How the West woos Arab dictators

 

Mint condition. HB. 416pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

In A Brutal Friendship, Said K. Aburish traces the true origins of the region's present turmoil to the manner in which corrupt Arab rulers have subordinated the welfare of their subjects to their cultivation of cozy relationships with the West. Using direct evidence from his unrivaled range of Arab sources, he describes how the West -- mostly the CIA -- sponsored Islamic fundamentalism in the 1950s and '60s in an effort to contain Nasser and thwart Soviet designs on the region, how American and British leaders have turned a blind eye to repressive governments when they suit their interests (and toppled them when they do not), and how it is these very machinations that set Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on his bloody road to power.

SOLD Travels through Muslim and Buddhist China

 

SOLD

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.

David Marr's religious journey

 

Very good condition. PB. 319 pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A prominent Australian journalist explores themes of religion, politics and sexuality. 

Priests and preachers have returned to haunt Australian politics. The mission is to get us all to heaven by banning drugs, chopping movies and turning the criminal law against sex. This book is about the politics of salvation - and the cruelty, comedy, and pain inflicted by the enemies of freedom and pleasure.

This is also a book of stories - of murder, and chicanery, suicide and savvy bishops, of the Methodist childhood of John Howard and the ruthless Christian warriors who fight the drugs war, of bizarre censorship and bigotry on the High Court, brawls behind the closed doors of elite church schools, the endless Crusade against sodomy and the devout life of Brian Harradine.

David Marr's aim is to make sense of what's happening as this country drifts back in time, by disentangling the theology from the politics.

Syria - diaries from Russia's other war

 

PB. Mint condition. 270pp. $20 including postage to anywhere in Australia.

A well-known novelist and journalist from the coastal city of Jableh, Samar Yazbek witnessed the beginning four months of the uprising first-hand and actively participated in a variety of public actions and budding social movements. Throughout this period she kept a diary of personal reflections on, and observations of, this historic time. Because of the outspoken views she published in print and online, Yazbek quickly attracted the attention and fury of the regime, vicious rumours started to spread about her disloyalty to the homeland and the Alawite community to which she belongs.

The lyrical narrative describes her struggle to protect herself and her young daughter, even as her activism propels her into a horrifying labyrinth of insecurity after she is forced into living on the run and detained multiple times, excluded from the Alawite community and renounced by her family, her hometown and even her childhood friends. With rare empathy and journalistic prowess Samar Yazbek compiled oral testimonies from ordinary Syrians all over the country. Filled with snapshots of exhilarating hope and horrifying atrocities, she offers us a wholly unique perspective on the Syrian uprising. Hers is a modest yet powerful testament to the strength and commitment of countless unnamed Syrians who have united to fight for their freedom. These diaries will inspire all those who read them, and challenge the world to look anew at the trials and tribulations of the Syrian uprising.

An oral history of Japan in WWII

 

PB. Excellent condition. 493 pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A “deeply moving book” (Studs Terkel) and the first ever oral history to document the experience of ordinary Japanese people during World War II

“Hereafter no one will be able to think, write, or teach about the Pacific War without reference to [the Cooks’] work.” —Marius B. Jansen, Emeritus Professor of Japanese History, Princeton University

This pathbreaking work of oral history by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook was the first book ever to capture the experience of ordinary Japanese people during the war and remains the classic work on the subject.

In a sweeping panorama, Japan at War takes us from the Japanese attacks on China in the 1930s to the Japanese home front during the inhuman raids on Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, offering glimpses of how the twentieth century’s most deadly conflict affected the lives of the Japanese population. The book “seeks out the true feelings of the wartime generation [and] illuminates the contradictions between the official views of the war and living testimony” (Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan).

For decades, American and Japanese readers have turned to Japan at War for a candid portrait of the Japanese experience during World War II in all its complexity. Featuring essays that contextualize the oral histories of each tumultuous period covered, Japan at War is appropriate both as an introduction to those war-ravaged decades and as a riveting reference for those studying the war in the Pacific.

A fictitious biography of Donald Trump

 

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

A provocatively entertaining, savagely funny satire on Donald Trump by Britain’s greatest comic novelist, winner of the Man Booker Prize

A provocatively entertaining, savagely funny satire on Donald Trump by Britain’s greatest comic novelist.

Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, famed for its golden-gated skyscrapers and casinos, who passes his boyhood watching reality shows on TV, imagining himself to be the Roman Emperor Nero, and fantasizing about hookers. He is idle, boastful, thin-skinned and egotistic; has no manners, no curiosity, no knowledge, no idea and no words in which to express them. Could he, in that case, be the very leader to make the country great again?

Howard Jacobson has written sixteen novels and five works of non-fiction. He won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award in 2000 for The Mighty Walzer and then again in 2013 for Zoo Time. In 2010 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question; he was also shortlisted for the prize in 2014 for J.

MAGA no more?

 

PB. Excellent condition. 464pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A comprehensive analysis of the political, economic, cultural and technological factors that contributed to America’s decline and inadvertently paved the way for Trump’s presidency.

The presidency of Donald Trump is commonly seen as an historical accident. In When America Stopped Being Great, Nick Bryant argues that it was almost historically inescapable. In this highly personal account, drawing on decades of covering Washington for the BBC, Bryant shows how the billionaire capitalised on the mistakes of his five predecessors – Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – and how also he became a beneficiary of a broken politics, an iniquitous economy, an ailing media, a facile culture, disruptive new technology and the creation of a modern-day presidency that elevated showmanship over statesmanship. Not only are we seeing the emergence of a post-American world, Bryant fears we are witnessing the emergence of a post-American America. The aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when Donald Trump refused to accept defeat and incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol, revealed the country’s chronic state of disunion.

The history of Donald Trump’s rise is also the history of America’s fall.

'An elegant and insightful dissection of how a great nation lost its footing and the world’s respect. The tragedy is made all the more stark by the genuine love of America in Nick Bryant’s writing' – Leigh Sales

SOLD A book about witchcraft

 

SOLD

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

 

SOLD

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

A definitive biography of Franklin D Roosevelt the environmentalist

 

Mint condition. HB. 482pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior celebrated Theodore Roosevelt’s spirit of outdoor exploration and bold vision to protect 234 million acres of wild America. Now, in Rightful Heritage, Brinkley turns his attention to the other indefatigable environmental leader—Teddy’s distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, chronicling his essential yet under-sung legacy as the founder of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and premier protector of America’s public lands. FDR built from scratch dozens of State Park systems and scenic roadways. Pristine landscapes such as the Great Smokies, the Everglades, Joshua Tree, the Olympics, Big Bend, Channel Islands, Mammoth Cave, and the slickrock wilderness of Utah were forever saved by his leadership.

Brinkley traces FDR’s love for the natural world from his youth exploring the Hudson River Valley and bird watching. As America’s president from 1933 to 1945, Roosevelt—consummate political strategist—established hundreds of federal migratory bird refuges and spearheaded the modern endangered species movement. He brilliantly positioned his conservation goals as economic policy to combat the severe unemployment of the Great Depression. During its nine-year existence, the CCC put nearly three million young men to work on conservation projects—including building trails in the national parks, pollution control, land restoration to combat the Dust Bowl, and planting over two billion trees.

Rightful Heritage is an epic chronicle that is both an irresistible portrait of FDR’s unrivaled passion and drive, and an indispensable analysis that skillfully illuminates the tension between business and nature—exploiting our natural resources and conserving them. Within the narrative are brilliant capsule biographies of such environmental warriors as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, and Rosalie Edge. Rightful Heritage is essential reading for everyone seeking to preserve our treasured landscapes as an American birthright.

Biography of one of Australia's great union lawyers

 

HB. Mint condition. 339pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Maurice Blackburn brought into public life a rare character, complete indifference to personal consequences, an uncommon scholarship, great zeal for humanity, and a firm belief, which I am happy to share, that men are immeasurably more important than laws. - Robert Menzies Maurice Blackburn served the people who suffered injustice . . .

He pleaded their cause, and he engaged in the study of how best he could serve them . . . He would allow nothing to turn him from what he considered to be the right, and however unpopular he might become, however discomforting his attitude might be to his colleagues, the divine monitor within him impelled him to stand for what in his soul he believed. - John Curtin After his father died when Maurice Blackburn was a child, he was brought up by a mother who was descended from Melbourne's gentry and was determined to raise him as a gentleman who would achieve greatness as a judge or a prime minister.

However, Blackburn had humbler aims. With the support of his wife, he wanted instead 'to make life better for the ordinary men and women of the country'. He went on to do so, defending the rights of working people as a leading barrister in the courts and as a politician in the parliaments of Melbourne and Canberra, and became much loved and admired across the political spectrum. A socialist and internationalist all his life, who was twice expelled from the Labor Party for his principles, Blackburn became a leading opponent of conscription in both world wars, a supporter of rights for women, an advocate for peace, and a tireless campaigner for transforming Australia so that it served the interests of all its people.

Part love story, part gripping political thriller, the poignant story of the much-lauded Maurice Blackburn exposes a time when influence-peddling was rife, when political possibilities seemed limitless, and when a man of principle could still make a big difference to the course of Australian politics.

About the Author

David Day is a bestselling and prize-winning biographer and historian, several of whose books have been published to acclaim in the United States and Britain and have been translated into numerous languages. Among his many academic posts, David Day has been a junior research fellow at Clare College in Cambridge, a by-fellow at Churchill College in Cambridge, and a visiting fellow at the University of Aberdeen and the Australian National University. He spent three years as a visiting professor at University College, Dublin, and two years at the University of Tokyo. He is currently an honorary associate in the history program at La Trobe University. Maurice Blackburn- champion of the people is his twentieth book.

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...

Australian women write about friendship

 

Excellent condition. PB. 304pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia.

From childhood to adulthood, friendship - and particularly intimate friendship - seems to be of far greater importance to women than to men. Why is that so? Is it the case for all women? What happens when those close, sustaining relationships fall apart?

A selection of Clive James' best TV reviews

 

Very good condition. PB. 240pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

'His contribution to the art and enjoyment of TV criticism over the past ten years has been immense. His work is deeply perceptive, often outrageously funny and always compulsively readable'

Said the judges of the British Press Awards, in naming Clive James Critic of the Year for 1981. The Crystal Bucket offers a further selection of his inimitable TV criticism for the Observer.

'C.J. didn't get where he is today just by being funny. He is humane, liberal and compassionate . . . What he writes is always pertinent and always witty . . We own him a deep debt of gratitude' Gavin Ewart, Listener

'Few critics have a more unerring ear for woolliness and doubletalk or a more scathing and entertaining way of dealing with it' Lesley Garner, Good Housekeeping

'He is one of the most remarkable figures in British cultural life at the moment: a poet and gifted literary critic who is also genuinely liked by the mass audience' Michael Mason, London Review of Books

'One of the few columnists who make you laugh aloud . . . if there were angels he would be on their side: and that would certainly include Charlie's Angels' Melvyn Bragg, Sunday Times

Notes from Planet America on how to become US President

 

Excellent condition. PB. 262pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Vote for Me reveals what it takes to become president of the biggest democracy of them all. Written by Australian journalist and Planet America presenter John Barron, who happens to be a US politics junkie, Vote for Me is a fascinating, funny and, at times frightening, look at the way the USA picks its President.

Memoirs of a former Prime Minister

 

Very good condition. PB. First edition. 224pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

This book is so well-written. Refreshingly honest. I wrote about it in Crikey once ...

"The manifesto Abbott set out in his book was far more progressive and mainstream than he is known for, and certainly more inclusive than many policies he pursued during his short term as PM. And far more attractively presented."

The late Bob Ellis, whom Abbott once successfully sued for defamation, writes ...

" ... Tony Abbott, can write really well, with lucidity, mischief, moral persuasiveness and a kind of jovial dignity like his fellow Oxonian blow-in Bill Clinton. A first-class boxer, he has an unbroken nose, a truly impressive achievement in one so ideologically combative.

He writes really well; yet I wish he had told us more."

Tales from the Children's Court as told by a former magistrate

 

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

A compelling, inspiring and moving collection of Barbara Holborow's stories of hope, loss and apathy from behind the Bench as Children's Magistrate.

In this inspiring, moving and often funny collection of stories, bestselling author Barbara Holborow tells of The Good, the Bad and The Inevitable outcomes for so many of the kids she saw standing in front of her as Children's Magistrate.

There are stories of the kids who, like broken glass jars, can never be mended due to the awful beginnings they have suffered. There are stories of the kids and their parents who are willing to make changes and turn their lives around with lots of hard work. There are stories of kids and parents who just don't care and who don't change. And there are also stories of the wonderful, inspiring kids and their carers (from parents, grannies and grandpas, foster parents and adoptive parents) who will do anything within their power to keep families together, to keep families loving and safe and who instill that important sense of hope for the future.

Barbara's motto is that everyone in a community has responsibility for every child. To illustrate this, throughout the book, interspersed between the stories, are snippets of Barbara's wisdom and tips for everyone on raising kids looking out for them, and keeping them happy and safe. After all - together we are one big family of humanity, and should look out for each other.

A simple guide to understanding the complexities of current events

 

Mint condition. PB. 304pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

This is a life raft for anyone who finds themselves floundering amidst a sea of ten-second soundbites, wishing they had a better grasp of complexities of world politics and global issues. 

Clear, concise language sets the record straight on a diverse range of topics as Lawrence Potter presents answers to fifty-seven questions about the world we live in, stretching from "What is jihad?" to "is fair trade a good thing?" and "Is there still a war in Chechnya?" . 

Important information including the latest research on environmental issues and the history behind current events worldwide is presented in enough detail to be useful without overwhelming readers with too much making for a balanced, informed reference guide.

Also covering... What is the problem with plastic bags? What did Sadaam do to the Kurds? What is the difference between a sunni and a shia and is it possible that global warming is not taking place