Angus Kennedy – författare

Andrew Johnston, an Australian wine writer, goes to Dubrovnik to prepare an article for his editor on the wines and wineries of southern Rhne. He never realized how this trip will impact his life until an old acquaintance crosses his path bringing new surprises and challenges. In author Angus Kennedys Two Tickets To Dubrovnik, readers will follow Andrew as he composes his editorial piecewhile facing the conflicting challenges between his heart and his head. They will be compelled to take deep breaths, discover insights, and witness a beautiful story of life, a little romance, and the clash of two very different cultures. The historic walled city of Dubrovnik, the heart of the ancient Republic of Ragusa and now part of Croatia, provides the setting for Australian wine writer, Andrew Johnston, who travels there to prepare an article on the wines and wineries of the southern Rhne region of France. During his stay in Dubrovnik, he meets up with an old Bordelaise wine making acquaintance, Lucien Delasalles, and is introduced to his family connections in the city, including his sister, Niki. Andrew is attracted to Niki but is warned by his landlady about Nikis brother, Jakov, and his unsavoury friends, and against becoming too close to Nikis family. Interested and intrigued by Niki and her family, Andrew devotes more of his time to them and endeavours to discover more about the facts underlying the veiled warning that he has received. In spite of inviting the attentions of the local police, Andrew perseveres with his enquires but control of his life is taken out of his hands as he sees his ordered existence and his developing interest in Niki being blown away by the unfolding events surrounding her family. The time-enduring environment of the ancient town provides a sharp contrast to the rapidly moving events in this modern Balkan world and the outcome reflects the complex relationships that have always existed among people, no matter how apparently stable their environment. In its unexpected conclusion, readers will find themselves with Andrew back in Australia, reminiscing on his short stay in Dubrovnik and the many things that happened. Two Tickets To Dubrovnik will leave them with questions and a desire for more stories of the same kind.

In this second novel of the Out of Solitude trilogy, Australian wine writer, Andrew Johnston, is again staying in Europe, this time with his brother, Adrian, for both work and a holiday. He receives an extensive new project from his publisher that takes him through the premium wine producing regions of France, during which he meets up again with a number of his old acquaintances from both France and Dubrovnik. Among these is Niki Meneti and the chance meeting rekindles his old feelings for her. While their relationship develops, Andrew is again drawn into events and affairs which he finds curious and difficult to fathom, having to rely on his trust in Nikis judgement and his own faith in her to maintain his equanimity. While Andrews travels through Europe are superficially normal, the tendrils of Nikis world reach out to and entangle him at various stages, bringing with them complications that he is confident he can resolve but whether the opportunity to do so arises in time raises considerable uncertainties for his future.

In this final novel of the Out of Solitude trilogy, Australian wine writer, Andrew Johnston, has had to leave Niki Mencetic in Dubrovnik while he returns to Australia to provide support for his brother, Adrian, during the illness of his wife. Andrew misses Niki and plans to return to Europe but receives an extensive new project from his publisher that takes him first through the wine producing regions of California. When he finally arrives in Dubrovnik, their feelings for each other have strengthened and matured. During his stay in Dubrovnik, and their travels around Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Niki reveals what she and her brother, Jakov, have been working on over the past fifteen years. What started with being a simple family project has developed into a complex search for the truth about her ancestorsover a period of several centuries. Andrew becomes drawn into the research and an unexpected and potentially dangerous connection with his own line of business emerges. Les Chemins de St. Jacques, or the Way of St. James, sprawls across Europe like a spider web and ensnares Andrew and Niki in its tendrils.

In this final novel of the Out of Solitude tetralogy, Australian wine writer Andrew Johnston is comatose in hospital in Sydney, Australia, after being shot in Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His Croatian lover, Niki Mencetic, believes he is dead, the victim of a cruel deception by Andrew''s brother, Adrian, and has returned to Dubrovnik.Following his emergence back to life, Andrew has to recover his health and his life as well as he is able. His two quandaries are what to do with his life and, even more importantly, how to reconnect with Niki, with whom he is still in love. Because of the time lapse since the incident and his uncertainty as to what her state of mind now is, he needs to find a way to contact Niki and explain his still being alive and, hopefully, to re-establish their relationship. To do this, he will need to visit Europe again, with a plan to make contact with Niki in as delicate and as painless a way for her as possible.Even if he is able to work through a way to get in touch with her, he is quite unaware of how she now feels towards him, believing him dead, and how she may react to the knowledge that he is, in fact, alive. Nevertheless, he has to try.Following Andrew on his crusade to reconnect with Niki takes the reader back through the history of their relationship and its many twists and turns, as well as the events that led to his being shot. Although Andrew has help in his quest, temporal, physical and cultural obstacles stand in the way of any smooth progress. The eventual outcome of this quest will define the rest of his life.

The world’s leading chocolate taster shares his wild ride to attain the most envied job, and explains his warning heard around the world: that we might soon run out of chocolate.Angus Kennedy has the best job of all time. But his journey to becoming the world’s leading chocolate taster has followed a rocky road. Kennedy spent his childhood learning his way around the chocolate industry despite an alcoholic mother, a father dying of cancer, and multiple brushes with death. Now in Bittersweet, he reveals how he became the king of cocoa and also gives a fascinating tour of the industry, answering questions such as: are we really going to run out of chocolate; is chocolate good for you; what are the most surprising kinds of chocolate; can chocolate be low calorie; and should we be eating organic or fair trade chocolate. He also includes an enlightening guide to knowing if you’re eating high-quality chocolate.Doused in Kennedy’s signature British humor, sprinkled with tear-jerking moments, and baked to engaging, can’t-put-down perfection, this humorous and memorable memoir is a tale of dysfunction, but also redemption. The account begins during Kennedy’s childhood, when his mother managed the family magazine, a chocolate review, and candy samples were his meals, essential for his survival. Later, under his leadership, the family magazine became the world’s leading chocolate review publication. Kennedy also opened the industry’s main trade show: the World Chocolate Forum. Today, mouthwatering chocolates of all flavors and shapes arrive daily! But with this sweet life, there was also a sobering realization: that the cocoa bean is in grave danger. When Kennedy first publicly shared this, hysterics ensued. Here he tells the full story. This book reveals the secrets of the chocolate world and its king, the bitter and the sweet.

This edited collection charts the rise and the fall of the self, from its emergence as an autonomous agent during the Enlightenment, to the modern-day selfie self, whose existence is realised only through continuous external validation. Tracing the trajectory of selfhood in its historical development - from the Reformation onwards -  the authors introduce the classic liberal account of the self, based on ideas of freedom and autonomy, that dominated Enlightenment discourse. Subsequent chapters explore whether this traditional notion has been eclipsed by new, more rigid, categories of identity, that alienate the self from itself and its possibilities: what I am, it seems, has become more important than what I might make of myself. These changing dynamics of selfhood – the transition From Self to Selfie - reveal not only the peculiar ways in which selfhood is problematized in contemporary society, but equally thetragic fragility of the selfie, in the absence of any social authority that could give it some security.