Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia by Bruce Pascoe; Vicky Shukuroglou

$45.00 AUD

Category: First Nation Voices

Loving Country is a book that inspires ultimate respect for Mother Earth and the role of her custodians. While readers are encouraged to discover the sacred country of Australia in an open-minded and sensitive manner, the intention of this book is to foster communication and understanding between all pe oples and country, to bring about a range of environmental and social changes. Co-authors Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou hope to empower communities to tell their own stories, and for people to honour them and the country from which they have grown. Beautifully designed, all of the writing and photography in Loving Country has been created in consultation with communities. From the ingenious fish traps at Brewarrina and the rivers that feed the Great Barrier Reef, to the love stories of Wiluna and the whale story of Margaret River, there is so much to celebrate and admire about the oldest continuing culture in the world. For those who want to do more than a whistle-stop tour of Australia, this book offers some keys to unlock and reveal the heart of this loving country. ...Show more

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

$49.99 AUD

$65.00 (23% off)

Category: Biography & Memoir

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of th e first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation's highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorises Operation Neptune Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden. A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective — the story of one man's bet with history, the faith of a community organiser tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of hope and change and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible. This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama's conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.       ...Show more

The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography & Memoir

Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie fa ced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the 'happiest man on earth'. Published as Eddie turns 100, this is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.                 ...Show more

Troy by Stephen Fry

$35.00 AUD

Category: Mythology & Religion | Series: Stephen Fry's Greek Myths

Following Top Ten bestsellers Mythos and Heroes, this third volume retells the epic tale of Troy The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whol e years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies. In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today. ...Show more

Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living by Glennon Doyle

$29.99 AUD

$35.00 (14% off)

Category: Biography & Memoir

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn't it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent - even from ourselves. For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realised they had come to her from within. This was her own voice - the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to stop abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world's expectations of her. She stopped being good so she could be free. She stopped pleasing and started living. Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanising wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is also the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honour our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts. Untamed shows us how to be brave. And, as Glennon insists, 'The braver we are, the luckier we get.'   ...Show more

Boy on Fire: The Young Nick Cave by Mark Mordue

$39.99 AUD

Category: Festive Gift Guide

 The first volume of the long-awaited, near-mythical biography of Nick Cave, by award-winning writer, Mark Mordue. A deeply beautiful, profound, profane and poetic biography of the early formative years of the dark prince of Australian rock 'n' roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave's creation story. This is th e story of the artist first as a boy, then as a young man. A deeply insightful work which charts his family, friends, influences, milieu and, most of all, his music, it reveals how Nick Cave shaped himself into the extraordinary artist he would become. As well as a powerfully compelling biography of a singular, uncompromising artist, Boy on Fire is also a fascinating social and cultural biography, a vivid and evocative rendering of a time and place, from the fast-running dark river and ghost gums of Wangaratta, to the nascent punk scene which hit staid 1970s Melbourne like an atom bomb, right through to the torn wallpaper, sticky carpet and the manic, wild energy of nights at the Crystal Ballroom.  Boy on Fire is a stunning biographical achievement. ...Show more

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron de Hart

$35.00 AUD

Category: No Category

'A vivid account of a remarkable life' --The Washington Post In this bestselling comprehensive, revelatory biography -- fifteen years of interviews and research in the making -- historian Jane Sherron De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg's passion for justice, her adv ocacy for gender equality, and her meticulous jurisprudence. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs was her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to "repair the world," with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II. Ruth's journey begins with her mother, who died tragically young but whose intellect inspired her daughter's feminism. It stretches from Ruth's days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn's James Madison High School to Cornell University, and to Harvard and Columbia Law Schools; to becoming one of the first female law professors in the US and having to fight for equal pay and hide her second pregnancy to avoid losing her job; and to arguing momentous anti-sex discrimination cases before the US Supreme Court. All this, even before being nominated in 1993 to become the second woman on the court, where her crucial decisions and dissents are still making history. Intimately, personably told, this biography offers unprecedented insight into a pioneering life and legal career whose profound mark on American jurisprudence, American society, and American character and spirit will reverberate deep into the twenty-first century and beyond. ...Show more

One Day I'll Remember This: Diaries 1987-1995 by Helen Garner

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography & Memoir

Helen Garner's second volume of diaries charts a tumultuous stage in her life. Beginning in 1987, as she embarks on an affair that she knows will be all-consuming, and ending in 1995 with the publication of The First Stone and the bombshell that followed it, Garner reveals the inner life of a woman in l ove and a great writer at work. With devastating honesty, she grapples with what it means for her sense of self to be so entwined with another--how to survive as an artist in a partnership that is both thrilling and uncompromising. And through it all we see the elevating, and grounding, power of work.   ...Show more

What Cats Want: An Illustrated Guide for Truly Understanding Your Cat by Yuki Hattori

$24.99 AUD

Category: Gift & Humour

From the top feline doctor in Japan comes a fun, practical, adorably illustrated "cat-to-human" translation guide to decoding your cat's feelings. When your cat's tail is upright, she's saying hello. If it's quivering? She's happy to see you. But if it swishes ominously from side to side across your li ving room floor? Beware - your cat is annoyed. With nineteen bones and twelve muscles, cats' tails have countless ways of expressing their emotions. What Cats Want is here to uncover the meaning behind every movement, and the motivation beneath every quirk. Did you know, for example, that adult cats love to reconnect with their inner kitten? Or that cats prefer multiple watering holes over just one? Our cats are sophisticated-no matter what any dog lover says-and What Cats Want has the answers to every question asked by cat owners young and old. An invaluable new guide filled with creative tips and darling illustrations, What Cats Want provides a much-desired glimpse into the minds of our most mysterious pets. ...Show more

Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

$32.99 AUD

Category: Theory

A Guardian Book to Look Out For in 2020 'Humankind challenged me and made me see humanity from a fresh perspective' Yuval Noah Harari From 'the folk hero of Davos', Fox News antagonist and author of the international bestseller Utopia for Realists comes a radical history of our innate capacity for kin dness. It's a belief that unites the left and right, psychologists and philosophers, writers and historians. It drives the headlines that surround us and the laws that touch our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest. Providing a new historical perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history, Humankind makes a new argument- that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. When we think the worst of others, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics too. In this major book, internationally bestselling author Rutger Bregman shows how believing in human kindness and altruism can be a new way to think o and act as the foundation for achieving true change in our society. It is time for a new view of human nature. ...Show more

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography & Memoir

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become bet ter at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. We know, for example, that there are a few core truths to science of happiness. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. So, when we are exposed to, or learn, good things, how do we continue to burn with them? And more than that, when our world goes dark, when we're overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom? In the muck and grit of a daily existence full of disappointments and a disturbing lack of control over many of the things that matter most - finite relationships, fragile health, fraying economies, a planet in peril - how do we find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light - a light to ward off the darkness? Absorbing, achingly beautiful, inspiring and deeply moving, Julia Baird has written exactly the book we need for these times. ...Show more

Women Don't Owe You Pretty by Florence Given

$24.99 AUD

$29.99 (16% off)

Category: Biography & Memoir

Women Don't Owe You Pretty will tell you to... love sex, hate sexism, protect your goddamn energy, life is short, dump them, and that you owe men nothing, least of all pretty. Florence's debut book will explore all progressive corners of the feminist conversation; from insecurity projection and refusing to find comfort in other women's flaws, to deciding whether to date or dump them, all the way through to unpacking the male gaze and how it shapes our identity. Women Don't Owe You Pretty is an accessible leap into feminism, for people at all stages of their journey who are seeking to reshape and transform the way they view themselves. In a world that tells women we're either not enough or too much, it's time we stop directing our anger and insecurities onto ourselves, and start fighting back to re-shape the toxic structures of our patriarchal society. Florence's book will help you to tackle and challenge the limiting narrative you have been bombarded with your whole life, and determine feminism on your own terms. After all, you are the love of your own life.     ...Show more