Beautiful. Maggie Beer, one of the three modern female icons of Australian food, has written a book to weigh down your lap as you browse, read and cook from its pages. A wonderfully presented work, with well crafted content perfectly suited to the current focus on seasons and local produce. A book about food and cooking which also captures the culinary spirit of Australia.

The recently released Secrets of the Red Lantern is a beautiful book. The photography is warm, despite a muted palette. Decorative patterns add a great deal to the appeal of every recipe page. The recipes hold great promise. Despite all this, Secrets of the Red Lantern has some profound flaws which could greatly mar the experience for some readers, but I think the human interest focus will leave many readers reluctant to criticise it.

There are so many reasons to visit Paris; so many reasons to enjoy the city and – most pertinently – the food. Lacking the resources to hop from one name-restaurant to another, it seemed much better do markets, shops, and luscious pastries while staying in modest lodgings…

Australian book retail chain Angus & Robertson (A&R) has got itself in the poo. The mainstream media (Fairfax) ran stories briefly (08 August) about A&R attempting to screw its suppliers by demanding payments to cover their 'gap' in profitability.

An impressive 'chef's book' by respected Melbourne chef Paul Wilson, Botanical is both a serious cookbook and a self-congratulatory piece about the restaurant (the Botanical). Intended for serious home cooks or other chefs, this is perhaps the first local heavy-duty chef's book Australia has seen, with recipes often encompassing many steps and long lists of ingredients.

In this world of the online bookselling behemoth Amazon, it's always nice to find an independent bookshop catering to one's specialist area of interest. Imagine my joy when I found a new gastronomic bookshop — and purely by chance. As the rain poured down on me on Place Bellecour in the French city of Lyon, I frantically looked around for somewhere to take shelter and spied a bookshop bearing the words 'la librairie de toutes les cuisines'.

Some wonderful internet services rely on so-called 'intelligent systems' to keep you interested and stimulated. They guess your preferences, guide your choices, point you towards new (and lucrative) potential purchases. Amazon took me on a recommendation ride, spanning Jamie Oliver, high heels and Posh Spice.

Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, published in 2001, is a well researched, persuasive and at times shocking work describing the excesses of big business and the broad spectrum of compromises that make modern, cheap fast-food lifestyles possible. Unfortunately, it's also longwinded and hyperbolic, with a clear propagandistic tone.