News.
TGBC Monthly Challenge - #GuerrillaGardening
guer.ril.la (noun) A member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces. From the Spanish, diminutive of guerra meaning 'war' +++ What's the first thing we learned from this month's challenge, where goons were tasked…
Read story
TGBC @ ASIST Training
In June 2022, ten goons from all points of the compass and all walks of life met in Sydney’s southwest for a two-day workshop in suicide first aid. The commitment this involved is evidence that suicide is at the forefront of our collective conscience, with some attendees…
Read story
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (1962) Take 2
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells the story of Randle Patrick McMurphy, a convicted criminal who fakes being insane so can serve his sentence for battery and gambling in a mental hospital rather than at a prison work farm, thinking this will be an easier way to spend his time…
Read story
Sharks in the Time of Saviours - Kawai Strong Washburn (2020)
This book was acclaimed by Barack Obama as one of his books of the year, but without his unique cultural connection to the material, us mere mortals were left with an interesting read that never completed its promise. The book felt like a deeply personal refrain about the loss of…
Read story
TGBC Monthly Challenge - #LastDrinks
The Tough Guy Book Club June #LastDrinks Challenge is a barrel aged kettle sour double dry hopped imperial triple india hazy pale oatmeal stout lager ale. It ranges anywhere from 0% to 12% ABV. Sometimes it looks more like tea, coffee or soft drink because not everyone drinks…
Read story
Sharks in the Time of Saviours - Kawai Strong Washburn (2020)
This book was acclaimed by Barack Obama as one of his books of the year, but without his unique cultural connection to the material, us mere mortals were left with an interesting read that never completed its promise. The book felt like a deeply personal refrain about the loss of…
Read story
The Gun - C.S. Forester (1933)
Last month’s TGBC Book to was C. S. Forester’s The Gun. Published in 1933 it preceded Forester's well known Hornblower series. Like the Hornblower novels, it is set during a time of war, and like that series, doesn't hesitate to describe in detail the savagery and brutality of…
Read story
TGBC Monthly Challenge - #StraightArms
Is Tough Guy Book Club a drinking club with a reading problem, or the other way around? We get asked this question sometimes, but mostly because everyone’s mum used to come home from their book club hammered on Fruity Lexia. We’re never really felt the need to speak seriously…
Read story
TGBC Monthly Challenge - #BPcheck22
Tough Guy Book Club takes January off (who wants to talk books when you're busy breaking your New Years resolutions?) so February is our first meeting of the year. That means it's also our first challenge. For 2022 we decided to dust off an old classic: get your blood pressure…
Read story
Dudley Chapter Open
Make no mistake, Dudley gets into it. We've heard that not all book clubs actually talk about books. Tough Guy Book Club could easily fall into that category. We're the book club that meets in a pub after all - we're happy with that and not about to change it. But it turns out…
Read story
2022 Floods - Goons to the rescue
Say you're at home. Doing whatever it is you do at home. Reading, we hope. Or sprawling on the couch watching TV, that's fine too. Now, say something terrible comes on the news. War, plague, fire... flood. It seems to happen more and more these days. One unimaginable tragedy…
Read story
All Systems Red - Martha Wells (2017)
All Systems Red is an exploration of what it is to be human. The dystopian view of the future challenges the idea that sentience and humanity are binary concepts of either on or off, yes, or no, and instead responds with a resounding… maybe? The main character is a security unit…
Read story