Australia Politics

What does it take to find courage in the midst of deprivation and devastation? Why are some people able to continue living with purpose, even when faced with loss and despair? How does our community turn challenge into triumph? And what can we learn from the exceptional women in our midst who have done just that? It might feel like we are living in unprecedented times, but ours is not the first generation to withstand upheaval as seismic as the COVID-19 pandemic has caused.

Counter terrorism expert Sid Allen knows nothing good ever comes from a phone call at five a.m. Politician Dan LeRoi, chairman of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, has been shot. Four bullets to the head. The crime scene is chaotic. Homicide. Counter Terrorism. Media. And for Sid, hunting the killer is going to get complicated. Journalist Zephyr Wilde is complicated. She's tenacious and she's got Sid's number. Sid knows the gossip: how Zephyr's mother was murdered when Zephyr was a kid. He doesn't know that Zephyr is still getting letters from her long-dead mother.

Australia is a wealthy nation with the economic profile of a developing country - heavy on raw materials and low on innovation and skilled manufacturing. Once we rode on the sheep’s back for our overseas trade; today we rely on cartloads of coal and tankers of LNG. So must we double down on fossil fuels, now that COVID-19 has halted the flow of international students and tourists? Or is there a better way forward, which supports renewable energy and local manufacturing?

This anthology is a diverse collection of explainers by some of the finest writers from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. It tackles quintessentially Australian topics (where does the term 'mate' come from?) as well as questions being grappled with around the world (what will our homes be powered by in the future?). Inquisitive readers love the explainer columns for their strong and surprising storytelling, deeply researched reporting and inventive illustrations.

Blazing her trail at the dawn of the 20th century, Vida Goldstein remains Australia's most celebrated suffragette and social reformer. Her life - as a campaigner for women's rights and suffrage in Australia, Britain and America, an advocate for peace, a fighter for social equality for all and a shrewd political commentator - marks her as one of Australia's foremost women of courage and principle. In 1903 she became the first woman in Australia to stand for the Senate and the the first woman in the Western world to stand for a national Parliament.

These tales from police officers, nurses, funeral directors, priests, gravediggers and those left behind show that bush ingenuity comes to the fore when coping with corpses that won’t cooperate or can’t be found, bodies that don’t stay buried, and weather and wildlife trying to sabotage the best-planned funerals. This memorable and eye-opening collection of real-life accounts of passing away and saying good-bye in the Australian bush is by turns, poignant, bizarre, heartbreaking and hilarious.

New York, 1954. A Fifth Avenue address, parties at the Plaza, two healthy sons and the ideal husband: what looks like a perfect life for Katharina Edgeworth is anything but. Now the wife of a beloved pediatric surgeon and heir to a shipping fortune, Katharina is trapped in a gilded cage, desperate to escape the constraints of domesticity. So when she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity. A man from her past has become a high-level Soviet spy, but no one has been able to infiltrate his circle.

Richard Flanagan's speeches have become unique literary events attended by sellout crowds, reported in national and international media, and a spur to widespread debate and discussion. Gathered here are three of his recent speeches in which he interweaves topics as diverse as troubadour poetry, love stories and the murder of the refugee Reza Barati; his top 10 Tasmanian novels and the Australian Pacific solution; and his much-celebrated National Press Club address where he questioned the militarisation of Australian memory and argued for the need for formal Indigenous recognition.

The Raising Girls Workbook provides the best information about girls at every age, alongside simple questionnaires to determine your daughter’s unique needs. Build on your family’s strengths and find new strategies to help your daughter grow up happy and healthy.

Within hours of arriving in New York City, Jane is dragged into a case and finds herself up against one of the toughest minds she’s ever had to crack: a Silicon Valley billionaire whose ex-business partner has just been murdered. Sarah Noble is the darling of the tech world–the genius behind an AI defence system that hijacks enemy missiles. But when Sarah’s estranged business partner is killed in a mysterious plane crash, suspicion immediately falls on one of the few people who could hack the plane’s guidance system and had a motive to do so: Sarah herself.

Discover a world of wild, mysterious and audacious journeys. Bruce Ansley retraces the path of the doomed surveyor John Whitcombe across the Southern Alps; follows the raiding party of the Northern chief Te Puoho along the West Coast; sails around New Zealand's Northern and Southern capes; walks through the Valley under the Two Thumb Range to the mythical Mesopotamia; drives from Waiheke to Wanaka (in a hurry); sets off on a hunt for the South Island's Grey Ghost; looks deep into the heart of volcanic New Zealand and tracks our most unlikely hero, the prison escaper George Wilder.

Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing is booming globally. Neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vastly different in landscape, antipodean authors offer readers and listeners a blend of exotic and familiar, seasoned by distinctive senses of place, outlook, and humour, and roots that trace to the earliest days of our genre. Southern Cross Crime is the first comprehensive guide to modern Australian and New Zealand crime writing.

State of Fear is a superb blend of edge-of-your-seat suspense and thought provoking commentary on how information is manipulated in the modern world. From the streets of Paris, to the glaciers of Antarctica to the exotic and dangerous Solomon Islands, State of Fear takes the listener on a roller-coaster thrill ride, all the while keeping the brain in high gear.

These tales from police officers, nurses, funeral directors, priests, gravediggers and those left behind show that bush ingenuity comes to the fore when coping with corpses that won’t cooperate or can’t be found, bodies that don’t stay buried and weather and wildlife trying to sabotage the best planned funerals. This memorable and eye-opening collection of real-life accounts of passing away and saying good-bye in the Australian bush is by turns poignant, bizarre, heartbreaking and hilarious.

On average, at least one woman is murdered by a current or former partner every week in Australia. Far too many Australian women have experienced physical or sexual violence. Only rarely do these women capture the attention of the media and the public. What can we do to stem the tide of violence and tragedy? Finally, we are starting to talk about this epidemic of gendered violence, but too often we are doing so in a way that can be clumsy and harmful. Victim blaming, passive voice and over-identification with abusers continue to be hallmarks of reporting on this issue.

When her husband refused to return their children, and the Australian government and Lebanese justice system couldn't help, Sally Faulkner flew across the world with a television news crew to try to bring them home herself. All for My Children is Sally Faulkner's unforgettable true story, showing how one Australian mother's life fractured in the moment she kissed her kids good-bye.

When You Kant Figure It Out, Ask a Philosopher explains how pearls of wisdom from the greatest Western philosophers can help us face and make light of some of the daily challenges of modern life. In 12 clever, accessible chapters, you'll get advice from Epicurus about how to disconnect from constant news alerts and social media updates, Nietzsche's take on getting in shape, John Stuart Mill's tips for handling bad birthday presents, and many other ancient pearls of wisdom to help you navigate life today.

Shame is a difficult emotion, and most of us do what we can to avoid it. But veteran psychologist Joseph Burgo shows us how we can use shame - which is an inevitable part of being human - as a tool for better understanding ourselves and our relationships with others. Encounters with embarrassment, guilt, self-consciousness and remorse are an unavoidable part of everyday life, and they sometimes have lessons to teach us - about our goals and values, about the person we expect ourselves to be.

'It seemed like a good idea...at the time' - the lament of many a morning after. Rum, beer, scotch, wine, beer and more beer. For nearly 250 years Australian history has been punctuated with stories of booze and boozing. From Cook's voyages and the First Fleet to the Rum Rebellion, the mutiny of the 99th Regiment, the soldiers' riot of 1916, six o'clock closing and beyond, we've been a nation that likes a drink. With the eye of the master storyteller that he is, Jim Haynes has collected the best yarns, verses, stories and anecdotes of our boozy history.

From award-winning science journalist Dr. Michael Mosley: the story of COVID-19, the greatest public health threat of our time....