Releases - Scribe Publications

Cairo

2013-05-20T00:00:00Z

Frustrated by country life and eager for adventure and excitement, seventeen-year-old Tom Button moves to the city to study. Once there, and living in a run-down apartment block called Cairo, he is befriended by the eccentric musician Max Cheever, his beautiful wife Sally, and their close-knit circle of painters and poets.

As Tom falls under the sway of his charismatic older friends, he enters a bohemian world of parties and gallery openings. Soon, however, he is caught up in more sinister events involving deception and betrayal, not to mention one of the greatest unsolved art heists of the twentieth century: the infamous theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman.

Set among the demimonde — where nothing and nobody is as they seem — Cairo is a novel about growing up, the perils of first love, and finding one’s true place in the world.

The Book of Woe: the DSM and the unmaking of psychiatry

2013-05-13T00:00:00Z

A riveting exposé of the psychiatric profession’s bible from leading psychotherapist Gary Greenberg, The Book of Woe reveals the deeply flawed process by which mental disorders are invented and uninvented — and how suffering has been turned into a commodity.

Since its first edition in 1952, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has been regarded as the leading authority on mental-health diagnosis and research. Over the DSM’s various iterations, however, debate has raged over which psychological problems constitute mental illness: homosexuality, for instance, was a mental illness until 1973; and Asperger’s gained recognition in 1994 only to see its status challenged nearly twenty years later.

By examining the history of the DSM and the controversies over its latest revisions, Greenberg challenges the status quo of modern psychiatric practice. He shows how difficult it is — even impossible — to rigorously differentiate mental illness from everyday suffering; and sheds light on how the politics behind mental-health classification has caused diagnosis rates of autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and bipolar disorder to skyrocket.

Drawing on interviews with people on all sides of the debate, on historical examples, and on case studies from his own practice, Greenberg ultimately argues for a more humanistic approach to psychiatry. A combination of lively reportage and biting analysis, The Book of Woe will prove invaluable for expert and casual readers alike.

Three Graves Full

2013-05-27T00:00:00Z

There is very little peace for a man with a body buried in his backyard. But it could always be worse …

More than a year ago, mild-mannered Jason Getty killed a man he wished he’d never met. Then he planted the problem a little too close to home. But now, just as he’s learning to live with the undeniable reality of what he’s done, police unearth two bodies on his property — neither of which is the one he buried.

As Jason’s fragile peace begins to unravel, his life is hitched to the fortunes of several strangers: Leah, an abandoned woman looking for answers to her heartbreak; Tim, a small-town detective just doing his job; and Boyd, a fringe-dweller whose past is about to catch up to him — all of them in the shadow of a dead man who had it coming.

With the tense pacing of a thriller and the elegant style of a literary novel, Three Graves Full heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in fiction.

The Coat Route: craft, luxury, and obsession on the trail of a $50,000 coat

2013-05-27T00:00:00Z

In today’s world of fast fashion, is there a place for a handcrafted $50,000 coat?

To answer that question, Meg Noonan unravels the story of the coat’s provenance. Her journey takes readers to the Sydney studio of John Cutler, a fourth-generation tailor who works magic with scissors and thread; to the remote mountains of Peru, where villagers shear vicunas (a rare animal known for its soft fleece); to the fabulous Florence headquarters of Stefano Ricci, the world’s greatest silk designer; to the esteemed French textile company Dormeuil; to the English button factory that makes products out of Indian buffalo horn; and to the workshop of the engraver who made the 18-carat gold plaque that sits inside the collar.

These individual artisans and family-owned companies are part of the rich tapestry of bespoke tailoring, which began in 17th-century London. They have stood against the tide of mass consumerism, but their dedication to their craft is about more than maintaining tradition; they have found increasing reason to believe that their way is best — for customers, for the environment, and for the workers involved.

Fascinating, surprising, and entertaining, The Coat Route is a timely love song to things of lasting value in our disposable culture.

Dead Cat Bounce

2013-05-27T00:00:00Z

A federal election campaign is thrown into chaos when a popular government minister goes missing and then turns up dead on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

With Detective Darren Glass and the Australian Federal Police on the case, the investigation into the minister’s murder quickly becomes entangled in a game of high-stakes politics. And all the while, the body count mounts.

Glass’s suspects include some of the most powerful people in the land. With the nation in shock and wanting answers fast, Glass has to negotiate a murky world of shifting allegiances, half-truths, and finger pointing, where everyone has a motive for murder.

And no one is safe — not even the prime minister. As election day nears, Glass risks everything for a breakthrough in the case, and his life is soon hanging by a thread. But if he thought he’d hit rock bottom, he was wrong …

Dirt Files: a decade of Best Australian Political Cartoons

2013-05-27T00:00:00Z

‘Political cartoons provide a kind of relief that makes the democratic process bearable. But, at their most effective, they are capable of great and penetrating insight. The liberating burst of laughter they provoke strips away the decrepit language of political spin and confronts us with a little moment of truth. As such, they are a kind of ephemeral icon, curling and yellowing on fridges and noticeboards where, I like to think, they give expression to our better impulses, our better selves.’

Based on the bestselling annual Best Australian Political Cartoons series, Dirt Files features over 400 of the finest political cartoons to have appeared in Australia from 2003 to 2012, and provides a vivid collective account of a particularly fractious decade.

Dirt Files doesn’t just focus on the Canberra soap opera. It also interprets the key political moments and themes that have played out over the past ten years — such as war, globalisation, climate change, the rise of China and changes in the economy, the history wars and the apology to Aborigines, and the treatment of asylum-seekers — and provides a reflection on Australian identity.

Containing many cartoons that have never been published in BAPC, and others that are produced in colour here for the first time, Dirt Files is a collection like no other. Brilliantly witty, and always insightful, it is essential reading for every Australian.

Viennese Romance: a novel

2013-04-29T00:00:00Z

Available in English for the first time, here is David Vogel’s previously unknown novel that had literary Israel abuzz when it was published in 2012, almost one hundred years after the author started working on it.

David Vogel has long been regarded as a leading figure in modern Hebrew literature, and his work has been compared to that of Joseph Roth, Thomas Mann, and Franz Kafka. Vogel was thought to have written only a single novel: his masterpiece, Married Life, which was published to great acclaim in 1929. Yet he had been working on another novel, which was only discovered recently.

Set in the early 1900s, Viennese Romance tells the story of Michael Rost, an eighteen-year-old Jewish youth who travels to Vienna, hungry for experience. There, he forms passing relationships with everyone who crosses his path — prostitutes, revolutionaries, paupers, army officers, and rich men alike. When a shady businessman takes the penniless Rost under his wing, he rents a room in the home of an affluent bourgeois family. He is seduced by the lady of the house while her husband is away on business, and shortly after begins an affair with her sixteen-year-old daughter as well. This love triangle threatens to destroy the entire family.

With a foreword that explains how this lost novel came to light, Viennese Romance is a seminal work that explores the conflicts faced by many Jewish intellectuals in early twentieth-century Europe. A compelling portrait of a decadent society, it also lays bare the obsessive–destructive nature of love.

Why Labor Should Savour Its Greens: rebuilding a fractured alliance

2013-04-29T00:00:00Z

Australia is suffering from a crisis of confidence. Globalisation, deregulation, and privatisation have delivered economic growth and enhanced consumption for the past twenty years, but the effects of the 2007–08 financial crisis, rising inequality, job insecurity, and increased corporate power over voters and employees are all eroding our sense of democracy.

Meanwhile, with an election looming, the future of progressive politics nationwide is deeply uncertain. The Australian Labor Party and the Greens are splitting the left-of-centre vote — the major party driven rightwards by an increasingly conservative swinging voter, and the minor party holding firm on vital but controversial issues.

In Why Labor Should Savour Its Greens, former investment banker and economist Brad Orgill reviews the Greens’ major economic, social, and environmental policies; and argues that progressive voters, and the nation as a whole, deserve an aligned ALP–Greens platform incorporating the best elements of each. With an annual government expenditure of $500 billion at stake — not to mention the future of our social fabric and our very planet — this is a time for visionary thinking, not old divisions and counter-productive rivalries.

War from the Ground Up: twenty-first century combat as politics

2013-05-03T00:00:00Z

As a British infantry officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles, Emile Simpson completed three tours of Southern Afghanistan. Drawing on that experience, and on a range of revealing case studies ranging from Nepal to Borneo, War from the Ground Up offers a distinctive perspective on contemporary armed conflict: while most accounts of war look down at the battlefield from an academic perspective, or across it as a personal narrative, the author looks up from the battlefield to consider the concepts that put him there, and how they played out on the ground.

Simpson argues that in the Afghan conflict, and in contemporary conflicts more generally, liberal powers and their armed forces have blurred the line between military and political activity. More broadly, they have challenged the distinction between war and peace. He contends that this loss of clarity is more a response to the conditions of combat in the early twenty-first century, particularly that of globalisation, than a deliberate choice. The issue is thus not whether the West should engage in such practices, but how to manage, gain advantage from, and mitigate the risks of this evolution in warfare.

Norwegian by Night

2013-03-25T00:00:00Z

Sheldon Horowitz — 82 years old, impatient, and unreasonable — is staying with his granddaughter’s family in Norway when he disappears with a stranger’s child. Sheldon is an ex-Marine, and he feels responsible for his son’s death in Vietnam. Recently widowed and bereft, he talks to the ghosts of his past constantly.

To Norway’s cops, Sheldon is just an old man who is coming undone at the end of a long and hard life. But Sheldon is clear in his own mind. He’d heard the boy’s eastern European mother being murdered, and he’s determined to protect the child from the killer and his Balkan gang. With an endearing combination of dexterity and daring, Sheldon manages to elude the police in what is hostile, foreign territory for him. But what he doesn’t know is that the police and the gang both know where he’s heading.

Norwegian by Night is the last adventure of a man coming to terms with the tragedy of his own life as he tries to save another’s. It combines laconic, deadpan humour, moral seriousness, visceral grief, and narrative tension in a remarkable way. An extraordinary debut, featuring a memorable hero.

The Limit

2013-03-15T00:00:00Z

It’s a sweltering summer’s day, and Anja Aropalo is on her way home with two errands in mind: first, to water the roses, and then to commit suicide. She is slowly losing her husband to Alzheimer’s disease, and she has made him a terrible promise — one she’s not sure she can keep.

For Anja’s niece, Mari, death is a teenage fantasy of grieving family and eternal beauty, an escape from the dullness of her life. But the adventure she longs for seems to come within reach when she begins a relationship with her charismatic teacher, Julian. His six-year-old daughter, Anni, is a witness to their blossoming affair, observing the lies and truths of those around her as she tries to discover what it is to be an adult.

The Limit draws together these four people, all struggling to work out where their boundaries lie. In vivid, incandescent prose, Riikka Pulkkinen reveals how our limits can show us who we really are.

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Black Saturday at Steels Creek

2013-03-25T00:00:00Z

The Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people — wreaking a greater human toll than any other fire in Australia’s history. Ten of those victims died in Steels Creek, a small community on Melbourne’s outskirts. It was a beautiful place, which its residents had long treasured and loved. By the evening of 7 February 2009, it felt like a battlefield.

Prize-winning historian Peter Stanley tells the dramatic stories of this small piece of country on that one terrifying evening — of epic fights to save houses, of escapes, and of deaths. He also tells the tale of a community — of people’s attachments to the valley and to each other — and how, over the weeks and years that followed, they lived with the aftermath of the fire.

The most detailed account of any one community to emerge from the fire, Black Saturday at Steels Creek shows what Black Saturday means not only for Steels Creek, but also for Australia as a whole.

The Way of the Knife: the CIA, a secret army, and a war at the ends of the Earth

2013-04-17T00:00:00Z

A Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter’s riveting account of the transformation of the CIA and America’s special operations forces into man-hunting and killing machines

The most momentous change in American warfare over the past decade has taken place away from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Way of the Knife is the untold story of that shadow war: a campaign that has blurred the lines between soldiers and spies and lowered the bar for waging war across the globe. America has pursued its enemies with killer drones and special operations troops; trained privateers for assassination missions; and relied on mercurial dictators, untrustworthy foreign intelligence services, and proxy armies.

This new approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a lower risk, lower cost alternative to the messy wars of occupation. But the knife has created enemies just as it has killed them. It has fomented resentments among allies, fuelled instability, and created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability during wartime.

At the heart of the book is the story of two rival entities, the CIA and the American military, elbowing for supremacy. The CIA, created as a Cold War espionage service, is now more than ever a paramilitary agency ordered by the White House to kill off America’s enemies. The Pentagon has become more like the CIA, dramatically expanding spying missions everywhere. Sometimes, as with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, their efforts have been perfectly coordinated. Other times, including the failed operations disclosed here for the first time, they have not. For better or worse, their struggles will define American national security in the years to come.

The Dispensable Nation: American foreign policy in retreat

2013-04-10T00:00:00Z

Former State Department adviser for Afghanistan and Pakistan Vali Nasr delivers a sharp indictment of America’s flawed foreign policy, and outlines a new relationship with the Muslim world and with new players in the changing Middle East.

In this essential new book, Vali Nasr argues that the Obama administration had a chance to improve its relations with the Middle East, but instead chose to pursue its predecessor’s questionable strategies there. Nasr takes readers behind the scenes at the State Department and reveals how the new government’s fear of political backlash and the spectre of terrorism crippled the efforts of diplomatic giants, like Richard Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton, to boost America’s foundering credibility with world leaders. Meanwhile, the true economic threats, China and Russia, were quietly expanding their influence in the region. And a second Arab Spring is brewing — not a hopeful clamour for democracy, but rage at the United States for its foreign policy of drones and assassinations.

Drawing on his in-depth knowledge of the Middle East and firsthand experience in diplomacy, Nasr offers a powerful reassessment of American foreign policy that directs the country away from its failing relationships in the Middle East (such as with Saudi Arabia) toward more productive, and less costly, partnerships with other foreign allies (such as Turkey). Forcefully persuasive, The Dispensable Nation is a game changer for America as it charts a course in the Muslim world, Asia, and beyond.

The Secret Lives of Men

2013-02-28T00:00:00Z

In these thirteen short stories, Georgia Blain examines human nature in all its richness: our motivations, our desires and our shortcomings. The men in these tales frequently linger at the edges — their longings and failures exerting a subterranean pull on the women in their lives. In ‘The Secret Lives of Men’, a woman revisits her hometown and learns a long-held secret about her first boyfriend. In ‘The Bad Dog Park’, a man’s devotion to his dog ultimately forces him to confront his true hopes and fears. And in ‘The Other Side of the River’, we watch as a woman makes a snap decision about her life’s future direction, with devastating consequences for her family. Written in Blain’s trademark unadorned yet powerful prose, these stories resonate long after they are finished.

The Secret Lives of Men is an exceptional collection by one of Australia’s leading writers.

Click here for all the details

The Physics of Wall Street: a brief history of predicting the unpredictable

2013-03-04T00:00:00Z

After the economic meltdown of 2008, Warren Buffett famously warned, ‘Beware of geeks bearing formulas.’ But as James Weatherall demonstrates, not all geeks are created equal. Taking us from fin-de-siècle Paris to Rat Pack–era Las Vegas, from wartime government labs to Yippie communes on the Pacific coast, Weatherall shows how a special breed of physicists successfully brought their science to bear on some of the thorniest problems in economics.

While the crisis was partly a failure of mathematical modelling, it was even more a failure of some financial institutions to think like physicists. Models — whether in science or in finance — have limitations; they break down under certain conditions. And in 2008, sophisticated models fell into the hands of people who didn’t understand their purpose, and didn’t care. It was a catastrophic misuse of science.

The solution, however, is not to give up on models; it’s to make them better. Weatherall reveals the people and ideas on the cusp of a new era in finance. We see a geophysicist predict a massive stock-market crash by using a model designed for earthquakes. We learn about a physicist-run hedge fund that earned 2478.6% over the course of the 1990s. And we discover how an obscure idea from quantum theory might soon be used to create a far more accurate consumer price index.

Both persuasive and accessible, The Physics of Wall Street will change how we think about our economic future.

Media highlights:
Listen to James Owen Weatherall interviewed on the ABC’s ‘PM’ and on Radio New Zealand National’s ‘Nine to Noon’.

Mateship with Birds

2013-03-04T00:00:00Z

With the original introduction by C.J. Dennis and a new foreword by Sean Dooley.

Ninety years on, A.H. Chisholm’s classic Mateship with Birds is still as fresh and inspirational as an early-morning walk in the bush, the air resounding with birdsong. His account of the secret lives of birds — their seasonal doings and their complex relationships — reflects his patient and detailed observations, and his deep enjoyment of the Australian bush and all its inhabitants.

This is not just a book for bird-lovers. Chisholm’s charming and often humorous prose reveals a man who loves words as well as birds. His style of writing and the historical photographs accompanying his text provide a gentle record of a period that already feels like ‘the old days’.

But Chisholm wrote with an urgent message to the future. He could clearly see the threat that ‘the moving finger of Civilisation’ posed to birdlife, and his account of the tragic demise of the Paradise Parrot ends with this passionate exhortation: ‘What are the bird-lovers of Australia going to do about this matter of vanishing Parrots? Surely it is a subject worthy of the closest attention of all good Australians.’

With the reissuing of this book, we honour these words, and offer his delight in ‘the loveliest and the best of Nature’s children’ to a new generation.

Media highlights:
Listen to Sean Dooley talk about Chisholm and twitching on ABC Radio National ‘Drive’, or read this stunning review in The Age.

Cocaina: a book on those who make it

2013-03-04T00:00:00Z

Breathtaking investigative journalism from the front line of the cocaine trade

When Colombia’s ‘King of Cocaine’, Pablo Escobar, was killed, the world thought the cocaine industry would crumble. But ten years later the country’s production had almost quadrupled, and for the last decade Colombia has produced more than 60 per cent of all the cocaine consumed in the world.

The drug is both a curse and a salvation for Colombians. Farmers grow coca for cash but fear discovery. Families must co-operate with drug-funded guerrillas or go on the run. Destitute teens become trained killers for a quick buck, in a ruthless underworld where few survive for long.

At the same time, tension grows between Colombia’s right-wing government and its socialist neighbours in Latin America. With the failed US war on drugs playing into this geopolitical brew, the future of cocaine is about more than what happens to street dealers and their customers.

Based on three years of research, and more than 100 interviews with growers, traffickers, assassins, refugees, police, politicians, and drug tourists, Cocaína is exceptional — a brilliant work of journalism, and an insight into one of the world’s most troubling industries.

Little Man, What Now?

2013-02-04T00:00:00Z

Written just before the Nazis came to power, this darkly enchanting novel tells the story of a young German couple trying to eke out a decent life amidst an economic crisis that is transforming their country into a place of anger and despair. Little Man, What Now? was an international bestseller upon its release, and was made into a Hollywood movie — by Jewish producers, which prompted the rising Nazis to begin paying ominously close attention to Hans Fallada, even as his novels held out stirring hope for the human spirit.

It is presented here in its first-ever uncut translation, by Susan Bennett, and with an afterword by Philip Brady that details the calamitous background of the novel, its worldwide reception, and how it turned out to be, for the author, a dangerous book.

Media highlights:
Hear an interview with Fallada’s biographer on ABC Radio National ‘Arts and Books Daily’, and read reviews of his work in The Australian, The Age and The Melbourne Review.

The Drinker

2013-02-04T00:00:00Z

This astonishing, autobiographical tour de force was written by Hans Fallada in an encrypted notebook while he was incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum. Discovered after his death, The Drinker tells the tale — often fierce, poignant, and extremely funny — of a small businessman losing control as he fights valiantly to blot out an increasingly oppressive society.

In a brilliant translation by Charlotte and A.L. Lloyd, it is presented here with an afterword by John Willett that details the life and career of the internationally acclaimed author, and his fate under the Nazis — which brings out the horror of the events behind the book.

Wolf among Wolves

2013-02-04T00:00:00Z

Wolf among Wolves is a sweeping saga of the collapse of a culture — its economy and government — and the common man’s struggle to survive it all. Set in Weimar Germany soon after Germany’s catastrophic loss of World War I, the story follows a young gambler, Wolfgang Pagel, who loses everything in Berlin, then flees the chaotic city, where worthless money and shortages are causing pandemonium. Once in the countryside, however, Pagel finds a defeated German army that has decamped there to foment insurrection. Somehow, amidst it all, he finds romance.

Fast-moving as a thriller, fascinating as the best historical fiction, and with lyrical prose that packs a powerful emotional punch, Wolf among Wolves is an immensely absorbing work of literature.

Changeology: how to enable groups, communities, and societies to do things they’ve never done before

2013-02-04T00:00:00Z

The pressing issues of today clamour for solutions. Yet, to a surprising degree, past and present efforts to effect social change have been based on little more than hunches. Changeology dispels many of the myths that prevent social-change projects from succeeding, and replaces them with the best of what we know from social and motivational psychology, and with lessons from projects that have worked.

This book offers proven ways of influencing the behaviour of human beings for the better. It deals with change projects both large and small, and in almost any area of activity, but with an emphasis on key topics such as climate change, poverty, obesity, AIDS, and tobacco and drug use. It is aimed at a worldwide audience of people who are acting to make change in their corporations, cities, and neighbourhoods, as well as in their own lives.

Changeology simplifies a vast body of theory and practice into six principles: buzz, hope, enabling environments, sticky solutions, ‘can do’, and ‘the right inviter’. These are explained with compelling real-life case studies and a look at the hard evidence. The book is written in an easy, accessible style, laced with many anecdotes and stories, which readers will find encouraging as well as compelling.

Freeloading: how our insatiable appetite for free content starves creativity

2013-02-04T00:00:00Z

INTERNET PIRACY: a battle that pits indies against corporations, free spirits against the money-grubbing Scrooge McDucks of the world. Right?

Sort of. Sometimes. Maybe not.

Internet piracy goes by many names — copyright infringement, file sharing, peer-to-peer lending — but in this lively narrative nonfiction account, author Chris Ruen argues that the practice of using unlicensed digital content should be called what it is: freeloading.

In this comprehensive investigation, Ruen examines the near pervasive problem of internet piracy, and the moral and monetary dilemmas to which it gives rise. The phenomenon, which today affects almost everyone who taps a keyboard, is creating unlikely alliances — between artists and corporations, and between consumers and technology geeks in the hacker tradition — and it is changing how society views and values artistic production.

Ruen, himself a former freeloader, came to understand how illegal downloads can threaten the artistic community after he spent time with successful Brooklyn bands who had yet to make a real profit from their music. Through original research and extensive interviews with musicians and artists, Freeloading dissects this battle. This provocative account is also a reminder of the truism that for every action there are consequences — a call to embrace practical, sensible solutions that protect artists and consumers alike.

Media Highlights:
Listen to Chris Ruen interviewed on the ABC Radio National technology show, ABC Radio Current Affairs ‘PM’, and Triple J’s ‘Hack’. You can also read an extract from the Australian Financial Review, an opinion piece from FasterLouder, and an interview from The Music.

Married Love: a new contribution to the solution of sex difficulties

2012-12-21T00:00:00Z

‘In my first marriage I paid such a terrible price for sex-ignorance that I feel that knowledge gained at such a cost should be placed at the service of humanity.’ — Marie Stopes

When it was published in 1918, Marie Stopes’ Married Love became wildly popular. It was also controversial, shaking polite society with its frank advice on sex and intimacy in marriage. Today, we reissue it, with all its charm and idiosyncrasies, for a new generation of lovers.

Almost a century after it appeared in print, the book described as the world’s first sex manual still has much to offer the ingénue and the experienced, giving salient advice on matters such as how to woo a woman, how to achieve sexual pleasure, and how to keep lust alive when the socks no longer come off.

Containing correspondence from Stopes and her readers, and a new introduction by Clementine Ford, this fascinating text — written by one of the most progressive British feminists of her time — provides an insight into how many of our views have shifted, and surprisingly, how many have remained the same.

Every couple should have this book on their nightstands.

Things I Did for Money

2013-01-22T00:00:00Z

A man’s fury at his neighbour is reversed by strange nightmares.
A young woman with a grudge finds a discarded weapon.
A hunt for sunken treasure brings two scuba divers to the brink of tragedy.

Drawing us into worlds both surreal and familiar, Things I Did for Money comprises eight stories by Meg Mundell, author of the acclaimed novel Black Glass.

By turns unsettling, wry and moving, these stories explore the shadowy side of everyday life. The diverse characters in this collection share the struggles we must all confront: coming to terms with the past; reconciling our dreams with reality; and navigating the difficult, often murky terrain of human relationships.

Richly imagined and deeply empathetic, Things I Did for Money establishes Meg Mundell at the forefront of contemporary writing.

Cat & Fiddle

2012-12-21T00:00:00Z

Cat & Fiddle centres on two families whose lives become entwined at the country estate of Bourne Abbey. While Dr Choudhury is busy advising Henry Bourne on the restoration of the abbey to its former glory, his wife’s main concern is marrying off their three children, whose chances of good matches are dwindling by the day. Thankfully, the royal family always seems to have a solution to her problems: how to find a wife for a reluctant son; how to manage a difficult father-in-law; and, of course, how not to deal with an inter-faith relationship.

Then there’s the Bourne family. Henry’s wife, Thea, is feeling lost, now that she’s got the lifestyle she’s always longed for. His elder brother, Richard, a successful London barrister, finds himself increasingly drawn to the family home — the inheritance that he’s given up. Meanwhile, Henry just wants to keep the peace, but that’s proving to be tricky …

And, finally, there’s Bourne Abbey itself: the repository of an ancient mystery that links the histories and cultures of the Bournes and the Choudhurys in a way that no one could have anticipated.

Media highlights:
Hear Lesley Jørgensen interviewed on ABC Radio National ‘Arts and Books Daily’ and Radio Adelaide, read author Q & As on The Wheeler Centre website and in Readings Monthly, and read reviews from The Australian and The Sunday Age.

High Sobriety: my year without booze

2012-07-24T00:00:00Z

‘I’m the binge-drinking health reporter. During the week, I write about Australia’s booze-soaked culture. At the weekends, I write myself off.’

Booze had dominated Jill Stark’s social life ever since she had her first sip of beer, at 13. She thought nothing could curb her love of big nights. And then came the hangover that changed everything. In the shadow of her 35th year, Jill made a decision: she would give up alcohol. But what would it mean to stop drinking in a world awash with booze?

This lively memoir charts Jill’s tumultuous year on the wagon, as she copes with the stress of the newsroom sober, tackles the dating scene on soda water, learns to watch the footy minus beer, and deals with censure from friends and colleagues, who tell her that a year without booze is ‘a year with no mates’.

In re-examining her habits, Jill also explores Australia’s love affair with alcohol, meeting alcopop-swigging teens who drink to fit in, beer-swilling blokes in a sporting culture backed by booze, and marketing bigwigs blamed for turning binge drinking into a way of life. And she tracks the history of this national obsession: from the idea that Australia’s new colonies were drowning in drink to the Anzac ethos that a beer builds mateship, and from the six o’clock swill that encouraged bingeing to the tangled weave of advertising, social pressure, and tradition that confronts drinkers today.

Will Jill make it through the year without booze? And if she does, will she go back to her old habits, or has she called last drinks? This is a funny, moving, and insightful exploration of why we drink, how we got here, and what happens when we turn off the tap.

The Holiday Murders

2012-12-21T00:00:00Z

On Christmas Eve, 1943, the newly formed but undermanned Homicide division of the Melbourne police force is called to investigate the vicious double murder of a father and son. When Military Intelligence becomes involved, Homicide’s Inspector Titus Lambert must unravel the personal from the political.

If only the killings had stopped at two. The police are desperate to come to grips with an extraordinary and disquieting upsurge of violence. For Constable Helen Lord, it is an opportunity to make her mark in a male-dominated world where she is patronised as a novelty. For Detective Joe Sable, the investigation forces a reassessment of his indifference to his Jewish heritage. Racing against the clock, the police uncover simmering tensions among secretive local Nazi sympathisers as a psychopathic fascist usurper makes his move.

The Holiday Murders explores a little-known and sometimes violent corner of Australian history, and finds oddly modern echoes in its paranoia, xenophobia, and ugly fervour.

Media highlights:
Hear a series of Robert Gott interviews on ABC Radio National ‘Arts and Books Daily’; with Scribe Publisher Henry Rosenbloom, and with historian Dr David Bird. You can also read an edited extract from the Herald Sun and reviews in the Australian Book Review and The Age.

Perfect Health Diet: regain health and lose weight by eating the way you were meant to eat

2012-10-24T00:00:00Z

An Australian edition of the just-released four-step Paleo diet program that offers optimal nutrition for a lifetime of health.

Suffering from chronic illnesses, and unable to get satisfactory treatments for their conditions from doctors, the husband-and-wife scientific team of Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet decided that they had to take a personal interest in health and nutrition. After embarking on five years of rigorous research, what they found changed their lives — and the lives of thousands of their readers.

In Perfect Health Diet, the Jaminets explain how anyone can regain health and lose weight by optimising nutrition, detoxifying their diet, and supporting healthy immune functions. They show how toxic, nutrient-poor diets sabotage health, and how, on a healthy diet, diseases often spontaneously resolve. But they don’t just tell you what foods to eat to make you healthier and weight loss easier: they show you why — with a clear, balanced, and scientifically proven plan.

Already an international sensation, Perfect Health Diet will change the way you eat — and feel — forever.

How the Dog Became the Dog: from wolves to our best friends

2012-10-15T00:00:00Z

It is an accepted fact of evolution and history that the dog evolved from the wolf. But the question of how wolf became dog has remained a mystery, obscured by myth and legend. How the Dog Became the Dog argues that the dog was an evolutionary inevitability because humans and wolves were made for each other: both were social species who lived and hunted as family units, and cooperation was essential to their survival. The natural temperament of, and social structure surrounding, humans and wolves is so similar that as soon as they met, they recognised themselves in each other.

How the Dog Became the Dog suggests that the domestication of the dog was a biological and cultural process that began with mutual cooperation and has taken a number of radical turns. At the end of the last Ice Age, the first dogs emerged, with their humans, from their refuges against the cold. In the 18th century, humans began to exercise control of dog reproduction, life, and death, completing the domestication of the wolf begun long ago.

Combining the most recent scientific research with stunning and original insights, this book shows that dogs made us human, just as humans changed dogs.

The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's war in Arabia

2012-10-23T00:00:00Z

A gripping account of how al-Qaeda in Yemen rebounded from an initial defeat to once again threaten the United States

Far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and al-Qaeda are fighting a clandestine war of drones and suicide bombers in an unforgiving corner of Arabia.

The Last Refuge charts the rise, fall, and resurrection of al-Qaeda in Yemen over the last 30 years, detailing how a group that the United States once defeated has now become one of the world’s most dangerous threats. An expert on Yemen who has spent years on the ground there, Gregory Johnsen uses al-Qaeda’s Arabic battle notes to reconstruct their world as they take aim at the United States and its allies. Johnsen brings readers inside al-Qaeda’s training camps and safe houses as the terrorists plot poison attacks and debate how to bring down an airliner on Christmas Day.

The Last Refuge is an eye-opening look at the successes and failures of fighting a new type of war in one of the most turbulent countries in the world.

J.M. Coetzee: a life in writing

2012-09-26T00:00:00Z

J.M. Coetzee: a life in writing is the first biography of Nobel prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee. A global publishing event of the rarest kind, the book has been written with the full co-operation of Coetzee, who granted the author interviews, and put him in touch with family, friends, and colleagues who could talk about events in Coetzee’s life.

For the first time, Coetzee allowed complete access to his private papers and documents, including the manuscripts of his sixteen novels. J.C. Kannemeyer has also made a study of the enormous body of literature on Coetzee, and through archival research has unearthed further information not previously available.

The books deals in depth with Coetzee’s origins, early years, and first writings; his British interlude from 1962–65; his time in America from 1965–71; his 30 years back in South Africa, when he achieved international recognition and won the Booker prize; and his Australian years since 2002, during which time he won the Nobel Prize.

J.M. Coetzee: a life in writing is a major work that corrects many of the misconceptions about Coetzee, and that illuminates the genesis and implications of his novels. This magisterial biography will be an indispensable source for everybody concerned with Coetzee’s life and work.

An Intimate Life: sex, love, and my journey as a surrogate partner

2012-11-01T00:00:00Z

A riveting memoir from the woman behind the major motion picture The Sessions — and an intimate portrayal of sexuality in the 20th century.

For the past 40 years, Cheryl Cohen Greene has worked as a surrogate partner, helping clients to form fulfilling sexual relationships. The men and women she works with have sexual phobias, disabilities, and problems with self-esteem. Often, her most important role as a surrogate is simply to show understanding.

In this candid memoir, Cohen Greene shares some of her most memorable cases, including that of Berkeley-based poet and journalist Mark O’Brien, confined to an iron lung after contracting polio at age six. She also tells of her own sexual coming-of-age — from a rigid Catholic upbringing in the 1950s, where she was taught to think sex was unnatural and wrong, and then through the sexual revolution of 1960s and 1970s, an open marriage, an encounter with cancer, and a rich and rewarding career as a surrogate partner.

An Intimate Life is more than the story of one woman’s career as a sexual healer — it’s a love story, a meditation on compassion and grief, and a tale of sexual and emotional awakening. Arresting and compelling, it gives an insight into this most unusual of professions, and those who take part in it.

The Queen of Katwe: a story of life, chess, and one extraordinary girl’s dream of becoming a grandmaster

2012-09-27T00:00:00Z

Based on ‘The Queen of Katwe’, a finalist for a National Magazine Award and included in Dave Eggers’ The Best American Nonrequired Reading, this is the true story of a female prodigy from the Ugandan slum of Katwe

Phiona Mutesi sleeps in a mud hut with her mother and siblings, and struggles to find a meal each day. She is also one of the best chess players in the world.

One day in 2005, while searching for food, nine-year-old Phiona followed her brother to a dusty verandah where she met Robert Katende, a refugee who had also grown up in the slums. Robert had an improbable aspiration: to empower Katwe’s kids through chess — a game so foreign that there was no word for it in their native language. Robert taught the game each day. At first the children came for the free porridge, but many grew to love chess, a game that — as in their daily lives — meant navigating obstacles. One talented young girl stood out: Phiona.

By the age of 11, Phiona was Uganda’s junior champion; at 15, she was the national champion. In 2010, she travelled to Siberia to compete in the Chess Olympiad, the world’s most prestigious team-chess event. Phiona’s dream is to become a chess grandmaster. But to reach that goal, she must grapple with life in one of the world’s most unstable countries — a place where girls are taught to be mothers, not dreamers, and the threats of AIDS, kidnapping, and starvation loom constantly.

Like Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, this is an intimate and heart-rending portrait of human life on the urban fringes in the 21st century.

Things You Get for Free

2012-09-27T00:00:00Z

At the age of thirty-four, Michael McGirr decides to take his charming and inimitable mum on the honeymoon she and her late husband never got around to having. Between recounting their hilarious travels around Europe and meditating on the historical figures who dot their voyage — everyone from Hemingway to Michelangelo to the quietly heroic people who inspire McGirr’s special brand of faith — he plunges deep into his family history, unearthing sickness and depression but also moments of great love and perseverance.

Things You Get for Free is a deeply moving spiritual and intellectual journey that sparkles with McGirr’s singular wit and proves the truth behind his mother’s favourite saying: ‘I know more than you think I know.’

Life Goes On: a novel

2012-09-27T00:00:00Z

Published when the author was just twenty-three, Life Goes On was Hans Keilson’s literary debut, an extraordinary autobiographical novel that paints a dark yet illuminating portrait of Germany between the world wars. It tells the story of Max Seldersen — a Jewish store owner modelled on Keilson’s father, a textile merchant and decorated World War I veteran — along with his wife, Else, and son, Albrecht, and the troubles they encounter as the German economy collapses and politics turn rancid. Life Goes On was banned by the Nazis in 1934. Shortly afterwards, following his editor’s advice, Keilson emigrated to the Netherlands, where he would spend the rest of his life.

At the age of one hundred, with his one copy of the first edition of Life Goes On in hand, Keilson told The New York Times that he would love to see his first novel reissued, and translated as well. ‘Then you would have my whole biography,’ he told them. He died at the age of one hundred and one.

Monsieur

2012-09-14T00:00:00Z

In the tradition of The Sexual Life of Catherine M and Story of O comes a captivating work of erotic literature by a 22-year-old.

What sort of woman has a taste for middle-aged, married men? Ellie, a university student and would-be writer, leads a carefree life in Paris until she meets Monsieur, a doctor more than twice her age. Beginning with their passionate encounter in a hotel room in the fifteenth arrondissement, Monsieur details their clandestine affair: the fleeting phone calls, the illicit meetings, the sexual adventures — and the devastating aftermath.

Often shocking but never gratuitous, Monsieur is a groundbreaking account of self-discovery and seduction. Ellie’s journey takes her from the highs of unquenchable desire to the edge of madness in this lucid, ferocious, and eloquent tale of a contemporary Lolita.

Futurevision: scenarios for the world in 2040

2012-09-10T00:00:00Z

The future is not what it used to be. In this volatile era, with the world changing rapidly, people are more curious than ever to know what lies ahead.

Will relentless consumerism end up destroying our planet? Or can science and technology allow us to innovate our way out of trouble? Perhaps a greater social consciousness and community-based living will take over — or, conversely, the competition for limited resources may result in everyone fighting for themselves.

Drawing on these four possible futures, Richard Watson and Oliver Freeman invite us to examine critically the risks and opportunities to come. They discuss the key factors, trends, critical uncertainties, and wildcards that will shape the future, guiding us to a greater awareness of long-term problems and possible solutions — and empowering us not only to adapt to what might happen, but also to shape our future and to generate change.

It’s impossible to know for certain what the future holds, but we can remove some of its surprises by engaging in a meaningful debate about the choices we face now. This book shows us how.

Best Australian Political Cartoons 2012

2012-09-27T00:00:00Z

The year in politics as seen by Australia’s funniest and most perceptive political cartoonists.

With Dean Alston, Peter Broelman, Warren Brown, Pat Campbell, Andrew Dyson, John Farmer, firstdogonthemoon, Matt Golding, Fiona Katauskas, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Bill Leak, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Vince O’Farrell, Ward O’Neill, Bruce Petty, David Pope, David Rowe, John Spooner, Ron Tandberg, Andrew Weldon, Cathy Wilcox, Paul Zanetti, and many more …

‘Radcliffe is Australia’s leading archivist of political cartoons … and he gives us all a laugh. More importantly, he gives us a record of our political life in a manner accessible to very wide audience.’ — Haydon Manning, Australian Review of Public Affairs

Our Harsh Logic: Israeli soldiers' testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000–2010

2012-09-27T00:00:00Z

Israeli soldiers speak out for the first time about the truth of the Palestinian occupation, in ‘one of the most important books on Israel/Palestine in this generation’ (The New York Review of Books).

The very name of the Israel Defense Forces — which many Israelis speak of as ‘the most moral army in the world’ — suggests that its primary mission is the defence of the country. Indeed, support for the occupation of Palestinian territory rests on the belief that the army’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza are essentially defensive and responsive, aimed at protecting the country from terror.

But Israeli soldiers themselves tell a profoundly different story. In this landmark work, which includes hundreds of soldiers’ testimonies collected over a decade, what emerges is a broad policy that is anything but defensive. In their own words, the soldiers reveal in human and vivid detail how the key planks of the army’s program — ‘prevention of terror’, ‘separation of populations’, ‘preservation of the fabric of life’, and ‘law enforcement’ — have in fact served to accelerate acquisition of Palestinian land, cripple all normal political and social life, and ultimately thwart the possibility of independence.

The many soldiers who have spoken out have taken aim at a silence of complicity, both within Israel and in the wider world, that perpetuates the justification for occupation. In the process, they have created a gripping and immediate record of oppression. Powerful and incontrovertible, Our Harsh Logic is a significant contribution to understanding one of the world’s most vexed conflicts.