#Craft tips
Knit edgings & trims, 150 stitches
I had better confess straight away: Harmony Guides are my knitting bibles. I have two of the older editions of the Guides to Knitting Stitches and hardly a ...
Curated Topic
#Recommended books
Read our curated recommendations and practical advice for Recommended books on Recommended in NZ.
34 articles
#Recommended books
The truly terribly horrible sweater … that Grandma knit
For his birthday, little Cameron gets a colourful hand knitted sweater from his grandma. Have you ever received a present that was made with love especially for you ...
#Craft tips
Special family knits: 25 handknits for all seasons
Debbie Bliss patterns are always worth a look, if not for the actual pattern, then certainly for inspiration. ‘Special family knits: 25 handknits for all seasons’ has great ...
#Craft tips
25 bags to knit: Beautiful bags in stylish colours
I’ve always loved making my own bags, and I’m one of those women who think one can’t have too many bags. Some of my handmade bags have been ...
#Recommended books
A mini guide to the identification of New Zealand spiders
It’s one of these books I have an inane aversion to opening. Even looking at mere pictures of creepy crawlies is not my thing. But as it is ...
#Food tips
Slow cooker: Easy and delicious recipes for all seasons
Ilove the melt-in-the-mouth silkiness of a slow-cooked pork curry, the hearty creaminess of home-made baked beans and the rich, sweet lusciousness of a sticky date pudding. In fact, ...
#Food tips
The complete Australian guide for parents: Managing your child’s food allergies
It’s great to find a book that takes a complete look at food allergies in children – from understanding the nature of allergies and diagnostics to the importance ...
#Craft tips
Finishing techniques for crochet
Most crafters like their ‘crafty’ books and often have a small library of useful guides. My stash of craft books is fairly small because styles and colours usually ...
#Food tips
The organic pharmacy
In her introduction author Margo Marrone, a qualified pharmacist, herbalist and homeopath, illustrates the fact that all aspects of our lives are connected to each other. When she ...
#Food tips
Everything but the squeal: A year of pigging out in northern Spain
Much has been written about some foods – almost too much: Jack ate locusts at the back of Timbuktu, Jill had an unforgettable donkey steak in the Andes ...
#Food tips
Feast: Food that celebrates life
Food and eating are not just about keeping us alive – a fact nobody can explain better than Nigella Lawson. Jamie Oliver is passionate about best ingredients, Gordon ...
#Food tips
Flavours of Melbourne: A culinary biography
Chef and food writer O’Brien has put together a culinary portrait of her hometown Melbourne, the food capital of our Aussie neighbours.
#Life skills tips
Collins complete writing guide
What a cracker! This fat little paperback has taught me more about good writing than all the How-to-write-good-English guides I’ve read put together. It’s not a new book, ...
#Food tips
My year of meats
Jane Takagi-Little is a young American/Japanese documentary film maker living in New York. She is broke and looking for a job when she gets a call from her ...
#Recommended books
Five unusual novels for Christmas
You still have a few minutes left to rush to your bookshop and buy a novel for your reading friend or family member. These novels are remarkable in ...
#Food tips
Nigella Christmas
If there is one celebrity chef that can smile sweetly and show cleavage for a Christmas cookbook cover, it’s Nigella Lawson. No one else would be able to ...
#Recommended books
Alive: The story of the Andes survivors
Here’s a true life story, written by Piers Paul Read who interviewed the survivors of the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in October of 1972. As ...
#Recommended books
Cold mountain
A seeming nobody professor, Charles Frazier, from North Carolina State University sat down and began writing his first novel in the early 1990’s. By 1997, he had a ...
#Recommended books
After the absolute by David Gold
Tired of the “New Age Circus” and want something with some real meat and potatoes truth to it? Want to read it for free in the next two ...
#Recommended books
The bridge across forever
For those of you who enjoyed the best-seller Jonathan Livingston Seagull and have a taste for a real-life love story, here’s another one by the American writer Richard ...
#Recommended books
Into the wild
Long live Alexander Supertramp! Here’s a book that may look like a boring mountain hiking tale or a story about “nature” but take a second look. ‘Into the ...
#Recommended books
50 amazing and essential novels to enrich your library
I recently ran into a couple of reading lists and realized that LOVE reading book recommendations. I can’t get enough of them. So I decided to compile my ...
#Recommended books
Midnight express
Here’s a book that doesn’t look like much when you glance at the cover and read the summary. I was lucky enough to have a friend who insisted ...
#Recommended books
Replay
Replay is a novel by Ken Grimwood that won the 1988 World Fantasy Award and often gets misjudged by its cover. The book had an influence on Harold ...
#Recommended books
The outsiders
The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton, was first published in 1967 and the author was only 15 when she began writing it. She published at 18 and the ...
#Recommended books
Brave new world
Only two decades ago, Huxley’s ‘Brave new world’ was read like a futuristic science fiction novel where mankind would be transformed into a genetically engineered world of automatons. ...
#Recommended books
The fountainhead by Ayn Rand
“It all starts with Ayn Rand.” – That is the famous saying about how young, innocent minds, basking in the openness of their future, find themselves tempted into ...
#Recommended books
The Prince of Tides
It’s just too bad what Hollywood has done to true art. When Pat Conroy first penned this amazing feat, who knew it would be destroyed by the like ...
#Recommended books
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values is the Introductory course for all spiritually inclined individuals. Robert M. Pirsig’s book explores the Metaphysics of ...
#Recommended books
The road less traveled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth
The road less traveled is a book that can literally change your life. Published in 1978, this book was written by a psychiatrist M. Scott Peck who had ...
#Recommended books
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach, is a short fable that is presented in the form of a novella. Just the mere presentation of this book attracts ...
#Recommended books
From onions to pearls: A journal of awakening and deliverance
What do you get when you take a fully grown onion and begin peeling away the layers to the very core? First, you get a whole lot of ...
#Recommended books
The catcher in the rye
Banned in the US for many years because of its profanity and liberal portrayal of teenage angst and sexuality, ‘The catcher in the rye’ was eventually chosen as ...
#Recommended books
Power vs force: The hidden determinants of human behaviour
Throughout history, all major advancements have come about through the discovery of individuals who gathered together the information of their time and came to a particular conclusion which ...