Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark by Julia Baird

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography, Memoir & Autobiography

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness - the 'light within' that Julia Baird calls 'phosphorescence' - which will sustain us even through the darkest times. Over the last decade, we have become bett er at knowing what brings us contentment, well-being and joy. We know, for example, that there are a few core truths to science of happiness. We know that being kind and altruistic makes us happy, that turning off devices, talking to people, forging relationships, living with meaning and delving into the concerns of others offer our best chance at achieving happiness. But how do we retain happiness? It often slips out of our hands as quickly as we find it. So, when we are exposed to, or learn, good things, how do we continue to burn with them?And more than that, when our world goes dark, when we're overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain, how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom? In the muck and grit of a daily existence full of disappointments and a disturbing lack of control over many of the things that matter most - finite relationships, fragile health, fraying economies, a planet in peril - how do we find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light - a light to ward off the darkness? Absorbing, achingly beautiful, inspiring and deeply moving, Julia Baird has written exactly the book we need for these times. ...Show more

Untamed Stop Pleasing, Start Living by Glennon Doyle

$35.00 AUD

Category: Biography, Memoir & Autobiography

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder: Wasn't it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent - even from ourselves. For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind: There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realised they had come to her from within. This was her own voice - the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to stop abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world's expectations of her. She stopped being good so she could be free. She stopped pleasing and started living. Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanising wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is also the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honour our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts. Untamed shows us how to be brave. And, as Glennon insists, 'The braver we are, the luckier we get.'   ...Show more

The Lost Boy - Tales of a Child Soldier by Ayik Chut Deng

$34.99 AUD

Category: Biography, Memoir & Autobiography

In episode 1 of the Ray Martin fronted SBS series Look me in the eye two South Sudanese migrants now resident in Brisbane sat across from each other and looked into each other's eyes. One of them, Ayik, was once a ten-year-old boy soldier training in the junior forces of the SPLA and like many of the yo ung boys hating it. He regularly ran away, sometimes to refugee camps, but was found, dragged bag and brutally punished by then fourteen-year-old Anyang, the man now sitting opposite him. After a tumultuous life in Africa, Ayik brings that trauma with him to Australia and at various times gets in trouble with the law over violence, alcohol and drugs. He is misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and is wrongly medicated for years. One day at a Brisbane church he looks across and sees his childhood torturer and is filled with hate. They do not interact then, but on their next encounter, a few years later, Ayik speaks with Anyang and says if they were still in Africa he would kill him. Thankfully a number of forces (including the law and parenthood and a better psychiatrist) eventually set Ayik on the straight and narrow. He is studying and working and hopes to be an actor. He has had small roles in films in Queensland including Thor - Ragnarok! An incredibly honest book showing that recovering from torture and war is a process of lifelong learning, choices and challenges. ...Show more

The Animals In That Country by Laura Jean McKay

$29.99 AUD

Category: Natural History

Out on the road, no one speaks, everything talks. Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She's never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guid e in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu- its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals - first mammals, then birds and insects, too. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds, including Jean's infected son, Lee. When he takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin. Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species. Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, The Animals In That Country asks what would happen, for better or worse, if we finally understood what animals were saying.   ...Show more

Local Is Our Future - Steps to an Economics of Happiness by Helena Norberg-Hodge

$22.95 AUD

Category: SUSTAINABLE

Globalization has no future. Political stability is a thing of the past; climate chaos is intensifying; anxiety disorders are of epidemic proportions; extremism and fundamentalism are becoming the norm. And yet we cling to the wreckage. Politicians of every hue continue to be in thrall to the global mar ket. To challenge 'free trade', which is the very essence of globalization, is all but unthinkable. But challenge it we must. And replace it. The future will be local. And the good news is that it is already happening. Under the radar of the mainstream media, a worldwide localization movement is emerging. On every continent, people are coming together to claw back control over their own economies, and in doing so are rebuilding connections to one another, while repairing fractured communities and damaged environments. At the forefront of this inspirational movement is the creation of local food systems. But there are other clear trends in the same direction - in finance, education, renewable energy, governance, and much more. Book jacket. ...Show more

Missing William Tyrrell by Caroline Overington

$34.99 AUD

Category: True Crime

   One minute a little boy is playing outside his foster nana's house, the next minute, he's gone. How can a three year old child simply disappear? On Friday 12 September 2014, William Tyrrell - a playful three-year-old boy dressed in a fire-engine red Spider-Man suit - disappears from a quiet street in broad daylight. It's assumed he's lost in the nearby bushland, but despite an intensive search, he's not found, and police start to suspect he's been abducted. No trace of William - not a shoe, not a hair - has ever been found, but now is not the time to surrender. How can a little boy just vanish? We have to find him. From best-selling author and Walkley Award-winning journalist, Caroline Overington, Missing William Tyrrell is a moving and compelling exploration of one of Australia's most baffling and heartbreaking mysteries. ...Show more

Kitty Flanagan's 488 Rules for Life by Kitty Flanagan

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography, Memoir & Autobiography | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

RICHARD GLOVER: ''You won’t agree with all her rules – I, for one, am a great believer in the word “pash” – but there is a good laugh, and a lively argument, to be had on every page.'' 488 Rules for Life is Kitty Flanagan's way of making the world a more pleasant place to l ive. Applying truth and wit to modern problems. An antidote to stupidity. 488 Rules for Life is not a self-help book, because it's not you who needs help, it's other people. Whether they're walking and texting, asphyxiating you on public transport with their noxious perfume cloud, or leaving one useless square of toilet paper on the roll, a lot of people just don't know the rules. But thanks to Kitty Flanagan's comprehensive guide to modern behaviour, our world will soon be a much better place. A place where people don't ruin the fruit salad by putting banana in it … where your co-workers respect your olfactory system and don't reheat their fish curry in the office microwave ... where middle aged men don't have ponytails … What started as a joke on Kitty Flanagan's popular segment on ABC TV's The Weekly, is now a quintessential reference book with the power to change society. (Or, at least, make it a bit less irritating.) What people (okay, Kitty Flanagan) are saying about this book: 'You're welcome everyone. Thank god for me.' 'I'd rather be sad and lonely, but right.' 'There's not actually 488 rules in here but it sure feels like it'. ...Show more

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That White Feminists Forgot by Mikki Kendall

$29.99 AUD

Category: Social Thought

'It is absolutely brilliant, I think every woman should read it' PANDORA SYKES, THE HIGH LOW'My wish is that every white woman who calls herself a feminist will read this book in a state of hushed and humble respect ... Essential reading' ELIZABETH GILBERTI'm a feminist. Mostly. I'm an asshole. Mostly.A ll too often the focus of mainstream feminism is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. Meeting basic needs is a feminist issue. Food insecurity, the living wage, access to education and medical care are feminist issues. The fight against racism, ableism and transmisogyny are all feminist issues. White feminists often fail to see how race, class, sexual orientation and disability intersect with gender. How can feminists stand in solidarity as a movement when there is a distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? Insightful, incendiary and ultimately hopeful, Hood Feminism is both an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux and also clear-eyed assessment of how to save it. ...Show more

War: An Enquiry by A. C. Grayling

$27.99 AUD

Category: Philosophy | Series: Vices and Virtues Ser.

In this deeply considered book, renowned philosopher A. C. Grayling ranges across the tragic history of war. He considers much-debated theories on the causes of water, how warfare has changed in response to technological advances, positive changes that may arise from it, and more recent issues such as r eligious violence, collateral damage and war crimes. Grayling shows how a more accurate understanding of war might enable us to mitigate its horrors and lessen the burden of its consequence. Book jacket. ...Show more

In Those Days by Hackett Jan

$25.00 AUD

Category: australian history

Top End Girl by Miranda Tapsell

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography, Memoir & Autobiography

'Ever since I was thirteen years old, all I wanted to do was perform. It was an unusual dream for a kid from the Northern Territory to have ... what I wanted for my life was a world away from what people knew and loved about the "Top End". Even though I've moved south to become an actor, the Territory h as never left me. It's the place I go to when I want to feel whole again.' From Kakadu to Cannes, Miranda Tapsell is one of Australia's favourite actors. A proud Larrikia woman, she built a stellar career on stage, and shot to fame in The Sapphires and then in Love Child and Doctor, Doctor. Growing up, Miranda often looked for faces like hers on our screens. There weren't many. And too often there was a negative narrative around Indigenous lives, and Aboriginal women especially. Now an award-winning actor, she decided to change things herself. Combining her love of romantic comedies with her love of Darwin, the Tiwi Islands and the Top End, Miranda wrote, produced and starred in the box office hit Top End Wedding. But who the hell co-writes, produces and acts in a film about a wedding in the same year they're having their own? Miranda Tapsell does! In this engaging and thought-provoking memoir, Top End Girl, Miranda shares the path she took to create a moving film about re-connection to family and culture at the same time as she was planning her own wedding. And, like all good story-tellers, she holds a mirror up to the society we live in to show the prejudice that too often surfaces. Miranda knows that the key to change is to understand and through the power of storytelling she is changing attitudes and expectations to unite us all. ...Show more

The Difference Identity Makes by Lawrence Bamblett (Editor); Fred Myers (Editor); Tim Rowse (Editor)

$39.95 AUD

Category: History