After Words: Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches
PJ Keating
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781743311943
Each of these speeches has been conceptualised, contextualised and crafted by Paul Keating. Subject to subject, idea to idea, the speeches are related in a wider construct, which is the way Paul Keating has viewed and thought about the world. The speeches reveal the breadth and depth of his interests - be they cultural, historical, or policy-focused - dealing with subjects ... More/Buy
The Australian Policy Handbook: Fifth Edition
Catherine Althaus, Peter Bridgman and Glyn Davis
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781742378930
Public policy permeates every aspect of our lives. It is the stuff of government, justifying taxes, driving legislation, and shaping our social services. Public policy gives us roads, railways and airports, emergency services, industry development, and natural resource management. While politicians make the decisions, public servants provide analysis and support for those choices. Drawing on their extensive practical experience, the authors ... More/Buy
Australia's Asia : From Yellow Peril to Asian Century
David Walker, Agnieszka Sobocinska (eds)
UWAP, PB, 9781742583495
To imagine that we confront Asia for the first time in the twenty-first century is to deny our history and the self-awareness that comes from understanding that we have been here before. Asia appears throughout modern Australian history as a source of anxiety or hope. Generic Asia has been imagined, visited and invoked, as have the individual nations that make up ... More/Buy
Bedtime Stories: 21 Years Behind the Mike at RN's Late Night Live
Phillip Adams
ABC Books, PB, 9780733330674
For 21 years Phillip Adams has hosted Late Night Live, one of Radio National's flagship programs, expertly batting questions to world leaders, thinkers, ideologues, crackpots and gurus. In singular style Adams has interviewed thousands of people, many of whom have become regulars -- and gathered a broad and intensely loyal audience. But what goes on behind the scenes and when the ... More/Buy
Behind the Lines: The Year's Best Cartoons 2012
National Museum of Australia
National Museum of Australia, PB, 9781921953149
Behind the Lines: The Year's Best Cartoons is a celebration of Australian political cartooning. Relive the major events of the year including the implementation of the carbon tax, the ongoing debate over asylum seekers, the state of the economy and the challenge of governing with a hung parliament. Witty, wise and often sceptical, the cartoons presented in Behind the Lines are ... More/Buy
The Best Australian Essays 2012
Ramona Koval (ed)
Black Inc, PB, 9781863955799
The Best Australian Essays 2012 presents the country's most eloquent voices at the peak of their powers. Helen Garner, Anna Krien and Romy Ash discuss animals; David Marr, Rhys Muldoon and James Button discuss those of the political variety. Peter Robb meets Akira Isogawa, J.M. Coetzee considers Les Murray's black dog, and Gillian Mears her award-winning novel. John Bryson reflects on ... More/Buy
Best Australian Political Cartoons 2012
Russ Radcliffe (ed)
Scribe Publications, PB, 9781922070104
The year in politics as seen by Australia's funniest and most perceptive political cartoonists. With Dean Alston, Peter Broelman, Warren Brown, Pat Campbell, Andrew Dyson, John Farmer, firstdogonthemoon, Matt Golding, Fiona Katauskas, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Bill Leak, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Vince O'Farrell, Ward O'Neill, Bruce Petty, David Pope, David Rowe, John Spooner, Ron Tandberg, Andrew Weldon, Cathy Wilcox, Paul ... More/Buy
Bill the Bastard: The story of Australia's greatest war horse
Roland Perry
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781743312629
Bill was massive. He had power, intelligence and unmatched courage. In performance and character he stood above all the other 200,000 Australian horses sent to the Middle East in the Great War. But as war horses go he had one serious problem. No one could ride him but one man - Major Michael Shanahan. Some even thought Bill took a sneering ... More/Buy
Canberra
Paul Daley
NewSouth, HB, 9781742233185
Canberra is a city of orphans. People arrive temporarily for work, but stay on because they discover unanticipated promise and opportunity in a city that the rest of the country loathes but can't really do without. Daley's Canberra begins and ends at the lake and its forgotten suburbs, traces of which can still be found on Burley Griffin's banks. It meanders ... More/Buy
Designer Suburbs: Architects and affordable homes in Australia
Judith O'Callaghan, Charles Pickett
NewSouth, PB, 9781742233468
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s architects like Harry Seidler, Robin Boyd, Ken Woolley, Michael Dysart and Graeme Gunn applied their talents to project homes, bringing high-end design to the suburbs. Backed by Pettit & Sevitt, Merchant Builders and other project builders, architects created small, deceptively simple houses which transformed the look of suburbia. Today, the distance between the architectural profession ... More/Buy
Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution
Peter Fitzsimons
William Heinemann, HB, 9781742755250
Eureka Stockade - The Unfinished Revolution In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade. Though brief and doomed to fail, the battle is legend in both our history and in the Australian mind. Henry Lawson wrote poems about it, its symbolic flag is still raised, and even the nineteenth-century visitor ... More/Buy
First Vintage: Wine in colonial New South Wales
Julie McIntyre
UNSW Press, HB, 9781742233444
First Vintage explores the forgotten history of the early Australian wine industry. Few people know that vine cuttings were brought to Australia on the First Fleet and planted in Governor Arthur Phillip's garden at Circular Quay, or that botanist and champion of colonial development Joseph Banks encouraged plans to create a wine industry from the earliest years of the colony. Before ... More/Buy
Fixed: Cheating, Doping, Rape and Murder The Inside Track
Matthew Benns
Ebury Press, PB, 9781742755151
Matthew Benns takes us inside the murky world of Australia's racing industry. Dapper horse trainer Les Samba was in Melbourne for the annual yearling sales when he turned down an Italian meal with racing contacts saying, 'I have to meet a bloke.' Just hours later he was dead, blood pouring out of five bullet wounds to his head and body. Racing ... More/Buy
Gittins' Gospel: The economics of just about everything
Ross Gittins
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781743313558
Can any other economics guru claim to write the column in a daily newspaper that people turn to first? Or to pack the auditorium at a literary festival? Be it climate change, productivity, fairness, industrial relations, terrorism, media, the mining boom, the GFC, refugees and even economists themselves, every thorny topic under the sun is covered in sane and rational fashion. ... More/Buy
The Lost Diggers
Ross Coulthart
Harper Collins, HB, 9780732294618
During the First World War, thousands of Aussie diggers and other Allied troops passed through the French town of Vignacourt, two hours north of Paris. Many had their photographs taken by Louis and Antoinette Thuillier as souvenirs while they enjoyed a brief respite from the carnage of the Western Front. For all too many, this was their last moment away from ... More/Buy
Pacific 360
Roland Perry
Hachette, HB, 9780733627040
On 7 December 1941, Australia was pushed to centre stage as Japan entered World War II and began the offensive which triggered the Pacific War. Roland Perry captures the drama and detail of the Australian Government's political and military struggle with allies and enemies alike as those at home prepared for a fight to the death, while in the Pacifc theatre ... More/Buy
Quarterly Essay Issue 48: After the Future - Australia's New Extinction Crisis
Tim Flannery
Black Inc, PB, 9781863955829
When it comes to the natural world, Australia is home to a disproportionately large share of the world’s riches. That means we Australians are caretakers of a unique natural heritage in a land which tolerates few mistakes. So how are we doing? Tim Flannery says: we’re often failing nature. In the clash between money & conservation, money usually wins. State governments ... More/Buy
Tales From The Political Trenches
Maxine McKew
MUP, PB, 9780522862218
'Julia Gillard was impatient for the prime ministership, and either worked with or allowed others to manufacture a sense of crisis around Rudd's leadership. She then cut down a prime minister in his first term and tried to pretend it was in the national interest to do so. Since then, she has been the architect of her own misfortune.' In Tales ... More/Buy
Touch The Black: The Life and Death of Squizzy Taylor
Chris Grierson
Hunter Publishers, PB, 9780980863963
Long before the Melbourne drug wars, before Carl Williams and Underbelly, there was Squizzy Taylor. A colourful yet ruthlessly violent underworld figure, Squizzy was the mastermind behind countless murders, armed robberies, standover rackets, and sly-grog and drug running operations. He soon became a household name in 1920s Australia through the vicious gang war, the infamous 'Fitzroy Vendetta', and later as he ... More/Buy
Uncommon Soldier: Brave, compassionate and tough, the making of Australia's modern diggers
Chris Masters
Allen & Unwin, HB, 9781741759716
Chris Masters turns his penetrating gaze on the modern Australian soldier. Moving away from our ongoing fascination with Anzac story, he looks at the rich and illuminating present to write a character study of the modern Australian soldier - war fighter, peacekeeper, street-level diplomat and aid worker. Having been taken into their ranks in a way rarely before afforded an outsider, ... More/Buy