SOLD Classic historical fiction from Geraldine Brooks

 

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372 pp. PB. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The "complex and moving" (The New Yorker) novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war.

Inspired by a true story, "People of the Book" is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author.

Called "a tour de force" by the San Francisco Chronicle, this ambitious, electrifying work traces the harrowing journey of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain.

When it falls to Australian rare book expert Hanna Heath to conserve this priceless work, the tiny artifacts she discovers in its ancient binding—a butterfly wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—only begin to unlock the book’s deep mysteries and unexpectedly plunges Hanna into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics.

SOLD Biography of former PM John Howard

 

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Mint condition. HB. 458pp. Amazon sells new copies for over $100. Our special price $35 including postage anywhere in Australia.

John Howard has an image problem. He isn't the strong-willed man of principle his supporters like to imagine. Neither is he the rat-cunning opportunist feared and loathed by his opponents. Most importantly, for a man often accused of zealotry of various types, he's not much into political ideas. With a few exceptions borne out of his suburban middle-class upbringing, policies are just part of his armoury. Howard is both more mundane and more complex than his public persona. He enjoys family, cricket, and running the country. But while the image of the ordinary bloke has been helpful to his enduring popularity, Howard possesses a number of uncommon strengths that have helped him reach the top, most important of these being the rare tenacity that saw him through the lean years of opposition, and through the tumultuous first two terms as prime minister.

SOLD Biography of Muhammad

 

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Mint condition. 268pp. PB. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

Muhammad was born in 570 C.E. Over the course of the following sixty years, he built a thriving spiritual community and laid out the foundations of a religion that has changed the course of world history. There is more historical data available about his life than that of the founder of any other major faith, and yet, particularly in the West, his is a consistently misunderstood story.

An acclaimed authority on religious and spiritual issues, Karen Armstrong offers a balanced portrait of this revered figure. Through comparison with other prophets and mystics, she illuminates Muhammad's spiritual ideas; she uses the facts of his life, from which Muslims have drawn instruction for centuries, to make the tenets of Islam clear and accessible for modern readers of all faiths. This vivid and detailed biography strips away centuries of distortion and myth to reveal the man behind the religion.

Karen Armstrong, bestselling author, scholar, and journalist, is among the world's foremost commentators on religious history and culture. Post-9/11, she has become a crucial advocate for mutual understanding between the world's major faiths. Her books include Buddha: A Biography, The Battle for God, and Islam: A Short History.

"Respectful without being reverential, knowledgeable without being pedantic, and, above all, readable. It succeeds because [Armstrong] brings Muhammad to life as a fully rounded human being." -The Economist

SOLD Travels through Vanuatu to protect marginalised women

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney, NSW

RARE BOOK. Mint condition. PB. 248pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Bridget Isichei had no idea what she was in for when she accepted a two-year volunteer post to train women to be pre-school teachers in the popular tourist destination of Vanuatu. But instead of cocktails by the sea in a luxury resort, Bridget found herself in Luganville, a town whose people were still practicing black magic and wearing the same fashions bought in by missionary women in the 1800s. When Bridget decided to enroll the women she was working with in a correspondence teaching course, she could never have predicted the fierce opposition her plan would face.

Road No Good is a ground-level account of the journey of a group of the world’s least fortunate women to become the first educated women on their island and control their own destinies. It is also Bridget’s story, as she learns from these women the art of gratitude, faith and contentment even in the face of unimaginable adversity and loss. This is a true story of hope and heart, and of the resilience and capacity of the human spirit to achieve greatness against the odds.

About the author

Bridget Isichei has worked in the early childhood education sector in New Zealand, England, Thailand, and Vanuatu. She has been recognized as an early childhood education (ECE) center manager for achieving an "excellent rating" ranking her ECE service in Australia's top 30. Bridget has been nominated for the HESTA advancing pedagogy and practice award and has written for Australia's most prominent early childhood education publication, Every Child Magazine.

SOLD Susan Carland writes on sexism in Muslim societies

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney, NSW.

Ex-library. Mint condition. PB. 182pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The Muslim community that is portrayed to the West is a misogynist’s playground; within the Muslim community, feminism is often regarded with sneering hostility.

Yet between those two views there is a group of Muslim women many do not believe exists: a diverse bunch who fight sexism from within, as committed to the fight as they are to their faith. Hemmed in by Islamophobia and sexism, they fight against sexism with their minds, words and bodies. Often, their biggest weapon is their religion.

Here, Carland talks with Muslim women about how they are making a stand for their sex, while holding fast to their faith. At a time when the media trumpets scandalous revelations about life for women from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, Muslim women are always spoken about and over, never with. In Fighting Hislam, that ends.

SOLD Dark tales from Australian history

 

SOLD to a lawyer on East Sydney

Excellent condition. PB. 384pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia

A compelling collection of tales from Australia's dark heart - of catastrophe and misfortune, intrigue and passion, betrayal and tragedy.

AUSTRALIAN TRAGIC ranges across our past and our present: the heartbreaking story of the fire at Luna Park; the unstoppable opportunist who snatched innocent men and women from Palm Island to be part of P. T. Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth'; a world-class boxer who lost his battle with alcohol and ended up in an unmarked American grave; a man who heroically survived a war to find himself crushed and defeated by events much closer to home; and a new story - of an echo from Ned Kelly at Stringybark Creek, in our own time ...

Heartbreaking and shocking, gothic and weird, these fascinating stories are all true, and told to remind us of the Australia we don't know, the one that simmers with love and hate, of hopes raised and futures dashed, unheralded and unnoticed . . . until now.

SOLD An Indian writes about the complexities of her nation

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney

RARE BOOK. Good condition. PB. 320pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia

India is a land of contrasts. It is the world's most populous democracy, but it still upholds the caste system. It is a burgeoning economic superpower, but one of the poorest nations on earth. It is the home of the world's biggest movie industry after Hollywood, as well as to the world's oldest religions. It is an ancient civilization celebrating fifty years as a modern nation. Now, as never before, the world wants to know what contemporary India is all about.

As she has proved in three previous books--her wry take on the marketing of the mystic East in Karma Cola; the rich historical saga of Raj; and the beguiling tales of A River Sutra--there is no better guide to India's multihued mosaic than Gita Mehta. She knows India in all its rich detail--its folkways and history, its culture and politics, its ancient traditions and current concerns. In Snakes and Ladders, she gives a loving but unflinching assessment of India today, in an account that is entertaining, informative, and wholly personal.

Gita Mehta is the author of the bestselling books Karma Cola, Raj, A River Sutra, and Snakes and Ladders. She divides her time between New York, London, and India

SOLD Travels of a Somali refugee

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney, NSW

Mint condition. PB. 256pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

An inspirational and uplifting memoir, this is the story of an optimistic man and his journey of struggle, hardship and survival against the odds.

Abdi's world fell apart when he was only thirteen and his home was destroyed in Somalia's vicious civil war. Effectively an orphan, he fled Mogadishu with 300 others and headed to Kenya. On the way, death squads hunted them and they daily faced violence, danger and starvation. After almost four months, they arrived in Kenya - of the three hundred that set out, only five had survived.

All alone in the world, Abdi made his way first back to Mogadishu, to search for his family, then onto Romania, where he lived for a time with gypsies, then to Germany. He was fifteen years old when he arrived in Melbourne. He had no English, family or friends. Homeless for the first year, he slept in churches and mosques. One lunchtime, he was bashed by three men in suits in Melbourne's CBD. Yet, against these odds, he survived. In fact, he's done more than just survive. Abdi went on to complete secondary education and attended university. He became a youth worker, was acknowledged with the 2007 Victorian Refugee Recognition Award and was featured in the SBS second series of Go Back to Where You Came From.

Despite what he has suffered, Abdi is the most extraordinary and inspiring man, who is constantly thankful for his life and what he has. Along his journey, Abdi met many, many other refugees. He knows quite a few who, faced with the same circumstances that he did, did not make it. Some died, some gave up, some committed suicide, and some became bitter. Abdi did not. Everything he has endured and achieved is testament to his quiet strength and courage, his resilience and most of all, his shining and enduring optimism.

SOLD The definitive history of Australian Jews

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney

Mint condition. Rare book. HB. 616pp. $35 including postage anywhere in Australia

SOLD A refugee travels from war-torn Yemen to America

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney

Mint condition. PB. 336pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

A gripping account of terror and escape." -- New York Times Book Review

The Fox Hunt tells one young man's unforgettable story of his harrowing escape from Yemen's brutal civil war with the help of a daring plan engineered on social media by a small group of interfaith activists in the West.

WINNER: 2019 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS - A 2019 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS FINALIST

Born in the Old City of Sana'a, Yemen, to a pair of middle-class doctors, Mohammed Al Samawi was a devout Muslim raised to think of Christians and Jews as his enemy. But when Mohammed was twenty-three, he secretly received a copy of the Bible, and what he read cast doubt on everything he'd previously believed. After connecting with Jews and Christians on social media, and at various international interfaith conferences, Mohammed became an activist, making it his mission to promote dialogue and cooperation in Yemen.

Then came the death threats: first on Facebook, then through terrifying anonymous phone calls. To protect himself and his family, Mohammed fled to the southern port city of Aden. He had no way of knowing that Aden was about to become the heart of a north-south civil war, and the battleground for a well-funded proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. As gunfire and grenades exploded throughout the city, Mohammed hid in the bathroom of his apartment and desperately appealed to his contacts on Facebook.

Miraculously, a handful of people he barely knew responded. Over thirteen days, four ordinary young people with zero experience in diplomacy or military exfiltration worked across six technology platforms and ten time zones to save this innocent young man trapped between deadly forces-- rebel fighters from the north and Al Qaeda operatives from the south.

The story of an improbable escape as riveting as the best page-turning thrillers, The Fox Hunt reminds us that goodness and decency can triumph in the darkest circumstances.

SOLD What the West gained from the rest

 

SOLD to an uber driver in Arncliffe

Mint condition. PB. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

SOLD On mosque architecture

 

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Ex-library. Mint condition. HB. $50 including postage anywhere in Australia.

SOLD A comprehensive study of the Indian diaspora

 

SOLD to a lawyer in East Sydney, NSW

Mint condition. HB. 416pp. $100 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora Book Description Brij V Lal has contributed to The Encyclopedia of the Indian Diaspora as an editor.Brij V. Lal is professor of Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University.

About the author:

Brij V. Lal AM, FAHA is an Indo-Fijian historian. He was born in Labasa, on the northern island of Vanua Levu. He was educated at the University of the South Pacific, the University of British Columbia and the Australian National University. A harsh critic of the Bainimarama government, which originated in the military coup of 2006 and retained power in the 2014 elections, he is currently living in exile in Australia.

"I am currently working on a large scale project about Australia's engagement with the South Pacific from the 1940s to the 1980s, focusing on the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu. My research on Fiji continues with a historical dictionary and a general interpretative volume for the University of Hawaii currently in preparation, along with a series of essays on the politics and culture of the Indian indentured diaspora. On the side, I continue to wrestle with the problems of writing about societies with unwritten pasts."

SOLD Travels through the Hindu Kush mountains

 

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PB. 400pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

High up in the Hindu Kush, between the ancient pagan Kalash people and the new medievalists of the Taliban, a charismatic young Spaniard, Jordi Magraner, made his home, mastering the local languages and customs before meeting his death in the most mysterious way. In this magisterial book, Gabi Martinez sets off in Jordi's footsteps to the land of the giants in order to try to solve the riddle of this murder and of Jordi's life.

Jordi Magraner was a brilliant student of the natural world, whose lab was the ravine and the scarp and the tent. His observational investigations led him to places where the legendary barmanu had been sighted, and he began to develop a thesis about the life of the wild man. His passion for pursuit and discovery took him onto ever more perilous terrain in the Pakistani-Afghan borderlands. And, one by one, Jordi turned his back on the Europeans who sought to assist him, preferring instead to entrust his safety to an Afghan youth fleeing the Taliban, and to a wondrous working dog called Fjord.

Jordi sought other rewards, and followed a winding, rocky path, down which Gabi Martinez resourcefully tracks him on this enthralling journey of detection and adventure in the Himalayas - where the truth is never as clear and pristine as the majestic mountains and the fast-flowing streams.

SOLD Travels through Laos

 

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RARE BOOK. HB. Mint condition. 284pp. Amazon is selling this book for $141. I'm selling it for $35.

Nestled between Vietnam to the east, Myanmar and China to the north, Thailand to the west and Cambodia to the south, Laos has long suffered from the depredations of its larger neighbors. But the biggest bully in its history was the United States which, starting in 1964, carried on a "secret war" against Laos. By the time of the ceasefire in February 1973, Laos had become the most heavily bombed nation in the history of the world.

When renowned travel writer Dervla Murphy went to Laos in 1997, she discovered a country that had only just opened its borders to the West. What she found was a country where the people-kind, gentle, welcoming-more than compensate for everything that can go wrong. But she also discovered that the persisting problems bequeathed by its recent past are tragic and other problems threaten its immediate future. A series of chance meetings left her with a profound sense of a beautiful country and a unique culture threatened-once again-by the extreme pressures of the modern world.

SOLD Travels through Muslim and Buddhist China

 

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Excellent condition. PB. 352pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The early trade in silk was carried on against incredible odds by great caravans of merchants and animals traveling over some of the most inhospitable territory on Earth, including searing, waterless deserts and snowbound mountain passes. Beginning at the magnificent ancient Chinese city of Chang'an (Xi'an), the route took traders westward along the Hexi Corridor to the giant barrier of the Great Wall, then either north or south of the Taklamakan Desert to Kashgar before continuing on to India and Iran, or farther to the great cities of Constantinople, Damascus and Baghdad. For today's traveler, it is not only the weight of history that makes the Silk Road intriguing, but the incredible diversity of scenery and ethnic people along the way. This beautifully photographed and intelligent book is the authoritative guide to travel in the region.

Fully illustrated with maps.

SOLD A book about witchcraft

 

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Mint condition. PB. 470pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The Witchcraft Reader offers a wide range of historical perspectives on the subject of witchcraft in a single, accessible volume, exploring the enduring hold that it has on human imagination.

The witch trials of the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have inspired a huge and expanding scholarly literature, as well as an outpouring of popular representations. This fully revised and enlarged third edition brings together many of the best and most important works in the field. It explores the origins of witchcraft prosecutions in learned and popular culture, fears of an imaginary witch cult, the role of religious division and ideas about the Devil, the gendering of suspects, the making of confessions, and the decline of witch beliefs. An expanded final section explores the various "revivals" and images of witchcraft that continue to flourish in contemporary western culture.

Equipped with an extensive introduction that foregrounds significant debates and themes in the study of witchcraft, providing the extracts with a critical context, The Witchcraft Reader is essential reading for anyone with an interest in this fascinating subject.

SOLD The totality of Robert Burns

 

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Mint condition. HB. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia

SOLD Indian women tell their stories of violence and love

 

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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.

SOLD Travels into the heart of dangerous Borneo

 

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Very good condition. PB. 208pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The story of a 1983 journey to the center of Borneo, which no expedition had attempted since 1926. O'Hanlon, accompanied by friend and poet James Fenton and three native guides brings wit and humor to a dangerous journey.