest threats to family budgets is credit card debt. Credit cards are fine if they are paid off in full each month before interest is incurred. But if there is a large amount of debt sitting on a card, it could be costing you big time as interest rates on credit cards can be as high as 20 per cent or more. It’s important to pay off this kind of debt as fast as possible. To do this, you will need to make more than the minimum repayments each month. If you have several cards maxed-out, consider rolling all the debt in to one low interest-bearing card to save on interest costs. Once you’ve paid off the credit cards, tackle personal loans and the mortgage next. If you can, make extra repayments on your home loan and reduce interest.
Adequate protection if something happened to you?
It is something we don’t like to think about, but you need to ask yourself how your family would cope financially if you or your partner prematurely died, were injured in an accident or became too sick to work. These days, insurance doesn’t have to be a big drain on the budget. If cash flow is tight, you can get affordable life insurance and income protection through your superannuation. If finances allow, it’s also wise to look into Trauma and Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) insurance.
An up-to-date will?
Having an up-to-date will is a must and it’s also advisable to have an enduring power of attorney and advanced health directive in place so someone can make financial or health decisions on your behalf if you are unable to.
An emergency fund?
As a contingency for life’s unexpected expenses, it is essential to have an emergency fund or access to cash through a mortgage redraw facility or offset account. A good rule of thumb is to have at least three months salary in the kitty. This may seem a tall order for most, but it’s worth starting to build this up because you never know when you might need it.
A savings plan for the future?
While it’s important to create financial security for your family today, it’s also vital to have a long-term plan for the future. A financial planner can help you work out how much you will need to live the lifestyle you want in retirement. They can also assist with strategies to boost your super, such as consolidating multiple accounts to reduce fees and salary sacrificing.
Dianne Charman is an AMP financial planner and mother of two.
Dianne Charman is an Authorised Representative of AMP Financial Planning Pty Ltd, ABN 89 051 208 327, AFS Licence No. 232706. Any advice given is general only and has not taken into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of this, before acting on any advice, you should consult a financial planner to consider how appropriate the advice is to your objectives, financial situation and needs.
Autumn is the gentle time in Australia. Spring can suddenly present you with a frost that withers the new shoots and tomatoes, but autumn is mostly blue skies. Autumn rain is usually gentle, the great thunder heads of summer gone.
As I write this the persimmons are ripe, big fat orange fruit, and the leaves are just turning orange.
In a few weeks they’ll be stunning, a tree like a blaze of fire, with leaves that will drop to an almost perfect circle on the ground.
I only rake them after they have turned brown. The persimmons will still be hanging like orange globes on the bare tree, unless the birds have eaten them, which they probably will — but then the birds are even more beautiful than the fruit.
The pomegranates are round and gorgeous too. The pomegranate leaves have turned bright yellow and the sugar maples have turned bright red.
You need cold night and warm days and little wind for the best autumn colours, as well as a good wet summer.
We’ve had the wet summer all right and the autumn colours are the most stunning I have ever seen.
If your climate is too warm for traditional autumn leaves, you may still be able to get some autumn colour with crepe myrtles, both the brilliant purple, mauve, pink or white blooms and the reddish orange leaves.
Old-fashioned crepe myrtle varieties were prone to mildew in warm and humid climates — or even if it wasn’t particularly warm and humid.
Modern varieties both bloom longer and are pretty much disease free, no matter what the weather throws at them.
I inherited an old crepe myrtle when we bought our place, and a hideous straggly multi-stemmed bush it is, with vaguely pink blooms almost hidden by the branches.
But the new varieties I planted about five years ago are one of the most stunning features of our autumn garden.
You can prune crepe myrtles to keep them as low shrubs, but if you let them grow tall to their natural 3-6 metres high they have smooth mottled trunks, one of the most beautiful barks you can find in the backyard.
Crepe myrtles require little care to keep them lovely. Prune off spent flowers in winter, if you get around to it.
If you don’t, they’ll eventually turn into small crisp debris that blows away in the wind. Do prune off small low twiggy branches though, to keep the smooth ‘top model perfect’ slim crepe myrtle shape.
Older varieties tended to sucker, so you ended up with a big bushy mass instead of an elegant shape.
Be firm if your crepe myrtle shows any tendency to sucker and snap off suckers at once. Sucker-bushes can become so shaggy that even the flowers look messy, instead of one of the highlights of the autumn garden.
Crepe myrtle flowers seem to jump at you. One day it’ll be an unremarkable green tree; the next there’ll be a brilliant blaze of blooms.
The new varieties flower for months, from early autumn well into winter. Make sure you plant them where you can see the tops of the trees as the plant grows taller.
In cold areas, plant them near a warm sunny wall or in a sheltered courtyard, as they don’t like cold winds.
In return you’ll get the most brilliant of autumn blooms, colour without fuss for decades in almost any garden in Australia.
Juliane Koepcke visits the site of the plane crash that nearly claimed her life.
Juliane Koepcke remembers her fall from the sky as if it were a fragment of a dream. There is a whooshing in her ears, a sensation of spinning, and finally a glimpse of what looks like a giant bunch of broccoli hurtling towards her. Then everything is dark and silent. Except for the insects and the bats and the snakes.
High above the Peruvian jungle, the aircraft Juliane was travelling in had broken up in a violent electrical storm. Still strapped into a row of seats, she had fallen more than three kilometres.
Looking around at the strange, glistening fauna of the forest floor, she felt less a sense of terror than bewilderment. The most bewildering thing of all was that she was still alive.
“That was the first big shock,” she says. “I couldn’t actually move, but at least I knew I wasn’t dead. I understood what had happened, that I’d fallen from the plane, but it made no sense.
“How could I be alive? Then I felt the quiet, and although I wasn’t afraid, exactly, I had this terrible feeling of having been abandoned.”
More than 40 years after what was hailed around the world as the ultimate story of human survival, Juliane, a talkative, well-groomed blonde, is making a soft landing on a London hotel sofa.
She still has a touch of knee-pain, occasional neck twinges, and finds it easier to sleep with an orthopaedic pillow, but at 57 appears to be remarkably intact.
What hurts most, she says, is that over the years her story has been embellished and re-worked by others to the point where much of the truth has been lost.
“I was a naive teenager when it happened,” she tells me. “I didn’t know much about the world, I was overwhelmed by all the attention and I let other people speak for me.”
Now Juliane has written her own account of the Peruvian plane crash and her subsequent — equally remarkable — escape from the jungle.
“As much as anything,” she says, “I wanted to make sense of it all, and the things that happened afterwards. It had a very deep effect on me that went beyond all the focus on how I survived.”
One of the unhappy consequences of her survival was the painful estrangement it caused between Juliane and her father, Hans-Wilhelm, a brilliant, but emotionally austere German bio-scientist.
Juliane’s mother, Maria, died in the crash, and Hans-Wilhelm struggled to come to terms with the fact that while his 17-year-old daughter returned home a global celebrity, his wife’s remains lay rotting in the jungle.
“For a long time he did not want to see me,” says Juliane. “He was paralysed by grief and I think some sense of guilt, and it was very difficult for him to accept that his wife had died and I was alive.
“Mummy and I looked a lot like each other, and I think every time he saw me it reminded him too much of her. So he sent me away, and it was a long time before we could talk to each other again.”
On Christmas Eve, 1971, Maria and Juliane were booked aboard a flight from Lima to the provincial town of Pucallpa where Hans-Wilhelm was working.
The aircraft, a Lockheed L-188A turboprop, carrying 86 passengers and six crew took off before noon in good weather, but after about 30 minutes ran into a thunderstorm.
“I was in a window seat because I always liked looking down at the forests,” Juliane says, “but soon it was too dark to see. It was as though night had fallen, and there was a tremendous amount of turbulence and lightning all around us.
“My mother said, ‘I don’t like this’, but I don’t think I was frightened. I wasn’t a nervous flyer. Everyone had been in such a good mood. They were excited about going home for Christmas and they were carrying presents, but now they were crying and praying.”
Minutes later, the entire plane lit up as a blinding flash of lightning ricocheted off the starboard wing. “I remember my mother turning to me, quite calmly, and saying, ‘Now it’s over.’
“Those must have been her last words. All I could hear were the engines roaring and people screaming, and the wind in my ears. And then I was no longer in the plane. I was falling.”
When I Fell From the Sky: The True Story of One Woman’s Miraculous Survival
Read more of this story in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux‘s wedding plans are well under way with the pair looking at the exclusive Elounda Beach Hotel & Villas resort in Crete to host their July nuptials.
Jen has reportedly visited the hotel recently looking for a wedding venue, with the hotel’s manager telling celebrity website TMZ “She has connections on the other side of the island as well”.
Take a look at the stunning Elounda Beach Hotel & Villas resort here!
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux are planning their Greek wedding!
The stunning Elounda Beach Hotel & Villas resort.
The stunning Elounda Beach Hotel & Villas resort.
A number of celebrity guests are expected to attend the wedding.
The pair are planning on tying the knot in a traditional blue-domed chapel.
Visitation with his mother is very much to her convenience, she drives a nice car and lives in a wealthy neighbourhood yet she only pays $100 a month in child support! My husband refuses to remodify the payments because he doesn’t want to cause waves. I can kind of see his point of view, however, the situation leaves me financially drained. It’s just not fair to me. And though I have been more of a mother figure than his mum I am not treated as an equal.
I am becoming increasingly unhappy with the situation and have bailed before but I truly love my husband and have returned to try to make things work. However, as bad as this sounds I really feel nothing at all for my stepson. He is eight-years-old and I am only going through the motions of being a step-parent. I am relieved when he is at his mother’s house and enjoy the time away from him. I dread when he comes back.
I would never harm him in anyway but I wish so badly that he would just go live with his mother. I can honestly say if I never saw him again I wouldn’t shed a tear or miss him one single bit! It would be AWSOME if he moved out of state and I could never see him again. I love the alone time with my husband and the only reason I have lasted this long is because I love him so much. I know this may sound selfish, but I miss my husband.
If you sincerely want to make a go of it then the effort has to come from you as well as the recognition that you need to look honestly at your behaviour. Whatever you might think, you have not given 150 per cent nor are you a mother figure to this little boy, who appears to be let down badly by both you and his mother so his father’s love and affection will be even more important. By all means enjoy the time alone with your husband, but stop thinking about yourself the rest of the time, and if you want to be treated as an equal then behave like one.
If you can’t love your stepson then at least treat him with respect, as you would anyone else of importance to your husband. Talk to your husband without being negative about his son and ask him what he thinks would make life easier all round for the three of you. Work as a team with him to make his son feel loved and cherished. Children are very intuitive and he will know that you don’t like him and can’t wait to be rid of him, so you cannot expect a positive response or any sort of warm relationship until you put the real effort in yourself.
You’ve built a strong and loving relationship with his dad and you need to build one with him so try doing some things together just for the two of you. It could be connected to his dad, like organising a birthday treat or cooking him a special meal, because one thing you have in common is that you both love the same person and can start from that angle.
At the heart of this is the simple fact that you fell in love with a man who is a fantastic dad and he always will be but whether or not he is always your husband will undoubtedly be affected by how you treat his son. You don’t have to be your step son’s mother but if you get this right you and he could have a very strong friendship which can only enhance your marriage.
Your say: Have you had a similar experience? Share your stories and thoughts below.
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