Wednesday's Wonderful Book of the Week

This week's wonderful book of the week is...

Connecting Art to Stitch by Sandra Meech.

Sandra is originally from Ontario, Canada and trained as a graphic artist and designer at the Ontario College of Art. Sandra then went on to have a career in publishing in the UK and Canada and has also completed a Diploma in Stitched Textiles. 

Over the past decade and beyond, Sandra has won many awards and been a part of many exhibitions of her work.
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Will You Be Checking Out the Sydney International Food Festival?

October 1st 2010 sees the Sydney International Food Festival kickoff and commence a month-long celebration of all things food!

Capricorn Link are very excited to announce that one of our very own authors, Anissa Helou, has been invited to be a part of the World Chef Showcase!

The World Chef Showcase is where the biggest names in food today come together to share their tips and hints, and to share with you some of the biggest and emerging trends in food and cooking.

Anissa Helou is a prolific food blogger (click here to go to Anissa's blog) and author and her book, Lebanese Cuisine, has been one of our best-sellers for the last 2 years.

Anissa will be featured in the showcase on Sunday October 10th in the Star City Harbour Ballroom. You can purchase tickets here.

Read More about Anissa and her book Lebanese Cuisine...

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Wednesday's Wonderful Book of the Week - Natural Alternatives For You and Your Home

RRP: $34.99, Paperback, 208 pages
ISBN: 9781440202414
Published by KP Books

Natural Alternatives 
for You and Your Home
by Casey Kellar

From soaps, shampoos and fragrances to household cleaners and bug repellents made with natural ingredients, anyone can make a difference in the environment and their personal health. This book provides 101 recipes, with step-by-step photos, for consumers who want to make their own eco-friendly products. Personal products include bath soaps, perfumes, salves and ointments. Products for the home include window cleaners, laundry cleaners and insect repellents.

About the Author - 

Casey Kellar is the founder and former CEO of RainShadow Labs and RainCountry Naturals. She's been involved in the beauty and home fragrance industry for more than 23 years, which includes her role as a "natural" chemical designer/compounder.

Also Available from Casey Kellar - 

Quick-Fix Healthy Mix

RRP: $29.99 - ISBN: 9781440203855

This must-have reference book is for all modern families. Get back to the basics and focus on planning and making your own healthy, quality, mixes for foods and drinks that will save you money. This book will show how to 'take control' of spiraling prices at the super market by making your own simple and wholesome foods right at home. Spend a day or an evening and whip up enough food mix and cost savings to last a month or more! You'll also get over 150 low-cost, healthy, wholesome, easy, homemade, green, recycled, space-saving ideas and how-to's with 'helpful hints' and noted cost-saving solutions for you and your family and they're all easy to make. This is not your common cookbook. 

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Wednesday's Wonderful Book of the Week - Home Cheese Making

RRP: $24.99, Paperback, 224 pages
ISBN: 9781580174640, Published by Storey

Home Cheese Making
by Ricki Carroll

Widely regarded as the bible of cheese making, Home Cheese Making contains 75 recipes to make your own homemade cheeses.

Among the step-by-step tested recipes for cheese varieties are farmhouse cheddar, gouda, fromage blanc, queso blanco, marscarpone, ricotta and 30-minute mozzarella. 


Recipes for dairy products include creme fraiche, sour cream, yoghurt, keifer, buttermilk and clotted cream. There are also 60 recipes for cooking with cheese including such treats such as Ricotta Pancakes with Banana Pecan Syrup, Cream Cheese Muffins, Broiled Pears and Vermont Shepherd Cheese, Proscuitto and Cheese Calzones and Grilled Vegetable Stacks with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.


Profiles of home cheese makers and artisan cheese makers scattered throughout the text share the stories of people who love to make and eat good cheese. 


Home Cheese Making is packed full of information on how to enjoy homemade cheeses, how to serve a cheese course at home, cheese tips, lore, quotes, a cheese making glossary and much more.


About the Author - 

Ricki Carroll, widely considered to be the “queen of cheese making,” has owned and operated the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company for 30 years. She originally studied the art of cheese making in England and has passed her knowledge and experience on to hundreds of other cheese makers through her popular workshops. She lives in western Massachusetts.

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Calling All Green Thumbs!

Timber Press is one of the world's best publishers of gardening and horticulture books and we here at Capricorn Link are very proud to be the exclusive distributor for Timber Press in Australia. Below you'll find details on our best-selling Timber Press titles for the financial year 2009-2010.

Bloom-Again Orchids by Judy White
ISBN: 9781604690552, RRP: $19.99, Paperback

Black Plants by Paul Bonine
ISBN: 9780881929812, RRP: $24.99, Paperback

What's Wrong With My Plant? by David Deardorff & Kathryn Wadsworth
ISBN: 9780881929614, RRP: $39.99, Paperback

The Complete Chilli Pepper Book by Dave DeWitt & Paul W. Bosland
ISBN: 9780881929201, RRP: $39.99, Hardback

The Essential Garden Design Workbook by Rosemary Alexander
ISBN: 9780881929751, RRP: $49.99, Paperback

Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin
ISBN: 9780881929591, RRP: $39.99, Hardback

Timber Press Pocket Guide to Bamboos by Ted Jordan Meredith
ISBN: 9780881929362, RRP: $29.99, Paperback

The Encyclopedia of Herbs by Arthur O. Tucker & Thomas Debaggio
ISBN: 9780881929942, RRP: $59.99, Hardcover

The New Low-Maintenance Garden by Valerie Easton
ISBN: 9781604691665, RRP: $29.99, Paperback

A Short History of the Honey Bee by E. Readicker-Henderson
ISBN: 9780881929423, RRP: $29.99, Hardback

Available to order from all good bookstores, specialty and online retailers.

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What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)

Make sure you get your hand's on one of this year's best-selling gardening titles, the must-have
What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)

What they're saying about What's Wrong With My Plant...

"This is one of the best books I've seen for guiding the gardener through the maze of maladies that can visit garden plants. ... This book is a valuable tool and long overdue."

—Adrian Higgins, Washington Post

"...a great book for both new and experienced gardener's alike. New gardeners would benefit from it's approach of encouraging the reader to focus on the primary problem with their plant, asking them logical questions before sending them in the direction of a viable answer..."

—Your Garden Magazine Australia

"It's like having a Master Gardener at your beck and call, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, any season of the year."

—Colleen Vanderlinden, About.com

About the Authors:

David Deardorff, Ph.D., is a plant pathologist and botanist who uses public speaking, writing, and photography to explain the science and beauty of the natural world. Together, David and his co-author, Kathryn Wadsworth, present classes and workshops with a focus on diagnosing and curing plant problems. They live and garden in Port Townsend, Washington.

Read more about David here

Kathryn Wadsworth, writer, photographer, and naturalist, enjoys sharing the wonders of the natural world with others. While leading eco-tours around the world she has studied plant life and explored natural history from Australia to Alaska. Currently, she and co-author David Deardorff can be found presenting workshops on a wide variety of topics, from gardening to ecology.

Read more about Kathryn here

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Write On! Part Two

Well last Monday we shared with you five of Capricorn Link and Writer's Digest's best-selling writing-related titles. Today we'd like to share five more of our best-sellers -

Write Like the Masters by William Cane
RRP: $29.99, Paperback, 288 pages, ISBN: 9781582975924

Inspirational and informative, Write Like the Masters is the first book-length explanation of the rhetorical technique of imitation for the modern writer. Comprised of practical, inspirational, easy-to-apply advice, this helpful guide analyses the writing styles of twenty-one great novelists, explaining how readers can imitate these authors and, in the process, learn advanced writing secrets to fire up their own work.

The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell

RRP: $19.99, Paperback, 256 pages, ISBN: 9781582975900

Successfully starting and finishing a publishable novel is often like fighting a series of battles - against the page, against one's own self-doubt, against rebellious characters, etc. Featuring timeless, innovative, and concise writing strategies and focused exercises, this book is the ultimate battle plan and more - it's Sun Tzu's The Art of War for novelists. Tactics and exercises are provided on idea generation and development, character building, plotting, drafting, querying and submitting, dealing with rejection, coping with envy and unrealistic expectations, and much more.

And Here's the Kicker by Mike Sacks

RRP: $24.99, Paperback, 350 pages, ISBN: 9781582975054

Suitable for aspiring humour writers and fans of comedy, this title discusses the comedy writing process, influences of humour writers from print, TV, and film, their likes and dislikes, and experiences in the industry. It provides interviews that are wide-ranging, funny and informative, and features some of the best names in the business.

Breathing Life Into Your Characters by Rachel Friedman Ballon

RRP: $24.99, Paperback, 320 pages, ISBN: 9781582975979

How do you write about characters who are nothing like you? If you haven't experienced what your characters have experienced, if you don't think the way they think, how do you successfully get inside their heads and portray them as real people whom readers would want to know? "Breathing Life Into Your Characters" has the answers to these questions. Author and psychotherapist Rachel Ballon shows you how to mine your characters' backstories; use transactional analysis for more complex characters; understand the correlation between needs, motivation and emotions; create characters different from yourself; understand a character's internal and external struggles; provide your character with an emotional transformation; understand the influence of a dysfunctional family dynamic; unravel natural defensive mechanisms; and, much, much more.

Take Ten for Writers by Bonnie Neubauer

RRP: $29.99, Paperback, 224 pages, ISBN: 9781582975337

Writers are constantly looking for ideas. This book of ten-minute writing exercises gives writers 100 exercises with ten different variables for a total of 1,000 prompts. Guaranteed to get the words flowing, this book gives writers a creative boost by prompting them to play around with starting phrases, the last sentence of the story, locations and more. Best of all, it only takes ten minutes to explore boundless possibilities!

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Write On! The Best Writing Resources In Print Today

Did you know that Capricorn Link represents one of the most respected publishers of books for writers?

Since 1920, Writer's Digest Magazine has chronicled the culture of the modern writer, helping writers develop their craft and hone their publishing acumen. As a part of this, Writer's Digest Books offers you one of the best range of resources and guides for writers of all levels, styles and walks of life.

We at Capricorn Link are proud to be the exclusive importers and distributor's for Writer's Digest Books and here we present for you part one of a spotlight on some of the best-selling titles in the range -

Writing Better Lyrics (2nd Edition) by Pat Pattison
RRP: $24.99, Paperback, 304 pages, ISBN: 9781582975771

With additional song evaluations and exercises to help songwriters hone their lyric-writing skills, Writing Better Lyrics (2nd Edition) is more comprehensive than ever before. The book features new and expanded chapters covering such topics as: when the use of repetition can be an asset; how to successfully manipulate meter; how to work with a co-writer; how to build on ideas and generate effective titles; and, much, much more.

Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul
RRP: $24.99, Paperback, 256 pages, ISBN: 9781582975566

Writers will learn the writing and revision process that will lead them to creating more salable picture book manuscripts. Respected picture book author Ann Whitford Paul covers researching the picture books market, creating characters, point of view, plotting, tips on writing rhyme, and more - all the lessons writers need to write great picture books that will appeal to both editors and agents, as well as young readers and parents.

The Art & Craft of Writing Historical Fiction by James Alexander Thom
RRP: $24.99, Paperback, 272 pages, ISBN: 9781582975696

The historical novelist has a responsibility to make his fiction both meaningful and accurate. "The Art & Craft of Writing Historical Fiction" offers comprehensive instruction on everything from conducting research to character development and world-building to navigating matters of historical license. Author James Thom instructs readers on how to find and use historical archives; conduct physical and field research; re-create the world of their novel, as the book's characters knew it; and, seamlessly weave historical fact with their own compelling plot ideas.

Writing for Comics & Graphic Novels by Peter David

RRP: $34.99, Paperback, 192 pages, ISBN: 9781600616877

A must have for all comics, fantasy and sci-fi fans wanting to write their own comics or improve storytelling techniques, this revised edition focuses on comics, graphic novels and the updated market, particularly superhero and fantasy genres. Instruction is easy to follow, even for beginners. New content to the book includes ten brand-new pages of specific questions from aspiring fans that read the first edition, covering a range of current and updated topics. Readers will also find useful a comprehensive chapter on the do's and don'ts of breaking into the comics business by Andy Schmidt, senior editor at "IDW" & owner of a consulting company for aspiring comics professionals.

You Can Write Children's Books (2nd Edition) by Tracey E. Dils

RRP: $19.99, Paperback, 176 pages, ISBN: 9781582975733

You Can Write Children's Books (2nd Edition) provides readers with the instruction and exercises they need to shape their ideas, develop their writing, and sell their work! This revised edition keeps the book relevant and increases its value as a resource for writers. It provides readers with: updated information on changes in the publishing industry related to children's book writing; new techniques and exercises for writing children's books; new instruction for submitting work online; an updated look at publishing methods and opportunities; like traditional, online, print on demand; and, online promotional opportunities that didn't exist when the first edition of this book was released.

All titles are available to order from your local bookstore.

Remember to check back next Monday to read about the next 5 titles in our spotlight on best-selling writing resources.

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