Slow Guides: Sydney & Melbourne

Published by: Affirm Press

RRP: $29.95

Available for: Sydney and Melbourne

How we spend our days, is how we spend our lives … Annie Dillard

These books are beautiful. Little slices of a life we don’t live often enough. Written to encourage people to seek a sea-change without leaving their own city, The Slow Guides are more than touristy handbooks with run-of-the-mill suggestions on how to see the most sights in the shortest amount of time. No, The Slow Guides encourage Sydney-siders and Melbourne-ites to stop rushing everywhere, as if the world will end if you don’t make it to your desk by 8am.

The guides encourage you to ‘rise up – in your own time, of course – against the culture of speed and global uniformity.’ They’re the kind of books you can savour over good coffee on the weekend, or a glass of wine out on the verandah. In fact, they’re the kind of books you should savour over good coffee, or a glass of wine on the verandah. And if you don’t have a verandah, find somewhere that does.

In a world where speed and time are everything and instant gratification reigns supreme, these guides encourage you to take back your time and start living a life unhurried. Slowing the pace and taking time to smell the roses in your own backyard is the only way to reignite your love affair with your own city. These guides give you an abundance of simple, innovative, ‘why don’t I do this more often’ ideas that will change the way you treat time and see your city.

Earth is crammed with heaven … Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Peppered with quotes that will have you scrabbling for your pen and post-its, The Slow Guides have done their homework when it comes to giving readers ideas and tips on how to execute them. The best place to watch a sunset or an electrical storm; buy Turkish pastries or organic produce; cool off during a long summer’s day, take an art class, an acting class, or a dance class. The best place to have a picnic, drink coffee, sample wine, go for a drive, go shopping. Dedicate some time to living life the Slow Guide way, and you’ll wonder how you ever got by before, missing all the beauty and interest that surrounds you everyday.

For those who aren’t from Sydney or Melbourne, who may even be visiting these beautiful cities for the first time, The Slow Guides are still a valuable addition to the travel guide collection. A lot of backpackers and international students spend weeks, even months in Australia, working in bars to fund the Bondi lifestyle the rest of the world regards with a slight tinge of envy. These books make wonderful suggestions that dig deeper than your everyday sightseeing guide, and reveal these cities to tourists as so much more than simple destinations to check off the list.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul … Oscar Wilde

The photographs alone are a rich character study of the cities, but each book opens with a detailed chapter on what shapes Sydney and Melbourne, and a look at the people who inhabit these cities.  You are then eased into the life, with Lessons in Slow divided into two sections -

Be Slow – Slow without Effort: taste, see, hear, smell and touch.

Do Slow – In the Pursuit of Slow:  nurture, motion, travel, small, play, gather.

You will walk away from these gems with not only a deeper appreciation of the city from whence you come, but a whole new perspective on the unique relationship between us and time. Time need not be your slave driver; it can and should be your friend.

Trespass Loves …

Head over to Slow Guides for more slow suggestions on getting the most out of Australia’s foremost cities (we said foremost, Perth, not ‘the best’ … although …)

Author and Publishing Credits:

The Slow Guide to Sydney (Oct 2007; 224pp; $29.95) was co-authored by Helen Hawkes, a prolific lifestyle journalist and author, and journalist Leta Keens. Oliver Strewe took the photographs.

The Slow Guide to Melbourne (Oct 2007; 224pp; $29.95) is published simultaneously and was written by Martin Hughes and photographed by James Braund.