Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m an Australian author and artist who is quite cautious and introverted by nature, but very curious and playful at heart. I make books that help people untangle whatā€™s on their mind today and shift their thinking in creative ways, often using visual metaphors. My latest book, Guidebook to the Unknown, was created during the long lockdowns we had in Melbourne (and all over the world of course) during the pandemic. It was my way of exploring how to calm an anxious mind and find meaning in my daily life, right here and now, without knowing what tomorrow will bring.


I wrote

Guidebook to the Unknown: A Journal for Anxious Minds

By Lisa Currie,

Book cover of Guidebook to the Unknown: A Journal for Anxious Minds

What is my book about?

Find fresh ways to move beyond fear and into curiosity, confidence, and hope in this supportive journal. This calming andā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Wall

Lisa Currie Why did I love this book?

This story has stayed with me for years. A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains and wakes up to an inexplicable new realityā€”sheā€™s totally alone in the world, so it seems, and has to learn to fend for herself. We journey into the unknown with her as she reports on the mental and physical challenges of her new daily lifeā€¦ and it stirs up so many interesting questions about who we are without connection and community, and where meaning can be found in the most stripped-back life.

By Marlen Haushofer,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Wall as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ā€œI can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are deadā€¦ā€ writes the heroine of Marlen Haushoferā€™s The Wall, a quite ordinary, unnamed middle-aged woman who awakens to find she is the last living human being. Surmising her solitude is the result of a too successful military experiment, she begins the terrifying work of not only survival, but self-renewal. The Wall is at once a simple and moving talk ā€” of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and theā€¦


Book cover of Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Lisa Currie Why did I love this book?

Itā€™s a special thing when a book comes into your life right when you need it, as this one did for me. Iā€™d spent a year reading a lot of books about death and grief, trying to grapple intellectually with my own mortality, and this book by the Irish poet and philosopher John Oā€™Donohue wove a gentle, soulful place for me to rest in. Itā€™s a spiritual book, but I found it to be agnostic-friendly and very beautiful. He talks about memory as the place ā€œwhere our vanished days secretly gather.ā€ This, among many other gems, reminded me of the comfort and anchor of our inner world as everything else is beyond our control.

By John O'Donohue,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Anam Cara as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Anam Cara is a rare synthesis of philosophy, poetry, and spirituality. This work will have a powerful and life-transforming experience for those who read it." ā€”Deepak Chopra

John O'Donohue, poet, philosopher, and scholar, guides you through the spiritual landscape of the Irish imagination. In Anam Cara, Gaelic for "soul friend," the ancient teachings, stories, and blessings of Celtic wisdom provide such profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death as:

Light is generous The human heart is never completely born Love as ancient recognition The body is the angel of the soul Solitude is luminous Beautyā€¦


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Book cover of The Mysteries of Marquette

The Mysteries of Marquette by Tyler R. Tichelaar,

When the Marquis de Marquette chooses to spend the summer of 1908 in Marquette, Michigan, a city named for his illustrious Jesuit relative, the residents are all astir with excitement. People begin vying to rub shoulders with the marquis, but he remains very private until he hosts a masquerade ballā€¦

Book cover of A Gentleman in Moscow

Lisa Currie Why did I love this book?

This delightful novel was the first book I read after moving into a new apartment. Itā€™s about a Russian aristocrat in the 1920s who is sentenced to live the rest of his days in a small attic room in the Hotel Metropol, and how he makes a life for himself there. Just by enjoying the story so much I actually found myself being more amused by, rather than wary of, the quirks of my own new neighbors. Gentle curiosity is a powerful weapon for surviving the unknown and this book helped sharpen mine.

By Amor Towles,

Why should I read it?

42 authors picked A Gentleman in Moscow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers, soon to be a major television series

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, andā€¦


Book cover of Daily Rituals: Women at Work

Lisa Currie Why did I love this book?

As it says on the packet, this is a collection of quick peeks into how 140 brilliant women lived (or are living) their version of a creative life. I loved reading a few pages each morning. It helped to soothe the perfectionist in me, being reminded of the endless ways a life can be lived, in both circumstance and choice. Also to read how the messiness of life is sort of ironed out with hindsight made me feel more welcoming to the current unknown of it all.

By Mason Currey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Daily Rituals as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'That word, "vacation," makes me sweat.' Coco Chanel on taking a break
'You must do it irregardless, or it will eat its way out of you.' Zora Neale Hurston on writing
'One has to choose between the Life and the Project.' Susan Sontag on choosing art

From Vanessa Bell and Charlotte Bronte to Nina Simone and Jane Campion, here are over one hundred and forty female writers, painters, musicians, sculptors, poets, choreographers, and filmmakers on how they create and work.

Barbara Hepworth sculpted outdoors and Janet Frame wore earmuffs as she worked to block out noise. Kate Chopin wrote withā€¦


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Book cover of The Last Bird of Paradise

The Last Bird of Paradise by Clifford Garstang,

Two women, a century apart, seek to rebuild their lives after leaving their homelands. Arriving in tropical Singapore, they find romance, but also find they havenā€™t left behind the dangers that caused them to flee.

Haunted by the specter of terrorism after 9/11, Aislinn Givens leaves her New York careerā€¦

Book cover of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death

Lisa Currie Why did I love this book?

This fascinating and charming book was written by a French magazine editor after he suffered a massive stroke and was locked inside his own body, unable to speak or move. Incredibly, he wrote this book in his mind throughout the day and then each letter was slowly transcribed by blinking his eyes. I kept thinking about this book long after I read it. Itā€™s a nightmare scenario, but he leads us all the way through it. Weā€™re with him as he survives and even finds meaning when almost everything else is lost.

By Jean-Dominique Bauby, Jeremy Leggatt (translator),

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Diving Bell and the Butterfly as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Whilst suffering from a condition whereby he was unable to speak and his only movement was the blinking of an eyelid, Jean-Dominique Bauby devised a code for each letter of the alphabet and dictated this book about his experiences and feelings. He died just after it was published.


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Guidebook to the Unknown: A Journal for Anxious Minds

By Lisa Currie,

Book cover of Guidebook to the Unknown: A Journal for Anxious Minds

What is my book about?

Find fresh ways to move beyond fear and into curiosity, confidence, and hope in this supportive journal. This calming and comforting companion is filled with insightful prompts to help you honor your feelings, shift your perspective, and feel like yourself again.

Whether youā€™re new to the world of anxiety or a longtime traveler in the land of the unknown, this hand-drawn and heartfelt journal will prompt you to turn the page to a fresh start.

Book cover of The Wall
Book cover of Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Book cover of A Gentleman in Moscow

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