News.
Camp of the Sunburnt River
To tell the story of the Camp of the Sun Burnt River, the 2022 Summer Camp, we have to travel all the way back to the before times of 2020, when things were innocent and you wouldn’t think twice about cramming a bunch of Goons into a bunk room. After nearly two years of on and…
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2022 Floods - TGBC Fundraising Efforts
February-March 2022 brought some of the worst flooding in Australia's history. Massive areas of NSW and Queensland vanished underwater. Some of them haven't emerged yet, and there's more rain coming. It's shit, and it hurts, and it's going to hurt for a while. We'll be hearing…
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TGBC In the news - The Tradie Magazine
Do you have trouble explaining to other dudes what Tough Guy Book Club is about? Is it weird telling them you're in a book club in the first place? It shouldn't be, right? One day maybe. In the meantime if your mates look at you funny, bring 'em down to the pub and we'll…
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TGBC Monthly Challenge - #unusualreading
You know what's tough? Finding time to read. We get that. It's one of the reasons we exist. Life is complicated, responsibilities are many, and work is sometimes the only time you get to yourself. That's pretty shit and we're trying to do something about it (see Rule No. 2)…
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Broome Chapter Opens
Tough Guy Book Club is everywhere. You can find us in big cities and small towns, on the coast and in the hills. You can find us in pubs and breweries and RSLs, by the highway or the railroad tracks, anywhere men want something better to talk about. We're kind of like Tom Joad…
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The Road - Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is a harrowing novel that details the journey of a nameless father and son through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. In a month that has seen both Russia threaten to use nuclear weapons against any protagonists who may attempt to intervene in the…
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My First Chapter Meet
The year was I can’t remember, but my girlfriend (now wife) and I had started a new yearly tradition of driving our campervan from Sydney to Melbourne (and back again) for Christmas, stopping in Beechworth for a few days each way. In those days Beechworth didn’t have a chapter…
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Kangaroo Point Chapter Opens
Years ago, when he was travelling in Canada, Daniel Westall went to a mate's house to see his new big screen TV. It was mostly for watching hockey (because Canada) and the mate told a story about his playing days. After a couple of hard hours on the ice, he said, he loved limping…
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Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler (1940)
Even Michael Caine read Farewell, My Lovely. Check the opening shot in Get Carter from 1971. This is the second of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe books, following The Big Sleep. It comes from the era when pulp fiction was the entertainment of the day. This is a classic of the…
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New York City Chapter Opens
There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and Tough Guy Book Club has an opinion on every single one of them. Naked City, the Big Apple, the City That Never Sleeps. Call it what you want, it's big and loud and famous and probably features in a bunch of books you've read…
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TGBC Book Swap 2021
One of the best things about books is pushing your favourite ones on other people. Actually, that's not just true of books. Films, music, food, cars, sports, gadgets, places to travel - we do it with fucking everything. If you love something it's only natural you want to share…
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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - (2000) Michael Chabon
In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Joe Kavalier a young jewish artist escapes from the Nazis in Prague using techniques based on a knowledge of Houdini’s escape exploits. He meets his cousin Sammy in New York and together they convince Sammy’s boss to move into the…
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