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The Knockout Artist - Harry Crews (1988)
In 2024, I mentioned in a review for ‘The Son of Man’ that my expectations for it weren’t high because of the ambiguous title and the front cover that doesn’t lend much to one’s imagination. The Son of Man ended up being one of my favourite reads of that year. In 2026, I’m…
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Goon Profile - Mick Newton
Name: Michael Newton Chapter: Mayfield What is your story? I am a 52 year old straight, white, middle-class man living in Newcastle. My first car was a 1969 Valiant Regal that had been chopped to make it a convertible. It was white with yellow/orange/red flames and an obnoxiously…
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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers 2014
Our review of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers will be up soon.
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Cheers to That: a Night of Books and Beers. Wheeler Centre July 2025
At Tough Guy Book Club we are proud of putting robust conversation back into the pub, and each month we do just that in venues across the world. So, when we got the opportunity to put some of that same robust talk into a fine institution like the Wheeler Centre, of course we were…
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TGBC Monthly Challenge - #5things Crawl 2025
Tough Guy Book Club was born on a pub crawl back in 2014. Over ten years on, we still honour those roots every August with our annual crawl. This year we set the crawl as the monthly challenge. ‘Cause, why the hell not? Challenges are meant to add a page to your story. This time…
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Goon Profile - Luke Augustis
Name: Luke Augutis Chapter: Bundaberg What is your story? Married, Father of 3, Grew up in Regional Queensland. Spend much of my personal time outdoors, fishing, or playing with cars. How long have you been with TGBC? First Book? 2024 Honeybee How did you end up coming to TGBC? I…
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Alone in Berlin - Hans Fallada (1947)
Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin is a tremendous book, possibly my favourite of the six or seven books I’ve read so far with Tough Guy Book Club. It opens in Nazi Berlin, where an official letter regrets to inform main characters Otto and Anna Quangel that their only son has died…
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New Chapter: Tough Guy Book Club Comes to Singapore
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that when you plant the seed of a good thing, it will grow in places you didn’t expect. Case in point: one of our newest chapters has just sprouted in Singapore. It’s not exactly the first place you might think of for a Club…
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TGBC Monthly Challenge - #bookdealer
At Tough Guy Book Club, we think libraries are cool. So cool that we put it on a shirt . So cool that you’ll usually find a couple of Goons fighting over loans of the monthly book at any library where we have a presence. So cool that the challenge for July 2025 was to get a…
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Bourdain Day 2025
We have some great traditions at Tough Guy Book Club. One that we look forward to each June is the Bourdain Day Dinner. Celebrity chef, TV host, and author Anthony Bourdain, is a favourite among many TGBC goons, including Collingwood Original Dane Botfield, who passed away in…
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Washington DC Chapter Opening
Tough Guy Book Club began in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia in 2012 and has since spread across the globe. Our expansion into the United States started slowly. It was a dear friend now departed – vale Dane – who made our first landing, with an outpost of weirdness in the…
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To Have and Have Not - Ernest Hemingway (1937)
Our review of this book will be up shortly. If you missed it Grab a copy .
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