Make a Note.

Collectables, ready cash and hilarious new reads hit the shops this month

TRAVELEX CASH PASSPORT

Making sure you have access to enough cash when you’re travelling is now so much easier – just pick up a Travelex Cash Passport at one of Australia Post’s 3,200 outlets around the country. Load up your travel funds, lock in a favourable exchange rate, memorise your PIN, and you’re ready to go. You can access your money anywhere in the world from a Visa ATM – it’s convenient, easy and safe. Try the US dollar card for Honolulu and the Australian dollar card for Asia.

ARCHITECTURAL DREAMING

We just love curves and light falling in the right places, and so will you. Put your feet up and drool over the new coffee-table book Australia Architecture & Design, which showcases the fluid lines of over 50 of Australia’s most striking public buildings and private homes. We found it difficult to get past page 60, which features the Holman House in New South Wales, a stunner built on the edge of a cliff open to the sun, sea and scenery. Major case of envy! Published by Daab. AU$99.95. ISBN 9783937718774

THE LAST TESTAMENT

Best-selling author Sam Bourne’s second religious thriller is set in the political and religious hot spot of Jerusalem, where Arab-Israeli peace is held to ransom by the discovery of the last will and testament of Abraham. The body count escalates as the search for the artefact gets too close for comfort for all factions concerned. Bourne, the pen name of British journalist Jonathan Freedland, has been touted as a worthy challenger for Dan Brown – and this is perfect holiday reading. Published by HarperCollins. RRP AU$32.99. ISBN 9780007203331

STAMPWORTHY

Stamp collectors and souvenir hunters, listen up! Australia Post is unveiling some brilliant new stamp collectables that’ll have you reaching for the travel agent’s number as well as for your wallet. The Big Things series by Reg Mombassa – Mambo designer and former member of rock band Mental as Anything – puts his spin on eight of Australia’s kitsch “big attractions”, including the Big Merino and Big Lobster. In addition, five very different attractions are highlighted by A Market Feast, launched on July 24 – the country’s favourite produce markets, like Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market, the Sydney Fish Market, Adelaide Central Market, Rusty’s Market (Cairns) and the Hume Murray Farmers’ Market. You’ll want to look them up once you’ve seen the stamps!

MERDE HAPPENS

Take an Englishman living in France, cram him in a Mini for a road-trip around America to promote the UK as the “tourism capital of world”, and you’ve got Stephen Clarke’s hilarious third book, Merde Happens. Following the entertaining A Year in the Merde and Merde, Actually, this book shows Murphy’s Law in full force: clueless event organisers plan a tea party in Boston in the dead of winter, and the hapless hero has to slip into Made in Guatemala kilts and do the Highland Fling while trying to hold on to his French filmmaker-wannabe girlfriend! It’s a laugh-a-minute page-turner: get a copy tout de suite! Published by Random House Australia. RRP AU$24.95. ISBN 9781741664805