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Large 9780733335266

The Golden Maze: a Biography of Prague (HB) by Richard Fidler

$39.99 AUD

Available Stock:
10

Category: history

ABC broadcaster and bestselling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague. In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution bro ke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human, moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him. Thirty years later Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe's most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth Century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot, and the world's biggest statue of Stalin, a behemoth that killed almost everyone who touched it. Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world's most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the Nazi SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague's mythic past, he finds the city's founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars. Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive, and the best storyteller you could have as your companion.  ...Show more

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Large 9781760980085

The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku

$32.99 AUD

Available Stock:
5

Category: australian stories people & history

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

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Large 9780733341069

Love Clancy: A Dog's Letters Home, Edited and Debated by Richard Glover by Richard Glover

$29.99 AUD

Available Stock:
4

Category: australian stories people & history

Heartfelt and hilarious, this is a book for anyone who has tried to imagine what their dog was thinking. Human beings often write about their dogs, but the dogs don't usually get a right of reply.  In Love, Clancy, Richard Glover has collated the letters sent by Clancy to his parents in the bush. They a re full of a young dog's musings about the oddities of human behaviour, life in the big city, and his own attempts to fit in. You'll meet Clancy as a puppy, making his first attempt to train his humans, then see him grow into a mature activist, demanding more attention be paid to a dog's view of the world. Along the way, there are adventures aplenty, involving robotic vacuum cleaners, songs about cheese, trips to the country and stolen legs of ham - all told with a dog's deep wisdom when it comes to what's important in life. With delightful illustrations by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox. PRAISE FOR RICHARD GLOVER The Land Before Avocado 'This is vintage Glover - warm, wise and very, very funny. Brimming with excruciating insights into life in the late sixties and early seventies, The Land Before Avocado explains why this was the cultural revolution we had to have' Hugh Mackay 'Hilarious and horrifying, this is the ultimate intergenerational conversation starter' Annabel Crabb Richard Glover's just-published The Land Before Avocado is a wonderful and witty journey back in time to life in the early 1970s' Richard Wakelin, Australian Financial Review Flesh Wounds 'A funny, moving, very entertaining memoir' Bill Bryson, New York Times 'The best Australian memoir I've read is Richard Glover's Flesh Wounds' Greg Sheridan, The Australian ...Show more

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Large 9780224097017

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald

$35.00 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: science environment animals | Reading Level: near fine

Animals don't exist to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. From the internationally acclaimed author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to th e natural world. In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved pieces, along with new essays on topics and stories ranging from nostalgia and science fiction to the true account of a refugee's flight to the UK. Her pieces ranges from accounts of swan upping on the Thames to watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary to seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk's poplar forests. She writes about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds' nests, what we do when we watch wildlife and why. This is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world around us, by one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers. ...Show more

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Large 9780008429973

Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel

$39.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: biography & memoir

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of twenty reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three dec ades, tells the story of what happened next. Her subjects range far and wide: Robespierre and Danton, the Hite report, Saudi Arabia where she lived for four years in the 1980s, the Bulger case, John Osborne, the Virgin Mary as well as the pop icon Madonna, a brilliant examination of Helen Duncan, Britain’s last witch. There are essays about Jane Boleyn, Charles Brandon, Christopher Marlowe and Margaret Pole, which display the astonishing insight into the Tudor mind we are familiar with from the bestselling Wolf Hall Trilogy. Her famous lecture, ‘Royal Bodies’, which caused a media frenzy, explores the place of royal women in society and our imagination. Here too are some of her LRB diaries, including her first meeting with her stepfather and a confrontation with a circus strongman. Constantly illuminating, always penetrating and often very funny, interleaved with letters and other ephemera gathered from the archive, Mantel Pieces is an irresistible selection from one of our greatest living writers. ...Show more

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Large 9781529108279

A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough

$39.99 AUD

Available Stock:
1

Category: science environment

See the world. Then make it better. 'I am 93. I've had an extraordinary life. It's only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us , barely noticeable from day to day - the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity. I have been witness to this decline. A Life on Our Planet is my witness statement, and my vision for the future. It is the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake - and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right. We have one final chance to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited.' All we need is the will do so.     ...Show more

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Large 9781760556730

This One Wild and Precious Life by Sarah Wilson

$34.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: family health psychology

In This One Wild and Precious Life, Sarah Wilson explores the central disorder of modern existence: disconnection from ourselves, disconnection from community, disconnection from the preciousness of life on this planet  This One Wild and Precious Life is a journey of the soul, a case for why we need to cast off our too-tight psychic apparel and step bravely into the uncertainty of 'giving a fuck', the whirlpool of finding purpose, and the perilousness of connecting fully, passionately and unequivocally to life again. Sarah's journey pivots from her own anxiety and feeling of disconnection, as she takes the reader on a three-year odyssey to reconnect with the life she feels we are losing via a series of hikes around the world. Throughout, she brings together science and spiritual understandings ('East meets West'), following in the footsteps of artists, poets and philosophers, to amplify the conversation that the world wants and needs to have right now. Elegantly written and uncannily prescient, this is the perfect book for this difficult era of climate carnage and COVID-19, that goes well beyond the data and the political toing and froing, a compelling argument for turning collective crises and shared malaise into rocket fuel for personal and social transformation. And a better world.   ...Show more

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Large 9780241400654

And Now, for the Good News...To the Future with Love by Ruby Wax

$32.99 AUD

Available Stock:
3

Category: family health psychology

When was the last time that reading the news made you feel good? Dear Reader, I know what you're thinking, is it some kind of macabre joke? Has she been in a coma? How can Ruby Wax write a book about good news when the world is facing the worst disaster since the Plague? Let me explain. I began writing in 2018, back when the world's worries were somewhat different. Climate change, greedy bankers, exam results, crap politicians, mental health: these are still HUGE ISSUES, but even the ancient soothsayers reading pig entrails couldn't have predicted this. This is my new mission: to share the green shoots of hope peeping through the soil of civilization. Literacy is at an all-time high, world-hunger is likely to be eradicated this century, technological improvements are saving lives ­- just to scratch the surface. I've talked to everyone from leaders to scientists to tech geniuses. I've done the research and practiced what I preach. And my conclusion? Behind the clouds, the sun still shines. So here's to the shoots - may they become a blueprint for how the world can shift for the good. Hopefully we'll learn from them. Love, Ruby ...Show more

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Large 9781922310477

The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships Are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust by Ed Tronick; Claudia M. Gold

$29.99 AUD

Available Stock:
2

Category: family health psychology

This "profoundly wise" look at how to foster connections, attachment, and resiliency explains why working through discord is the key to better relationships. (Sue Johnson, bestselling author of Hold Me Tight)You might think that perfect harmony is the defining characteristic of healthy relationships, bu t the truth is that human interactions are messy, complicated, and confusing. And according to renowned psychologist Ed Tronick and pediatrician Claudia Gold, that is not only okay, it is actually crucial to our social and emotional development. In The Power of Discord they show how working through the inevitable dissonance of human connection is the path to better relationships with romantic partners, family, friends, and colleagues.Dr. Tronick was one of the first researchers to show that babies are profoundly affected by their parents' emotions and behavior via "The Still-Face Experiment." His work, which brought about a foundational shift in our understanding of human development, shows that our highly evolved sense of self makes us separate, yet our survival depends on connection. And so we approximate, iteratively learning about one another's desires and intentions, and gaining confidence in the process as we correct the mistakes and misunderstandings that arise.Working through the volley of mismatch and repair in everyday life helps us form deep, lasting, trusting relationships, resilience in times of stress and trauma, and a solid sense of self in the world. Drawing on Dr. Tronick's research and Dr. Gold's clinical experience, The Power of Discord is a refreshing and original look at our ability to relate to others and to ourselves. ...Show more

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Large 9781922310217

The Expendables: How the middle class got screwed by globalisation by Jeff Rubin

$34.99 AUD

Available Stock:
2

Category: economics politics business

A provocative, far-reaching account of how the middle class got stuck with the bill for globalisation, and how the blowback — from Brexit to Trump to populist Europe — will change the developed world. Real wages have not risen much for decades. Union membership has collapsed. Full-time employment is be ginning to look like a quaint idea from the distant past. Falling tariffs, low interest rates, global deregulation, and tax policies that benefit the rich have all had the same effect: the erosion of the middle class. Bestselling author Jeff Rubin argues that all this was foreseeable back when major Western countries started to believe their own propaganda about free trade, and especially when they allowed China to exploit weaknesses in the trading system they devised. The result, growing global inequality, is a problem of our own making. And solving it won’t be easy if we draw on the same ideas about capital and labour, right and left, that led us to this cliff. Articulating a vision that, remarkably, dovetails with the ideas of both Naomi Klein and Donald Trump, The Expendables is an exhilaratingly fresh perspective that is at once humane and irascible, fearless and rigorous, and most importantly, timely. GDP is growing, the stock market is up, and unemployment is down, but the surprise of this book is that even the good news is good for only 1 per cent of us. Praise for Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: ‘The book is a great read, and one that should be required for anyone with a long-term interest in … energy, transportation, manufacturing or agriculture.’ —The Globe and Mail ‘Jeff Rubin is not your typical eggheaded senior economist … And the controversy that has dogged his work is about to hit the boiling point … So get set. If Jeff Rubin says something is coming, you better listen. Love him or hate him.’ —Canadian Business ‘Should be mandatory reading for all corporate executives.’ —National Post Praise for The Carbon Bubble: ‘An astute critique of big oil.’ —Quill & Quire ‘The Carbon Bubble is Jeff Rubin at his finest. Thought-provoking. Meticulously researched. Intelligent without pretension. I highly, highly recommend it!’ —Michael Hlinka, business commentator, CBC Radio ‘[A] feat of economics writer’s jiu-jitsu.’ —Shawn McCarthy, The Globe and Mail ‘Rubin’s argument is sleek and fluent … Rubin is an engaging writer.’ —Andrew Allentuck, Financial Post ...Show more

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Large temp img

English Pastoral: An Inheritance - The Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks

$35.00 AUD

Available Stock:
0

Category: biography & memoir

The author of the beloved No.1 bestseller The Shepherd's Life returns with a stirring history of family, loss and the land over three generations on a Lake District farm 'A beautifully-written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape.' - Nigel Slater 'Just about perfect.' - Wendell Berry James Rebanks was taught by his grandfather to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, that landscape had profoundly changed. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song. English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and how the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. But this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future. This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.   ...Show more

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Large maps of meaning

Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief by Jordan B. Peterson

$103.99 AUD

Available Stock:
1

Category: family health psychology

Jordan B. Peterson's Maps of Meaning is now available for the first time as an audio download! Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and structure of the world itself? From the a uthor of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind. Includes a PDF of Images from the Book. ...Show more

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