Phillip Adams on India

 

Excellent condition. 222 pages. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Australian cricket and cheating

 

Very god condition. 229pp. PB. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

He was top of the world, with numbers bettered only by Don Bradman – then captain Steve Smith led his Australian team into a cheating scandal that stunned cricket. Media exploded and million-dollar contracts were torn up. Australia’s prime minister expressed the public anger and disappointment: ‘Our cricketers are role models, and cricket is synonymous with fair play.’

But there was more to the story than the actions of a few young men. A tangle of personality, politics and culture had led them to this point.

Geoff Lemon witnessed that story from commentary boxes and press conferences, and was there in South Africa for its final act. This is a frank, fearless and often humorous account of the path from Ashes high to Cape Town low, from someone who watched it all unfold.

The Chechen war and Putin's slaughterhouse

 Rare book. Very good condition. PB. 576pp. Amazon selling this edition for $127. plus postage. Our special price is $40 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Written in passionate prose, this is the story of the one million Chechens who, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, found themselves cast as the enemy of the new Russian state. Compelled to assert their freedom and individualism, they faced the huge Russian army in a one-sided war which destroyed their land, their homes, and their families. This updated account also covers the role of Vladimir Putin in the continuing struggle.

Gideon Haigh on the changing media landscape

 Ex-library. Mint condition. PB. 112pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Veteran journalist Gideon Haigh assesses the future of news media in light of the internet's effects on traditional forms of publishing and broadcasting.

Veteran journalist Gideon Haigh assesses the future of news media in light of the internet's effects on traditional forms of publishing and broadcasting.

In the last decade, customary news media have crumbled before the effects of the internet on advertising, circulation and viewership. In the next decade, they will be supplemented, if not supplanted, by new news media. In this insightful, informative and candid survey of possible futures, veteran journalist Gideon Haigh considers the options for his industry and his craft. Who wins? Who loses? What are the implications for practitioners, professionals, politicians and the public?

Gideon Haigh is the author of twenty-six books. The five sections that comprise The Deserted Newsroom first appeared as individual pieces in Crikey's Brave News World series.

Travels across the African continent

 

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

Welcome to the latest hilarious instalment in the travels of Peter Moore, bestselling author of NO SHITTING IN THE TOILET, THE WRONG WAY HOME and THE FULL MONTEZUMA. This time Peter has found the perfect antidote for a broken heart- to pick up his backpack and trek from the southernmost tip of Africa to the pyramids of Egypt by any means possible. But of course!Needless to say, almost every country along the way is in a state of political agitation and Peter must grapple with wild animals, civil wars, natural disasters and corrupt governments. Travelling on his own, it's inevitable that Peter falls in with the usual motley crew of locals and fellow travellers, and has plenty of misadventures -all recounted in his hilarious, gut-wrenching, bottom-clenching style.'Moore has a parched dry wit, the solid brass cojones of a true traveller and a rare eye for the madness of the wider world.' JOHN BIRMINGHAM

The best American travel writing

 

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

he Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction.

Journalistic account of regional and outback Australia

 

Mint condition. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Memoir of poverty in outback Australia

 

Excellent condition. PB. 200pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Social mobility is not a train you get to board after you've scraped together enough for the ticket. You have to build the whole bloody engine, with nothing but a spoon and hand-me-down psychological distress.

Violence, treachery and cruelty run through the generational veins of Rick Morton's family. A horrific accident thrusts his mother and siblings into a world impossible for them to navigate, a life of poverty and drug addiction

One Hundred Years of Dirt is an unflinching memoir in which the mother is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a meditation on the anger, fear of others and an obsession with real and imagined borders. Yet it is also a testimony to the strength of familial love and endurance.

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.

On the law and reality of whistle blowers in Australia

 

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

The whistleblower is the lone person who decides enough is enough and that it’s time to speak out.  But what motivates them? What do they go through to expose an issue? How do they deal with their employer or the authority they are confronting? What are the ramifications for both the employer and the individual? 

Here, Dempster – hard-hitting journalist – deals with issues ranging from the BHP and Westpac to the Civil Aviation Authority, giving the background of the issues and the individuals involved. He knows the price those individuals pay for their efforts and also looks at how companies or businesses should react so that in the longterm, the public interest is better served. 

Whether you are an employer or an employee, this book is for you.

You can watch Quentin Dempster discuss this further here.

Reporting on Putin's other genocide

 

RARE BOOK. Very good condition. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

In Chechnya: A Small Victorious War Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal tell the full story of how the Kremlin came to embark on such an ill-judged military adventure and how the Chechen fighters fought back. Switching between Chechnya and Moscow, the authors cover the whole sweep of the war from the horrendous destruction of the Russian invasion to the Chechens’ dramatic retaliation to force the Russian army out.

The book traces the roots of the conflict: the Chechens’ history of resistance to the Russian empire, the rogue state set up by the eccentric general-turned-president Jokhar Dudayev as the Soviet Union fell apart, and the Kremlin court politics that precipitated the decision to invade Chechnya.

With its exclusive material and eye-witness reporting, Chechnya: A Small Victorious War is the definitive account of the most tragic and extraordinary story to emerge from the end of the Soviet Union. It is also the story of the flamboyant, anarchic and unyielding Chechens and their struggle for survival.

The Betoota Advocate 2020 yearbook

 

Mint condition. PB. 256 pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Bloody hilarious. 

From the heart of the Western Queensland Channel Country, Australia's oldest and favourite newspaper details our country's very rocky start to a new decade that was supposed to be one of great optimism and innovation.

2020 was meant to be our year of healing. A time to tend to the wounds of a country torn asunder by a decade of divisive political and media debates. A lack of confidence in the international sporting arena. A 24-hour news cycle that has destroyed the pub test.

We thought all of the uncertainty was behind us. The federal election delivered us Scotty from Marketing. The Quiet Australian spoke up. Gay marriage? Yep. Climate change? Let's wait and see what happens. Smudge and Warner had served their time and, together as a nation, it was time to rebuild.

But fate had other plans, starting with the worst bushfires in human memory. While large swathes of the country burned, our politicians were either on holidays or giving their mates grants to build indoor pools in blue-ribbon seats. Surely, it couldn't get worse.

'ken oath it could. Mother nature arrived as COVID-19, and told us all to go to our rooms.

About the Author

The Betoota Advocate is a small and independent regional newspaper from far west Queensland. We pride ourselves on reporting fair and just news with an authenticity that rivals only the salt on the sunburnt earth that surrounds us here in the Queensland Channel Country. Established in the mid-1800s, we are arguably Australia's oldest newspaper and have always taken pride in our ability to report both regional and metropolitan news. Recently, our popularity has grown immensely as result of a bold online revival

Travels in Sri Lanka

 

Mint condition. HB. 528pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia

Sri Lanka is a small island with a long, violent and enthralling history. Home to thousands of wild elephants, this is a place where natural beauty has endured, indifferent to human tragedy.
Journeying through its many regions - some haunted by war, many rarely seen by our eyes - award-winning travel writer John Gimlette interviews ex-presidents and cricketers, tea planters and terrorists, negotiating the complex relationships of Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim communities and the more sinister forms of tourism.

Each city raises the ghosts of old colonies: Portuguese, Dutch and British armies striving to claim the most significant ports in the southern seas; each site resurrects a civilization that preceded, and sometimes, outfaced them. The political families of Colombo lead Gimlette through recent years of turmoil, survivors of the tsunami tell of their recovery and, tale by tale, scrap by scrap, the thorny truths of the civil war emerge - a war whose wounds have yet to heal.

As he walks in the steps of old conquerors, follows the secret paths of elephants and marches alongside pilgrims, Gimlette seeks the soul of a country that is struggling to free itself from trauma and embody an identity to match its vitality, its power and its people.

An award-winning account of the Keating government

 

Mint condition. PB. 272pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

In the early 1980s, Paul Keating set out to reinvent the Australian economy. He floated the Australian dollar, liberated banking and finance from its regulatory shackles, and - most significantly - introduced a universal superannuation scheme. The results were astounding growth in the value of the national economy and in the personal wealth of ordinary Australians.

Keating's revolution was based on his insight that, by encouraging every citizen to save for retirement, a huge pool of investment capital would be created that would help enrich the nation. But the fulfillment of his vision was denied by his political opponents after the Australian people voted Keating out in 1996.

In Unfinished Business, David Love, a veteran economic and financial observer, explores the stor of Keating's revolution - a story that has never been fully told - and sounds a timely warning that the failure to finish the job Keating started has left our new-found prosperity vulnerable, particularly in the current climate of international economic uncertainty. The Keating revolution, it turns out, is at least as relevant to the future as it has been to the past.

An authoritative account of the Dismissal of the Whitlam government

 

Mint condition. HB. 448pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Drawing on a range of new sources, some of which have never before been made public - including hundreds of pages from Kerr's archives - this remarkable account is dispassionate in its analysis, vivid in its narrative and brutal in its conclusions. It exposes the true motivations, the extent of the deceit and the scale of the collusion.

Forty years on, the dismissal remains one of the most damaging and controversial events in Australian politics.

This groundbreaking book by two of our leading journalists provides a startling reinterpretation of events. It tells the story of the clash between extraordinary personalities- two political giants - Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser - and an ambitious and calculating governor-general, Sir John Kerr.

Drawing on a range of new sources, some of which have never before been made public - including hundreds of pages from Kerr's archives - this remarkable account is dispassionate in its analysis, vivid in its narrative and brutal in its conclusions. It exposes the true motivations, the extent of the deceit and the scale of the collusion.

The definitive biography of David Bowie

 

Mint condition. HB. 496pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The 10th January, 2016 will no doubt resonate with David Bowie fans across the globe from now on. The world was shocked to wake to the sudden news of his death from cancer, which he had been secretly battling for eighteen months. The outpouring of grief, empathy and loss has been palpable, honest and raw. And he had only turned sixty-nine.

Respected arts commentator Paul Morley, one of the team who curated the highly successful retrospective exhibition for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, David Bowie Is . . . constructs the definitive story of Bowie that explores how he worked, played, aged, structured his ideas, invented the future and entered history as someone who could and would never be forgotten. Morley will capture the greatest moments of Bowie’s career; from the recording studio with the likes of Brian Eno and Tony Visconti; to iconic live performances from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, as well as the various encounters and artistic relationships he developed with rock luminaries John Lennon, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. And of course, discuss in detail his much-heralded, and critically-acclaimed comeback with the release of Black Star just days before his shocking death in New York.

Morley will offer a startling biographical critique of David Bowie’s legacy, showing how he never stayed still even when he withdrew from the spotlight, how he always knew his own worth, and released a dazzling plethora of mobile Bowies into the world with a bloody-minded determination and a voluptuous imagination to create something amazing that was not there before.

About the Author

Writer, broadcaster, and cultural critic Paul Morley has written about music, art, and entertainment since the 1970s. A founding member of the electronic collective Art of Noise and a member of staff at the Royal Academy of Music, he is the author of Ask: Chatter of Pop; Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City; Piece by Piece: Writing About Joy Division 1977–2007; Earthbound; The North; and Nothing, and he collaborated with music icon Grace Jones on her memoir, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs.

A moving memoir by a brilliant Australian journalist

 

PB Mint Condition. 416 pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

'Life is not defined by the bad things that happen to us. It certainly isn't for me.'

Written for her young son so that he would know what had happened to his mother, Cynthia Banham's inspiring family memoir uncovers a true picture of what survival means:

'This book tells a story that I tried to write many times before, but couldn't. For a long time, it was too painful to tell. It is also one I hadn't known how to tell. It had to be more than a story about surviving a plane crash, a random event without intrinsic meaning.'

Unable till now to write her own story, Cynthia found that the lives of her Italian grandfather, Alfredo, and his intriguing older sister, Amelia, resonated with her own. Discovering their sacrifice, joy, fear and love, from Trieste to Germany and America, and finally to Australia, their stories mirror and illuminate Cynthia's own determination and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity.

From a remarkable writer, and told with unflinching honesty and compassion, A Certain Light speaks to the heart of what really matters in life.

SOLD Travels through the Hindu Kush mountains

 

SOLD

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.

Pakistan - playing with fire?

 

HB. Mint condition. 352pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

 A volatile nation at the heart of major cultural, political, and religious conflicts in the world today, Pakistan commands our attention. Yet more than six decades after the country’s founding as a Muslim democracy, it continues to struggle over its basic identity, alliances, and direction. In Playing with Fire, acclaimed journalist Pamela Constable peels back layers of contradiction and confusion to reveal the true face of modern Pakistan.

In this richly reported and movingly written chronicle, Constable takes us on a panoramic tour of contemporary Pakistan, exploring the fears and frustrations, dreams and beliefs, that animate the lives of ordinary citizens in this nuclear-armed nation of 170 million. From the opulent, insular salons of the elite to the brick quarries where soot-covered workers sell their kidneys to get out of debt, this is a haunting portrait of a society riven by inequality and corruption, and increasingly divided by competing versions of Islam.

Beneath the façade of democracy in Pakistan, Constable reveals the formidable hold of its business, bureaucratic, and military elites—including the country’s powerful spy agency, the ISI. This is a society where the majority of the population feels powerless, and radical Islamist groups stoke popular resentment to recruit shock troops for global jihad. Writing with an uncommon ear for the nuances of this conflicted culture, Constable explores the extent to which faith permeates every level of Pakistani society—and the ambivalence many Muslims feel about the role it should play in the life of the nation.

Both an empathic and alarming look inside one of the world’s most violent and vexing countries, Playing with Fire is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand modern Pakistan and its momentous role on today’s global stage.

SOLD Travels through Laos

 

SOLD

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.