Step By Step, Little By Little

Newcastle Herald

Saturday March 22, 2008

EDITED BY ELVIRA SPROGIS

YOU CAN SAVE THE PLANET

101 ways you can make a difference

Jacquie Wines, Lothian Children's Books, $12.99

This timely number comes with a warning: Your parents' generation has messed up the planet, now it's up to you to save it.

It's a big job, for sure, but the advice contained here is empowering and enlightening.

The book opens with alarming information about the impact of climate change, and then sets kiddies to work on their rescue mission, arming them with facts, figures and practical ideas.

The littlies in my life relish responsibility and involvement, and therein lies the essence of You Can Save The Planet.

The intrinsic message about absolutely everybody having a vital and positive role to play can surely apply anywhere, any time.

The book implores youngsters to think and act: switch appliances off at the wall socket; grow your own food; dig a frog pond; adopt a chook; be a trendsetter, not a fashion victim, by buying fewer clothes; re-use your rubbish creatively, finding new ideas for old packaging; get on your bike.

They're simple household solutions and fun projects for every child to consider, and the possibilities are endless.

A young reader's biggest job, I suspect, will be convincing the olds oblivious to the facts that changing our ways is necessary and rather urgent.

Gina Cranson

THE CHOICE

Nicholas Sparks

Hatchette Livre

272pp, $32.95

There's never a day when you don't enjoy a new novel by Nicholas Sparks. This is one of those books you read in one sitting, your right hand absent-mindedly reaching for sustenance while your eyes never lift from the page.

The synopsis on the back of the book and the reality of reading it are poles apart, but you'll work it out eventually.

The Choice is the story of Travis Parker, written from his point of view. He has everything a man could want but believes a serious relationship could cramp his style.

Sure enough, he finds his soulmate.

Life is never the same again.

But the book is not about the beginning of their relationship, or even about their years of marriage. It's about decisions that affect the future.

Like The Notebook, it's a story you wish you could enforce as obligatory reading for every male on the planet.

Enjoy and savour every line, every word and every nuance.

Ann-Maree Lourey

THINK OF AN ELEPHANT: Combining science and spirituality for a better life

Paul Bailey

Watkins Publishing, $29.95

Few would argue against the proposition that we live in difficult times.

Most of us feel, not infrequently, that we are not coping all that well.

Here is another recruit to the shelves of self-help books which use the language of popular psychology and sociology to explain why we are troubled and purport to show us a way out.

The book is densely written and often repetitive. Bailey's principal hypothesis is that all things are interconnected, a belief that is also foundational to Buddhism. Further, he believes that we need to transcend our understanding of religion to some joint commonality with science.

I am uneasy about his assertions of "proven fact" as, for example, 70 per cent of all medical treatments are "placebo effects" or that psychic healing exists.

Alas, I fear I shall just have to muddle along much as I did before reading this book.

David Christie

FATAL ATTRACTION

Carol Smith

Hachette Livre

278pp, $32.95

If you've ever had a one-night stand or a relationship that ended badly, maybe you don't want to read this. Then again, maybe you should. Fatal Attraction is a chilling novel about obsession.

Love at first sight claims Rose Prescott when she sees Joe, a brilliant student with smouldering good looks, instant charm and biting wit.

Rose is an exceptional student, too, and she believes their future together is assured after a drunken night in bed, though neither remembers what happened very clearly.

The morning after Joe doesn't even recognise her and tells Rose to get out of his flat. In the days and years that follow he makes it clear he doesn't want anything to do with her and humiliates her in public.

Not a good thing to do to a woman who, we learn in the novel's opening line, killed for the first time when she was six.

Fatal Attraction is a gripping read. Once Rose claims you, she just doesn't let go.

Steve Woodman

CORRUGATED IRON

Adam Mornement & Simon Holloway

Frances Lincoln

223pp, $89.95

Anyone who knows anything about contemporary architecture and building understands the importance of corrugated iron.

A versatile and relatively inexpensive material, it has an increasingly important role to play in sustainable building given its relatively low embodied energy and ability to be recycled.

When combined with appropriate design and good insulation, it is a first-class building material.

This handsome hardcover edition should appeal to anyone with more than a passing interest in architecture.

The book is well illustrated on every page with either monochrome or colour photographs.

Both the historic and the contemporary illustrations are fascinating.

The book devotes considerable space to the history of the material (invented in 1829) and it has an international perspective.

Stephen Williams

BESTSELLERS

NON FICTION

Blood of Flowers

Anita Amirrezvani

$22.99

Van Diemans Land