Patrice Newell Libros

The traditional Aussie jokes told in pubs and cabs now compete with global jokes. It's Dad 'n' Dave versus Monica Lewinsky.

This book is to the joke what a telephone directory is to the phone number. No taxi has been left unturned, no dunny wall unread, no pub unvisited in rounding up these funnies. The result is a naughtier, even more notorious volume than the bestselling Penguin Book of Australian Jokes. Of course, you should be reading serious fiction or uplifting works of theology - but if you don't mind feeling thoroughly ashamed of yourself, this is the book for you.

Jokes are a bit like electro-convulsive therapy. Laugher does to the brain what a good sneeze does to the nasal passages. If you read this entire volume in one sitting, it will be the equivalent of 10 years in psychoanalysis. The Penguin Book of Australian Jokes is a scandalous, subversive, hilarious collection of jokes, anecdotes, and distinctively Australian humour.

When Patrice Newell left a highly charged urban life to live in the country, friends warned her she'd be bored in no time. Fifteen years later, she's doing more in a day than most of us do in a week. And Elmswood is no ordinary property, it's a biodynamic farm with beef cattle and olives.The Olive Grove is a celebration of rural life, from the disastrous to the comic. It also has an eye on the bigger localism versus globalism; natural farming versus the use of chemicals; the need to sustainability. And in a nation where city dwellers own shares in huge, anonymous agricorporations, there are welcome reminders of the value of personal involvement. Not to mention the odd cooking tip.An intensely human story, The Olive Grove is instructive, insightful, inspiring – and full of commonsense. At Elmswood, where life is vigorous and never dull, Patrice Newell proves that growing food can be as creative an act as cooking it.