Book Drives Sydney

MAY BOOK –'The Hate Race' by Maxine Beneba Clarke

Odyssey (books 13-end) - Homer

"I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque." - Bugs Bunny, channeling the spirit of Homer. We've all had our horror stories struggling to get home after a long days' work, but has it ever taken you 10 years? Whereas The Epic of Gilgamesh was forgotten, its clay tablets buried beneath the earth, for over two thousand years, the Odyssey has been a popular story since Homer first told it,(if he ever did,) and remains in the DNA of classic and popular literature, film, art and every other form of media today. But do you really know the story? Odysseus, king of Ithaca, wanders for 10 years trying to get home after the Trojan War. He is distracted in his journey by vengeful gods, terrifying monsters and powerful women. While he struggles to return home, his wife Penelope has to deal with with the unwelcome advances of 108 suitors (a bit like Tinder), while Odysseus's son Telemachus entreats the help of bright-eyed Athena to reunite his parents and save his family and his home. Odysseus has survived the horrors of Scylla and Charybdis, two separate islands featuring man-eating giants, and the advances of Circe and Calypso who so obnoxiously insist on having sex with him. But now he has to face his greatest challenge yet... his wife Penelope. And her 108 would-be boyfriends hanging out in the garden. Some men just never know to take a hint! It's been ten years. Will Odysseus reunite lovingly with his family? Or will the gods withdraw their favour and allow him to become a pincushion to the suitors' spears and arrows? They do have a habit of being a bit contrary, those gods. We'll be discussing the book as a whole, so no worries if you missed the first meeting, and Jack will also be making one too many references to James Joyce's Ulysses, so consider yourself warned. Any translation you can find is perfectly fine - I'll be comparing the Robert Fagles Penguin Classics translation with the contemporary Emily Wilson translation. Any other translation, in poetry or prose, is welcome. If you need soft copies of one of the above translations, please feel free to email me at jack.malone67@gmail.com As my Meetup membership only allows me to create events with up to 10 people, please mark your status as 'Not Going' if you're not able to make it so that I have a good idea of what numbers to book the table for. If you're on the waitlist, please send me a message if you're interested in coming! The more the merrier. We usually discuss the book together for about an hour and then move on to more general discussion for as long as we'd like.

Book Club - "Look What You Made Me Do" By John Lanchester

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Global Book Crawl x Ms Cattea

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." So said author CS Lewis of the strong link between books and tea. For the [Global Book Crawl](https://www.globalbookcrawl.org/cities-sydney) (20-26 April 2026), I'm pairing some book browsing sessions with tea meetups. Come join me? **Noon**: Potts Point Bookshop, 14 Macleay Street, Elizabeth Bay **12.30pm**: Ms Cattea, 17/1-21 Darlinghurst Rd, Potts Point *Browsing books is free, tea at your own expense.*

May Book Club on Collapse: Goliath's Curse

Welcome to Meet the Moment Book Club, where we read books that meet the moment and make sense of it all together. Please see our [group page](https://www.meetup.com/meet-the-moment-book-club/) for a list of upcoming books! After a lively inaugural event discussing Iran, our second book club will dive into collapse -- societal collapse, of states and empires -- Goliaths. It's especially interesting after [April's book "All the Shah's Men,"](https://www.meetup.com/meet-the-moment-book-club/events/313809187/) which gave insight into how a Goliath operates; now we can explore how and why one collapses, and ask ourselves, are we living through it now? "Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice - we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last." https://www.abbeys.com.au/book/goliaths-curse-a-deep-history-of-societal-collapse-and-what-it-means-for-our-future-9780241741245.do The author, Luke Kemp, is coming to speak at Sydney Writer's Festival on May 22 & 23 also! https://www.swf.org.au/program/festival-2026/luke-kemp-goliaths-curse https://www.swf.org.au/program/festival-2026/big-histories We will be meeting at the Erko Hotel, in the open area in the back. It's okay if you haven't finished the book by the time of the event, but the more the merrier! There's no fee, but please purchase your own food/drinks from the venue. If the RSVP list is full, please join the waiting list as there will likely be fluctuations closer to the date. If you RSVP'ed and can't make it, please edit your RSVP so that others can attend. No-shows will be noted and barred from the book club. Please try to be on time as we start and end on time. Look forward to seeing you there!

Bonfire of the Humanities by Victor Davis Hanson et. al.

Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on April 30, we will be discussing a series of essays found in the book, The Bonfire of the Humanities, by Victor Davis Hanson et. al. Victor Davis Hanson and his fellow authors argue that modern academia have undermined the foundations of Western civilization, forcing individuals into book clubs and the like (outside of the university) in order to discuss great works of literature and the broader humanities. Universities, or at least Faculties of the Arts and Humanities, they argue, are no longer great places of learning, but have increasingly become factories of social engineering and indoctrination. The authors argue that by neglecting the Classics and the objective study of the past in favor of postmodern theories and woke political correctness, scholars have traded eternal wisdom for a trendy temporary relevance. The authors outline a stark choice between civilisation and a type of barbarism, and suggest how the latter can be avoided. Cheaper hard copies of this book can be found on ebay rather than amazon. It is not readily available from local libraries. Available from our usual friend Anna, or a pdf from me - write to me at dalemills@cantab.net Note: this book is by Victor Davis Hanson et. al. It is NOT the same as the book with the same title, authored by David Marc. The format of the meeting is that we talk about the book for about 50 mins. Contrary opinions are welcome and given a lot of space. Then the meetings formally ends and almost everyone stays back to talk more about the book or anything else. The Shakespeare Hotel is a 10 min walk from Central train station, or almost opposite Surry Hills light rail. Local parking is reasonable.

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer | Sun 3 May 2026

Luddites, Linux and LLMs

Preserving the Past to Fix the Future.

Building AI-Powered Retention Systems to Reclaim 20%+ of Lost Sales

THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT PLEASE GET YOUR TICKETS FROM BELOW LINK👇 https://events.humanitix.com/masterclass-in-marketing-klaviyo-automations-that-run-while-you-build ### Use the same AI-driven infrastructure as Gymshark, Hismile, and Glossier to convert traffic and maximise sales. ### **The Objective** In 2026, growth isn't about more clicks; it’s about **Retention**. 70% of your traffic leaves and never returns, costing you hundreds of thousands. This workshop is a focused sprint to implement **Klaviyo,** the world’s most powerful B2C marketing platform used by **193,000+ global brands**. Why? Because it’s not an email tool; it’s a revenue engine that has delivered **39x ROI**. **Requirement:** Bring your laptop. We are building, not just browsing. ### **The 90-Minute Implementation Roadmap** With the guided help of customer experience expert Emily Elvey, you will leave with proven **Autonomous Flows** live and running: 1. **The AI Smart-Capture Welcome Flow:** Like **Hismile** (who saw 43% YoY revenue growth from flows), you'll use AI to personalise the first 48 hours of a customer's journey based on their exact browsing behavior. 2. **The Revenue Recovery Cart Flow:** Implement the exact high-intent triggers used by **Gymshark** to recover a massive 20% lost carts 3. **The Predictive Win-Back:** Leverage Klaviyo’s predictive analytics to identify "at-risk" customers before they churn, triggering the perfect offer at the perfect time. ### **The Network Advantage** You aren’t building in a vacuum. You’ll be working alongside a curated group of **B2C Founders.** * **Collaborative Problem Solving:** Peer-review your flows with founders facing the same scaling challenges. * **Strategic Networking:** Connect with the Fishburners B2C community to share insights on ROAS, supply chain, and tech stacks. ### **Why This Works:** * **Authority:** Learn the stack used by **Mattel, TaylorMade, and Liquid Death.** * **Efficiency:** Klaviyo delivered **39x ROI** by turning static emails into predictive revenue engines. * **Immediate Impact:** This is a **Live Activation.** You will switch on your first automation before the session ends. *Limited capacity to ensure 1-on-1 implementation support from Klaviyo experts.* *** **About Fishburners:** **Fishburners is Australia’s largest start-up community, providing over 1000+ entrepreneurs a year with access to investment and economic development opportunities, mentoring, facilities and educational resources. Fishburners is based in Sydney, NSW and since their inception in 2011, Fishburners has impacted over 35,000+ entrepreneurs, held 15,800+ events, created 12,200+ jobs, helped start-up businesses raise $1B+ and partnered with 2,000+ enterprises, universities, and other organisations.**

Reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

**Location:** State Library of NSW Bashir Reading Room **Zone:** Lower ground 1 **Study Room:** Study Room 3 (LG1) You **can** bring: * Bags. * Bottled water. You **can't** bring: * Food and other drinks. These are only permitted on hard floors, including near the lifts & lockers. * Collection material cannot be used in Study Rooms. ### **Other terms & conditions** NSW State Library [Reader and Visitor Code of Conduct](https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/policies-and-publications/legislation-and-policies/reader-and-visitor-code-conduct). * Leave the room promptly when your booking has finished. * Make sure the room is neat and tidy at the end of your study session. I hope you can attend, and get reading with me!

The Data & AI Evolution: From Legacy Warehouses to Intelligent Lakehouses

With the current gold rush toward GenAI, it’s easy to feel like foundational data work has been pushed into the shadows. But the truth is simple: **there is no AI without reliable data.** This month, we’re going back to the core of the Data Intelligence Platform. We’ll explore why modern architectures and "flipped" migration strategies are the only ways to actually make AI work at scale - rather than just being an expensive experiment. **Talk 1: Data Lakes vs. Data Warehouses in the Age of AI** **Speaker:** **Rob Nordon**, Solutions Architect at Idea 11 AI is the word on everyone’s lips, but where does that leave the data professional? Have we become irrelevant? Rob will take us through a brief history of modern data to show how Data and AI work hand-in-hand. He’ll explain why embracing this intersection is the only way to deliver lasting competitive advantage to your organisation. **Talk 2: Migrating EDW to Databricks - Flipping the Script on ROI** **Speaker:** **Melance Nziza,** Senior Consultant - Data Engineer at Syenchron Australia The conventional "left-to-right" migration approach often leads to high costs and delayed value. Melance discusses why flipping the script - onboarding users to Databricks as early as possible - can de-risk your project and prove ROI before the first production pipeline is even finished. ### **Evening Agenda** * **5:30 PM:** Arrival, Networking, Pizza & Drinks 🍕 * **6:00 PM:** Community Kick-off & Talks * **7:00 PM:** Q&A & Open Networking A massive thank you to **Mantel** for their ongoing support and for hosting the community!