SOLD Indian women tell their stories of violence and love

 

SOLD

Rare book. Mint condition (apart from visible scratch on cover). PB. 272pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

India is one of the most dangerous places on the planet to be a woman – or so the international press keeps telling us. But behind the headlines, what is it really like to be a woman in India today?

Walk in the shoes of some of India’s finest women writers, and go on a journey into their intimate lives in Walking Towards Ourselves. From the film sets of Bollywood to a closeted marital home in a Tamil Nadu village; from the slick boardroom of an online dating app to a makeshift bamboo house in the post-cyclone Sundarbans; from a beauty parlour where skin bleaching is the norm, to a home for abandoned girls in Karnataka, walk with them.

Walk with them as they report from Mumbai’s streets alone at night, as they grapple with domestic violence, as they search for love through marriage brokers, as they learn to speak their minds, as they lay claim to their bodies, as they choose to be partnered or not, to become mothers or not, to make art, to make love, to make meaning of their lives.

Reaching across different strata of society, religion and language, this anthology creates a kaleidoscope of distinct and varied real-life stories. Told with startling honesty, piercing insight, moments of poetry, and flashes of humour, Walking Towards Ourselves explores what it means to be a woman in India in a time of intense and incredible change.

The story of one of Australia's earliest terrorist attacks

 

Mint condition. PB. 328pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The engrossing real life story of how Queen Victoria's favourite son, Prince Alfred, undertook the most ambitious Royal tour, only for Australia's overwhelming joy of having the first Royal on its shores jolted by his decadent behaviour, then shocked by an attempted assassination by a man trained as a priest.

The British Empire's youngest and most distant outpost found itself at the epicentre of a new crime and empirical fears about the first inter-continental terrorist group, a conspiracy and a 'lone wolf '. In a resulting 'reign of terror' extraordinary steps were taken to safeguard security with laws on treason and sedition which even the Queen felt went too far, and the would-be assassin was hastily executed in a miscarriage of justice led by opportunistic politicians.

This is an extraordinary and atmospheric weaving of the stories - some detailed for the first time - of royal intrigue, sexual appetite, religious bigotry, patriotic vengeance, naked ambition, national security and moral panic. They are stories of royals, immigrants, archbishops, republicans and the founding fathers of Australia and issues that remain with us today.

Drawing on Royal, British and Australian archives, the compelling narrative embraces a pivotal time in the evolution of Australia, and on the 150th anniversary reveals how a minute of madness rocked the country to its foundations, with a legacy which helped shape Australia's history and continues to influence and challenge us today.

Revelations' & insights in The Prince and the Assassin

• Prince Alfred's spare heir upbringing as 'the chosen one' and prospective King of Australia
• Sexually decadent royal behaviour
• An historic tour which became the model for 50 subsequent royal tours to Aust
• Religious bigotry, violence and death in early Aust
• How a young migrant trained and destined to be a priest became an assassin
• How the biggest crime in Australia shocked, shamed, terrorised and divided the country
• How Henry Parkes, 'founder of federation', suppressed and doctored evidence, hired private spies and criminals for political advantage
• Australia suppressing civil liberties, even making it a crime of treason to discuss republicanism and to not drink a toast to the Queen
• Australian Catholics accused of disloyalty and an Archbishop conspiring against the Government
• Australia's most sensational trial, one of injustice and vengeance for a crime not on the Empire's capital list
• Alfred appealing for his would-be killer to not be executed
• An Australian Government accused of promoting fear for political advantage and committing treason and fraud

Dawn French's hilarious story telling

 

Mint condition. PB. 352pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Who is in Coma Suite Number 5?

A matchless lover? A supreme egotist? A selfless martyr? A bad mother? A cherished sister? A selfish wife?

All of these. For this is Silvia Shute who has always done exactly what she wants. Until now, when her life suddenly, shockingly stops.

Her past holds a dark and terrible secret, and now that she is unconscious in a hospital bed, her constant stream of visitors are set to uncover the mystery of her broken life. And she must lie there, victim of the beloveds, the borings, the babblings and the plain bonkers.

Like it or not, the truth is about to pay Silvia a visit. Again, and again and again...