Sunday, August 29, 2021

A humorous Jewish memoir of life in the Soviet Sixties

 





Rare book. Mint condition. HB. 307pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Read more about this book here.

SOLD Memoir of a young woman from Somalia

 





SOLD
Mint condition. HB. 368pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

This is the extraordinary first-person account of a young woman's coming of age in Somalia and her struggles against the obligations and strictures of family and society.  

By the time she is nine, Aman has undergone a ritual circumcision ceremony; at eleven, her innocent romance with a white boy leads to a murder; at thirteen she is given away in an arranged marriage to a stranger.  

Aman eventually runs away to Mogadishu, where her beauty and rebellious spirit leads her to the decadent demimonde of white colonialists.  

Hers is a world in which women are both chattel and freewheeling entrepreneurs, subject to the caprices of male relatives, yet keenly aware of the loopholes that lead to freedom.  

Aman is an astonishing history, opening a window onto traditional Somali life and the universal quest for female self-awareness.

A century of advertising in Australia

 



Mint condition. PB. 312pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

But Wait,There's More ... provides a unique insight into the place of advertising in Australian society.

Catchy phrases, chants at cricket matches and jingles which consumers just can't get out of their heads-the best advertising stands out because it is creative, clever and, most importantly, funny.

Advertising in Australia can be traced back to the early 1900s, when spruikers wooed the public with appeals to vanity, health and patriotism. By the time Australia had endured two World Wars, the Depression, economic downturns, political upheavals and direct confrontations, the advertising industry had not only survived, but had become a multi-billion dollar industry, with an enormous influence over people's everyday lives and their spending habits.

But Wait, There's More. is the first detailed history of the Australian advertising industry, exploring its development over the course of the twentieth century from a disorganised group of individuals selling newspaper space to a multi-billion dollar enterprise run by giant transnationals. It follows the admen and adwomen who worked to convert their audiences into consumers and examines their ongoing quest for legitimacy in the face of new technologies and an increasingly sophisticated and media-savvy audience.