
		{"id":1059,"date":"2020-12-12T10:27:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T23:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/?p=1059"},"modified":"2020-12-09T10:39:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T23:39:24","slug":"brain-food-book-podcast-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/brain-food-book-podcast-reviews","title":{"rendered":"Brain food: Book and podcast reviews by the WILD editors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beach season is here, which means you need book and podcast reviews pronto!<\/p>\n<h1><b>BOOKS<\/b><\/h1>\n<h2><b>Hidden Places<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SARAH BAXTER, MURDOCH BOOKS<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although soaring to international destinations is off the travel menu for a while, Sarah Baxter\u2019s new book <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hidden Places<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> will instantly transport you to 25 of the world\u2019s most secret destinations. In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hidden Places<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Baxter, a well-known journalist and author, weaves evocative text with Amy Grimes\u2019 beautiful illustrations. Soft and whimsical colours merge together to tell a story of wanderlust. Discover an ancient cave, hidden in the depths of the jungle in Belize, that offers a gateway to the Mayan underworld. Explore a mysterious underwater monument sunken off the Ryukyu Islands in Japan or get lost in prehistoric village covered for centuries by a huge sand dune in the Orkney Islands. Blending evocative text and beautiful illustrations, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hidden Places<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> offers a much-needed escape for those itching to explore. It\u2019s time to get out the travel diary and start planning your next secret getaway. <\/span><b>KD<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>The Less Waste No Fuss Kitchen<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LINDSAY MILES, HARDIE GRANT BOOKS<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Walk over to your kitchen and open the pantry doors. What do you see? Flours, nuts, chips and biscuits all wrapped in single-use plastic? Rice and pasta packets hidden at the back of the pantry, shadowed by outdated tins of lentils and soup? If you relate to this common kitchen scenario, don\u2019t worry \u2026 us too. Thankfully, though, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Less Waste No Fuss Kitchen<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> book by zero-waste educator and author, Lindsay Miles, will transform the way you shop, cook and eat. In the book, Miles focuses on three pillars: plastic and packaging; carbon footprint and climate change; and food waste and landfill. As you read, you quickly learn how interconnected the three pillars are and what you can do to kick kitchen waste to the kerb \u2014 with ease. Learn how to avoid single-use packaging, switch up your daily staples, the dirty dozen and the clean 15, how to compost correctly and so much more. <\/span><b>KD<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>Such a Fun Age<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">KILEY REID, BLOOMSBURY<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Race dynamics, class and money are deftly observed in this razor-sharp debut novel by Kiley Reid. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such a Fun Age<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> opens with a scene you are unlikely to forget: a young black babysitter, her four-year-old white charge by her side, is accosted by a security guard in a supermarket, who accuses her of kidnapping the child. From there, a story of racism, white \u201csaviours\u201d and privilege unfolds with damning observation. Reid\u2019s light and breezy writing is well equipped to handle the slippery facets of liberal racism, and she does so without ever falling to stereotypes, allowing her well hashed out characters to paint intricate nuance on every page. Fast-paced and compulsively readable, Reid\u2019s debut manoeuvres between race-related explorations and musings on money, class and dating with refreshing authenticity. A cracking debut that is as fresh and stylish as it is pointedly honest. <\/span><b>CH<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>The Dutch House<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ANN PATCHETT, BLOOMSBURY<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ann Patchett\u2019s eighth novel, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Dutch House<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is a quietly devastating family drama spanning five decades. The story centres around siblings Mauve and Danny, and at the centre of their unbreakable bond is a house as destructive as it is magnificent. Add an evil stepmother to the mix and what Patchett clearly delivers is a modern fairy tale spun with the most delicate of intricacies and nuance. But if the bones of the novel are rooted in fairy tale, Patchett\u2019s writing is anything but childlike; <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Dutch House<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">looping timeline is meticulously structured to build patterns of narrative that sew weight into even the smallest moments between Mauve and Danny. And unlike a fairy tale, the novel\u2019s characters are drawn with melancholic realism, wholly believable in their unrealised potential and devastating mistakes. Riveting, enticing and utterly brilliant. <\/span><b>CH<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>American Dirt<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">JEANINE CUMMINS, HACHETTE<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Dirt<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a gripping story of mother and son on Mexico\u2019s migrant trail. Shining a searing spotlight on what it means to be a migrant on the run for freedom, the novel follows Lydia and her eight-year-old son Luca as they flee from the mass slaughter of their entire family at a celebratory barbecue. Cummins\u2019 novel was met with controversy at its release for using the trauma of South American migrants to create a Hollywood-style cartel thriller. Witbout doubt, Cummins makes use of blood-sodden terror and action-movie execution, but in doing so, she tells the story of the quotidian terrors at the US\u2013Mexico border with such pathos that her readers are forced to confront the stories of those we rarely get to hear. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American Dirt<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> occasionally slips into sensationalist territory, but there is no denying the wrenching truths that fill this heartbreaking novel. <\/span><b>CH<\/b><\/p>\n<h1><b>PODCAST<\/b><\/h1>\n<h2><b>Unlocking Us with Bren\u00e9 Brown<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bren\u00e9 Brown \u2026 what a woman! Just when we thought we couldn\u2019t love the bestselling author and researcher any more she goes and creates her very own podcast, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlocking Us with Bren\u00e9 Brown<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Together with her guests, Brown explores and unpacks the ideas, stories and experiences that connect us all to our \u201cshared humanness\u201d. With the help of an impressive line-up of guests such as Reese Witherspoon, Alicia Keys, Dr Marc Brackett, David Kessler and Glennon Doyle, Brown unlocks messy, raw, vulnerable and relatable conversations. In each episode of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlocking Us with Bren\u00e9 Brown<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you\u2019ll find yourself sitting in the deepest, most human part of who you are and asking yourself the same questions. Brown shares topics like anxiety, over- and under-functioning, loneliness, connection, faith, belonging and grief, adding plenty of laughs and realness to these often dense and heavy subject matters. Grab your headphones, hit play on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlocking Us with Bren\u00e9 Brown<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and get to know yourself better. <\/span><b>KD<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Find out what WILD editors Kate Duncan and Charlie Hale are reading and listening to now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[256,203,257,204,148],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}