Book Recommendations Archives

What you post on a blog or tweet to your followers can get you arrested or cost you a lot of money in legal battles. This practical guide shows you how to stay out of trouble when you write online. Every time you blog or tweet you may be subject to the laws of more than 200 jurisdictions. As more than a few bloggers or tweeters have discovered, you can be sued in your own country, or arrested i... Read more

In her fourth novel, Various Pets Alive & Dead, Marina Lewycka employs her customary brand of keen wit and farcical comedy to explore the ever-present, ever widening gap that separates one generation from the next. Switching scenes between Doncaster and London, this is a refreshingly original and absurdly funny commentary on modern values told with a delicious combination of irony and dark ... Read more

The Booktopia Book Guru asks Cathy Kelly bestselling author of The House on Willow Street, Homecoming, Once in a Lifetime, Lessons in Heartbreak and many more… Six Sharp Questions ———————————– 1. Congratulations, you have a new book. What is it about and what does it mean to you? The House on Willow Street is about how the ... Read more

Sweet Old World is a stunning, unputdownable novel, with an interesting twist: its protagonist, David, is a middle-aged man and a little lost: he longs for a child. He meets Tania under unusual circumstances, in a remote part of Ireland, and their intense affair kindles a new hope in him that he will, now, some day be a father. The novel is about their affair and its endpoint, which is one of t... Read more

The co-founder of LinkedIn offers a revolutionary new blueprint for thriving in today’s fractured world of work… From the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn and author Ben Casnocha comes a revolutionary new book on how to apply the strategies of successful entrepreneurship to your career: in other words, how to run the ‘start-up of you’. In a world where wages are virtu... Read more

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU9-8muvjtU&rel=0] I was surprised and saddened to hear that Marian Keyes, the woman dubbed ‘the queen of chick-lit’, the funny and brilliant author of such enduring classics as Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel’s Holiday, and Anybody Out There, had stopped writing because she was crippled by depression. ‘I c... Read more

Kate Cuthbert, Editor of Booktopia’s Monthly Romance BUZZ has asked me to read the five romance novels featured below. She knows that I don’t read romance novels. I’ve read 19th century romances but I have never finished a Fabio-covered romance. She ardently (I can use ‘ardently’ in this context) believes I haven’t fallen in love with the romance genre becaus... Read more

Love is… What? What the hell is it? My definition of love is only one of billions. As is yours. Love doesn’t always come to us on a Hallmark card. Sometimes it comes dressed in a clown suit. Sometimes it looks like a lasagne or smells like smelly feet. Sometimes, what we think is a just a vigorous game of Twister is, in reality, the most romantic moment of our lives. Love can be sad... Read more

Love is everywhere. Love with a small ‘l’, that is. Little loves. Cheaply bought. Easily lost. It’s time to reset the benchmark. We shouldn’t be satisfied with any old love… Let’s be brave. Let’s go for all or nothing. Let’s hold out for BIG LOVE. What’s BIG LOVE? Oh, you poor, poor thing… there, there. Help is at hand. BIG LOVE, an in... Read more

The Booktopia Book Guru asks Matthew Green (aka Matthew Dicks) author of Memoirs Of An Imaginary Friend, Unexpectedly, Milo and Something Missing Ten Terrifying Questions ———————— 1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? I grew up in the small town of Blackstone, Massachusett... Read more