If you change nothing, nothing will change

The cover-artist for Sweet Poison, Daniel New, proposed an alternate cover

I'm David Gillespie, a humble lawyer, believe it or not. But somehow, I stumbled into becoming a best-selling author, mostly by accident. In 2008, I penned a little book called Sweet Poison, a warning about at the sugary addiciton that's rotting us from the inside out. Apparently, it struck a nerve, and I'm often credited, or perhaps blamed, for unleashing the current sugar-phobic zeitgeist upon Australia.

Naturally, having stirred the pot, I couldn't just leave it at that. Four more books on nutrition followed. Then, having thoroughly ruffled the feathers of the dietetics establishment – a gaggle of ‘experts’ clearly unimpressed by my utter lack of qualifications in their hallowed field – I decided, with the sort of reckless abandon that only an unqualified interloper can muster, to have a crack at education.

My 2014 book, Free Schools, was the result. Armed with nothing but a parent's increasingly furrowed brow and a stack of research papers (which I may or may not have understood), I concluded that all those manicured playing fields and swanky, award-winning auditoriums are about as useful as a chocolate teapot when it comes to educating your sprogs if the headmaster is, frankly, a bit rubbish.

Having temporarily exhausted the patience of the educational mandarins, I dipped my toe back into the familiar waters of dietary doom with books seven and eight, Eat Real Food (2015) and the Eat Real Food Cookbook (2016), essentially screaming, "For the love of all that is holy, just eat proper food!"

My next target, because why not, is the murky world of the mind. My last four tomes have focused on beating addiction, the mental health of teens and several thrilling exposés on surviving encounters with those charming psychopaths lurking both in the boardroom and under your own roof. My next work looks at ADHD, the modern day epidemic created by our love affair with our phones. It’s bound to annoy someone. Probably everyone. Because, frankly, that's just how I roll.

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If you change nothing, nothing will change.

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Author of Sweet Poison, Toxic Oils, Free Schools, Toxic People, Teen Brain and Brain Reset. Chair of the FreeSchool http://freeschool.org.au