Animals Make Us Human by Leah Kaminsky; Meg Keneally

$29.99 AUD

Category: Environment

A response to the devastating 2019-20 bushfires, Animals Make Us Human both celebrates Australia's unique wildlife and highlights its vulnerability. Through words and images, writers, photographers and researchers reflect on their connection with animals and nature. They share moments of wonder and reve lation from encounters in the natural world- seeing a wild platypus at play, an echidna dawdling across a bush track, or the inexplicable leap of a thresher shark; watching bats take flight at dusk, or birds making a home in the backyard; or following possums, gliders and owls into the dark. Hopeful, uplifting and deeply moving, this collection is also an urgent call to action, a powerful reminder that we only have one world in which to coexist and thrive with our fellow creatures. By highlighting the beauty and fragility of our unique fauna, Australia's favourite writers, renowned researchers and acclaimed photographers encourage readers to consider it in a new light. Featuring- Barbara Allen, Robbie Arnott, Tony Birch, James Bradley, Mark Brandi, Geraldine Brooks, Anne Buist, Melanie Cheng, Claire G. Coleman, Ceridwen Dovey, Chris Flynn, Nayuka Gorrie, Dan Harley, Ashley Hay, Toni Jordan, Leah Kaminsky, Paul Kelly, Meg Keneally, Tom Keneally, Cate Kennedy, David Lindenmayer, Ella Loeffler, Maia Loeffler, Jen Martin, Angela Meyer, Sonia Orchard, Favel Parrett, Marissa Parrott, Bruce Pascoe, Jack Pascoe, Sue Pillans, Nick Porch, Holly Ringland, Euan Ritchie, Antoinette Roe, Kirli Saunders, Graeme Simsion, Tracy Sorensen, Shaun Tan, Lucy Treloar, Karen Viggers, Emma Viskic, John Woinarski, Clare Wright. And photographers- Tim Bawden, Kristian Bell, Rohan Bilney, Justin Bruhn, Andrew Buckle, Matt Clancy, Amy Coetsee, Craig Coverdale, Angus Emmott, Terry Houston, Jayne Jenkins, Vivien Jones, Sue Liu, Michael Livingston, Caleb McElrea, Nick Monaghan, Richard Pillans, Gillian Rayment, Linda Rogan, David Maurice Smith, Steve Smith, Colin Southwell, Georgina Steytler, Wayne Suffield, Heather Sutton, Peter Taylor, William Terry, Patrick Tomkins, Belinda Wilson, Matt Wright. ...Show more

2020: The Year That Changed Us by The Conversation; Molly Glassey (Contribution by)

$21.99 AUD

Category: Cultural Studies

In January 2020, Australia went from battling one of its worst-ever bushfire seasons to preparing for COVID-19 to hit its shores. What ensued was crisis: a pandemic, political upheaval, an international human rights movement, global recession and localised emergencies dwarfed by a world spinning on an a xis of turmoil.These essays from leading thinkers and contributors to The Conversation examine what will be one of the most significant and punishing years in the 21st century. 2020: The Year That Changed Us explores the lessons that cannot be overlooked from this remarkable year, and the most intelligent way forward.Contributors include:Michelle GrattanPeter MartinRaina MacIntyreJoëlle GergisPeter GresteThalia AnthonyShino KonishiFiona Stanley ...Show more

The Momentous, Uneventful Day: A Requiem for the Office by Gideon Haigh

$24.99 AUD

Category: Memoir & Biography

Has COVID-19 ushered in the end of the office? Or is it the office's final triumph? For decades, futurologists have prophesied a boundaryless working world, freed from the cramped confines of the office. During the COVID-19 crisis, employees around the globe got a taste of it. Confined by lockdown to t heir homes, they met, mingled, collaborated, and created electronically. At length, they returned to something approaching normality. Or had they glimpsed the normal to come? In The Momentous, Uneventful Day, Gideon Haigh reflects on what COVID-19 revealed about our ambivalent relationship to office work and office life, how we ended up with the offices we have, how they have reflected our best and worst instincts, and how these might be affected by a world in a time of contagion. Like the factory in the nineteenth century, the office was the characteristic building form of the twentieth, reshaping our cities, redirecting our lives. We all have a stake in how it will change in the twenty-first. Enlivened by copious citations from literature, film, memoir, and corporate history, and interspersed with relevant images, The Momentous, Uneventful Day is the ideal companion for a lively current debate about the post-pandemic office. ...Show more

The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic by New York Times Magazine

$35.00 AUD

Category: Short Stories

A stunning collection of new short stories originally commissioned by The New York Times Magazine as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, from twenty-nine authors including Margaret Atwood, Tommy Orange, Colm Toibin, Kamilia Shamsie, David Mitchell and more, in a project inspired by Boccaccio's The De cameron. When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it. In 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio wrote "The Decameron": one hundred nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25 million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like fables. In March of 2020, the editors of The New York Times Magazine created The Decameron Project, an anthology with a simple, time-spanning goal: to gather a collection of stories written as our current pandemic first swept the globe. How might new fiction from some of the finest writers working today help us memorialize and understand the unimaginable? And what could be learned about how this crisis will affect the art of fiction? These twenty-nine new stories, from authors including Margaret Atwood, Tommy Orange, Edwidge Danticat, and David Mitchell vary widely in texture and tone. Their work will be remembered as a historical tribute to a time and place unlike any other in our lifetimes, and offer perspective and solace to the reader now and in a future where coronavirus is, hopefully, just a memory.   ...Show more

I'm a Hero Too by Jamila Rizvi

$19.99 AUD

Category: Picture Books

An insightful, topical and practical picture book story about a family coping with the changes brought about by Covid 19, from the much-loved Jamila Rizvi. Inspired by her own child's experience, Jamila wrote I'm a Hero Too to help children make sense of the changes to their world and to help them feel empowered and reassured about how they can be a hero at their house too! A story for our time right now, but also for all times, as children will always need reassurance about change. Arty likes going to kinder, visiting his granny and playing with his friends at the playground, but since the virus came everything has changed and Arty can't do any of his favourite things anymore. Arty's mum is a hero, she's a scientist, helping to make medicines to fight the virus. Arty has a special plan about how he can be a hero and do his bit to help fight the virus too! ...Show more

Fire Flood and Plague: Australian Writers Respond to This Extraordinary Year by Sophie Cunningham ed.

$29.99 AUD

Category: Non-Fiction

Writers, scientists, historians, journalists and commentators consider subjects as broad as culture and the arts, working as a doctor, travel, domestic violence, security, immigration, the death of a loved one, geopolitics, distance and zoom to ensure we never forget the experience of this pile-on of a year. Including original pieces from Lenore Taylor, Nyadol Nuon, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Lucashenko, Billy Griffiths, Jess Hill, Kim Scott, Brenda Walker, Jane Rawson, Omar Sakr, Richard McGregor, Jennifer Mills, Gabrielle Chan, John Birmingham, Tim Flannery, Rebecca Giggs, Kate Cole-Adams, George Megalogenis, James Bradley, Alison Croggan, Melanie Cheng, Kirsten Tranter, Tom Griffiths, Joelle Gergis and Delia Falconer.   ...Show more

To My Country by Ben Lawson; Bruce Whatley (Illustrator)

$29.99 AUD

Category: Poetry

On January 10, Ben touched the hearts of Australians with the reading of his poem To My Country in response to the Australian bushfires. This gorgeous 4 colour book combines Ben's heartfelt words with stunning illustrations by Bruce Whatley.  

Upturn: A Better Normal after COVID-19 by Tanya Plibersek (Editor)

$32.99 AUD

Category: Cultural Studies

If you had asked most people a year ago, they would have told you there was no way that school children could shift overnight to online learning; that it was impossible for banks to offer mortgage holidays; impossible to double unemployment benefits; impossible to house rough sleepers or put a hold on e victions; impossible to offer wages subsidies and definitely impossible to get Australians to stay home from the beach and the pub.COVID-19 has resulted in changes none of us could have imagined, but what happens next? In this book, edited by Labor luminary Tanya Plibersek, a who's who of economic and social policy experts explore ways in which we can rebuild our society and economy in a strong, fair and environmentally sustainable way. The stellar line-up of contributors includes Ross Garnaut on investing in renewables for cheap energy, Sally McManus on industrial relations, Annabel Crabb on gender roles during the COVID crisis, Jenny Macklin on the new social security net, Tim Soutphommasane on race, June Oscar on keeping COVID-19 out of Indigenous communities and Peter Garrett on the environment. ...Show more

What Is to Be Done: Political Engagement and Saving the Planet by Barry Jones

$32.99 AUD

$35.00 (5% off)

Category: Sustainability

A sequel to the prescient bestseller, first published in 1982, that alerted the public to the likely impacts of information technologies and the emergence of a post-industrial society. When Sleepers, Wake!was first released in Australia, it immediately became influential around the world: it was read by Deng Xiaoping and Bill Gates; was published in China, Japan, South Korea, and Sweden; and led to the author being the first Australian minister invited to address a G-7 summit meeting, held in Canada in 1985. Now its author, the polymath and former politician Barry Jones, turns his attention to what has happened since -- especially to work, class, social relationships, and climate in the digital age -- and to the challenges faced by increasingly fragile democracies and public institutions. Jones sees climate change as the greatest problem of our time, especially because political leaders are incapable of dealing with complex, long-term issues of such magnitude. Meanwhile, technologies such as the smartphone and the ubiquity of social media have reinforced the realm of the personal. This has weakened our sense of, or empathy with, 'the other', the remote, the unfamiliar, and all but destroyed our sense of community, of being members of broad, inclusive groups. In the post-truth era, politicians invent 'facts' and ignore or deny the obvious, while business and the media are obsessed with marketing and consumption for the short term. What Is to Be Done is a long-awaited update on such challenges of modernity.     ...Show more

The Care Factor - A Pandemic Nurse's Story by Ailsa Wild

$24.99 AUD

Category: Memoir & Biography

The Care Factor tells the story of one incredible nurse - one among many - who chose to meet an unprecedented global health crisis on the frontline. Simone Sheridan has one of the most sought-after skills today. As a nurse, her skill is to care. When Covid-19 began to spread across the world in 2020, S im volunteered to retrain to work in Melbourne's intensive care wards. And as she prepared to go back to ICU and case numbers began climbing, Sim started talking to her friend Ailsa. Through the exhaustion, the confusion, the many tears and the surprising moments of hilarity, Sim kept talking. And Ailsa started writing. In The  Care Factor, Ailsa walks behind Sim as she faces the realities of the coronavirus. The result is a deeply human account of what the pandemic has really meant, not just for Sim and her fellow health professionals, but also for their patients, their families and friends, and the many who faced life in lockdown. This is a celebration of nursing, of friendship, and of the layers of connection and care that allow us to keep going when it feels impossible.     ...Show more

The Rome Plague Diaries - Lockdown Life in the Eternal City by Matthew Kneale

$29.99 AUD

Category: Memoir & Biography

A warm and affectionate portrait of a city and a people under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, from the award-winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings.