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No Man is an Island
By Adele Dumont. 2016
This is the book about immigration detention that all Australians need to read.During the time of the Gillard government, 24-year-old…
Sydneysider Adele Dumont accepted a volunteer position to teach English to men in immigration detention on Christmas Island. She did not expect to find the work so rewarding or the people she met so interesting. When she was offered a job working at Curtin detention centre near Derby in Western Australia, she took it.Working at Curtin required her to live a fly-in fly-out lifestyle, feeling never quite settled in one place or the other. She lived in a donga when she was in WA, her life full of bus trips to the detention centre and the work she did there; back home in Sydney, she was overwhelmed by the choices people had and the things they didn't do with those choices. What kept her returning to Curtin were her students: men from many lands who had sacrificed all they knew for a chance to live in Australia; men who were unfailingly polite to her in a situation that was barbarous. Slowly, falteringly, these men learned her language and taught her things about their culture.No Man is an Island is the story that will make the issue of immigration detention accessible to far more interested Australians than any number of stern newspaper articles. It is a vividly told story that is full of characters and humanity. It is the story about immigration detention that all Australians need to read.Two Decades Naked: A true story of dancing, dreams and desire
By Leigh Hopkinson. 2016
For fans of Hooked by Samantha X and In My Skin by Kate Holden. Leigh Hopkinson was the least likely…
person to become a stripper but after spending two decades naked, she realised it was her career - and her life.When Leigh Hopkinson was a university student in Christchurch she worked at a succession of low-paying jobs that paid the rent and fit in around her degree. None of them fit so well, however, as stripping. She figured it couldn't be that difficult - she was just going to dance on stage in front of a bunch of strangers. She'd show them a bit of skin, but the gig wasn't going to last that long. Or so she imagined.While stripping was harder than Leigh thought it would be, she hadn't counted on it being so exhilarating - or lucrative. So when she moved to Melbourne and needed to make a living, the lure of her old job was strong. The world of the strip club had become familiar, even reassuring, though some of the people she met during the course of her job didn't exactly give her faith in the future of humanity.Over the course of Leigh's career, she learnt a lot about other people and even more about herself, and the result is a story that delves into a world that not everyone visits but everyone finds fascinating.On Dreams (Dover Thrift Editions Ser.)
By Sigmund Freud, M. D. Eder. 2001
Among the first of Sigmund Freud's many contributions to psychology and psychoanalysis was The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900,…
and considered his greatest work -- even by Freud himself. Aware, however, that it was a long and difficult book, he resolved to compile a more concise and accessible version of his ideas on the interpretation of dreams. That shorter work is reprinted here. Since its publication, generations of readers and students have turned to this volume for an authoritative and coherent account of Freud's theory of dreams as distorted wish fulfillment.After contrasting the scientific and popular views of dreams, Freud illustrates the ways in which dreams can be shown to have been influenced by the activities or thoughts of the preceding day. He considers the effect on dreams of such mental mechanisms as condensation, dramatization, displacement, and regard for intelligibility. In addition, the author offers perceptive insights into repression, the three classes of dreams, and censorship within the dream.Students and psychologists will welcome this inexpensive edition of an always-relevant work by the father of modern psychoanalysis. This volume will also appeal to anyone interested in dreams of the workings of the unconscious mind.Under a Starless Sky: A family's escape from Iran
By Banafsheh Serov. 2010
One family's journey through the turmoil of the 1978 revolution, when the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran, and…
their escape over the mountains to Turkey, and ultimately to Australia. Banafsheh is eight when the revolution begins in Iran. At first her family are jubilant about the collapse of the Shah's rule and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, but they quickly realise that Iran has traded one dictator for another, more ruthless, ruler. Banafsheh's parents, Kamal and Nina, struggle with the harsh laws of the new revolutionary Iran. Khomeini's revolutionary guard, the Komiteh, patrol the streets, enforcing Islamic codes of dress and behaviour, and dispatching harsh justice to perceived enemies of the revolution. They drag Nina's father in for questioning, interrogate Nina and put Kamal on a stop-list, so he is unable to leave the country. Fearing for the safety of their two children, Kamal and Nina decide the family must flee their beloved country, leaving behind their extended family and friends. But the only way of escape is to take the dangerous route across the Turkish mountains.That'd Be Right: A Fairly True History of Modern Australia
By William McInnes. 2008
'a funny and clever reminiscence about what happened in Australia over the past 30 years ... Told with a delightful…
insight and sense of whimsy.' Daily Telegraph In THAT'D BE RIGHT, much loved actor and author William McInnes gives his personal view on the things we love ? sport, families, politics and the greatest spectator sport of them all, an election campaign. He takes the momentous landmarks that fascinate us, such as Melbourne Cup Day, Grand Final wins and election night parties, and brings them into our back yards. He also writes about early morning swimming carnivals, lawnmowers and sitting in the stands at the cricket with his son. THAT'D BE RIGHT is a biographical trip through Australian life with lots of yarns along the way.Just Doing My Job: Cops, firies, ambos. Everyday Australians with extraordinary stories.
By James Knight. 2006
JUST DOING MY JOB is a journey into the lives of the men and women behind the uniform ? the…
cops, firies and ambos. It is an exploration of humanity and the human spirit. Imagine what it must be like to attend a fatal accident in which you know the victim; or to pull a baby out of a fire who is dressed in the same style of pyjamas that your child wears; or to have to knock on a stranger?s door and tell a wife that her husband has been murdered, while in the background, her children are preparing for a slumber party. You may be called on to deliver a child or to help a family cope with the disappearance of a beloved son. At other times a day at work may find you chasing a naked man through a five-star resort; being escorted through a seedy establishment by a six-foot-four transvestite; or assisting a drunken woman who has somehow fallen into a shopping trolley and become stuck. Every day there is a possibility of being shot at, spat at, punched, verbally abused, or hugged and cheered ? The diversity of situations and emotions is surely as great as any person in any line of work ever experiences. JUST DOING MY JOB tells the stories of the unsung heroes of our emergency services. Those who are just doing their job, protecting us, saving us, serving us. Most of us see nothing more than the uniform. These are snapshots of lives and events that will give the reader a better understanding of the men and women behind the uniform.The Life of Olaudah Equiano: Large Print (Dover Thrift Editions Ser.)
By Olaudah Equiano. 1999
Compelling work traces the formidable journey of an Igbo prince from captivity to freedom and literacy and recounts his enslavement…
in the New World, service in the Seven Years War with General Wolfe in Canada, voyages to the Arctic with the Phipps expedition of 1772-73, six months among the Miskito Indians in Central America, and a grand tour of the Mediterranean as a personal servant to an English gentlemen. Skillfully written, with a wealth of engrossing detail, this powerful narrative deftly illustrates the nature of the black experience in slavery.Me of the Never Never: The Chaotic Life and Times of Fiona O'Loughlin
By Fiona O'Loughlin. 2013
Nothing turns out as you plan, I guess; but I often think if I'd gone to a fortune teller when…
I was at school and been told I'd marry a guy who makes false teeth, move to Alice Springs, have five kids and become a standup comedian; well, I would have been surprised to say the least.'Fiona O?Loughlin is certainly the funniest (and possibly one of the busiest) working mothers in Australia today: a stand-up comedian based in Alice Springs and Adelaide, she is on the road for most of the year, doing live performances, plus regular television appearances. Fiona has also had successful shows at the Edinburgh and Adelaide fringe festivals, the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.This book contains her stories ? funny and sometimes sad ? about her upbringing as part of a large Irish-Catholic family on a wheat farm in South Australia, her chaotic and disorganised family life ever since, living in Alice Springs and making it as a stand-up comedian. She also talks of a darker side of the life of many performers ? alcohol.This book is for anyone who likes to laugh (and cry), who wants to read about a woman living her life on her terms.`O`Loughlin memoir is deep and honest, as she describes her love for her large family and her ordeal of struggling with alcohol addiction?? The NSW Writers Centre`Her memoir is charm personified in that it?s not only a fascinating journey through an Australian woman?s life, its candour and honesty is kind of heart-melting?- Australian Women Online`This is one which will raise a lot of laughs not least because she is one of those rare people who can see the funny side to everything life throws at her? - Weekend NotesThe Last Season
By Stuart Stevens. 2015
Fathers, sons, and sports are enduring themes of American literature. Here, in this fresh and moving account, a son returns…
to his native South to spend a special autumn with his ninety-five-year-old dad, sharing the unique joys, disappointments, and life lessons of Saturdays with their beloved Ole Miss Rebels. After growing up in Jackson, Stuart Stevens built a successful career as a writer and political consultant. But in the fall of 2012, not long after he turned sixty, the presidential campaign he'd worked on suffered a painful defeat. Grappling with a profound sense of loss and mortality, he began asking himself some tough questions, not least about his relationship with his father. The two of them had spent little time together for decades. He made a resolution: to invite his father to attend a season of Ole Miss football games together, as they'd done when college football provided a way for his father to guide him through childhood--and to make sense of the troubled South of the 1960s. Now, driving to and from the games, and cheering from the stands, they take stock of their lives as father and son, and as individuals, reminding themselves of their unique, complicated, precious bond. Poignant and full of heart, but also irreverent and often hilarious, The Last Season is a powerful story of parents and children and of the importance of taking a backward glance together while you still can.From the Hardcover edition.When in Rome: Chasing la dolce vita
By Penelope Green. 2010
We've all dreamed of a new exotic life in a European city, but who actually goes? The delightful and award-winning…
WHEN IN ROME shows what can happen when you are courageous - and perhaps crazy - enough to chase this dream. With her thirtieth birthday on the horizon and a safe and comfortable life in Sydney outside her front door, Penelope Green decided it was now or never. Undaunted by the fact she spoke absolutely no Italian, had no job, no friends and nowhere to live and armed only with an Italian/English dictionary, irresistible optimism and a fair dash of bravery, she was determined to carve out her own slice of la dolce vita.Don't You Know Who I Used to Be?: From Manolos to Motherhood
By Julia Morris. 2009
Julia Morris is the first to admit she does not know much, but these are some of the things she…
knows for sure: - Writing a Logie speech when you are aged eight is not normal; - Cathy Freeman is the only woman in the world who looks good in white lycra; - $22,000 Aussie dollars converts to about 23 pounds Sterling; - 'Overnight romance' sounds better than 'one-night stand'; - Tom Jones is not the only dark-haired Welsh man with sex appeal; - A blue cross on a white stick WILL change your life. DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I USED TO BE? is a delightful memoir from one of Australia's best-loved comedians about moving to the UK, frocking up, dating, getting married, giving birth to her first child and coming home...and not always wearing Manolos.FULL BORE
By William Mcinnes. 2017
William McInnes, one of Australia's best-loved entertainers and authors, takes a look at the Aussie obsession with sports and pop…
culture.A chance encounter in an auction house is the jumping-off point for William's inimitable take on our sport-obsessed nation, Australian popular culture and the artefacts and memorabilia that both make us cringe with recognition and laugh with warm affection. His trademark humour and anecdotes litter this collection, making it a true delight.'insightful, understated and very funny' Sydney Morning Herald on The Laughing Clowns'William McInnes compels with the sheer delightfulness of his memoir, and with his fine ability to spin a damn funny yarn' Sunday Telegraph on A Man's Got To Have A Hobby'a ripper' The Canberra Times on The Making of Modern AustraliaMathematics without Apologies
By Michael Harris. 2015
What do pure mathematicians do, and why do they do it? Looking beyond the conventional answers--for the sake of truth,…
beauty, and practical applications--this book offers an eclectic panorama of the lives and values and hopes and fears of mathematicians in the twenty-first century, assembling material from a startlingly diverse assortment of scholarly, journalistic, and pop culture sources.Drawing on his personal experiences and obsessions as well as the thoughts and opinions of mathematicians from Archimedes and Omar Khayyám to such contemporary giants as Alexander Grothendieck and Robert Langlands, Michael Harris reveals the charisma and romance of mathematics as well as its darker side. In this portrait of mathematics as a community united around a set of common intellectual, ethical, and existential challenges, he touches on a wide variety of questions, such as: Are mathematicians to blame for the 2008 financial crisis? How can we talk about the ideas we were born too soon to understand? And how should you react if you are asked to explain number theory at a dinner party?Disarmingly candid, relentlessly intelligent, and richly entertaining, Mathematics without Apologies takes readers on an unapologetic guided tour of the mathematical life, from the philosophy and sociology of mathematics to its reflections in film and popular music, with detours through the mathematical and mystical traditions of Russia, India, medieval Islam, the Bronx, and beyond.How to Catch a Russian Spy
By Ellis Henican, Naveed Jamali. 2015
The fascinating story of a young American amateur who helped the FBI bust a Russian spy in New York--sold in…
ten countries and in a major deal to 20th Century Fox.For three nerve-wracking years, Naveed Jamali spied on America for the Russians, trading thumb drives of sensitive technical data for envelopes of cash, selling out his own beloved country across noisy restaurant tables and in quiet parking lots. Or so the Russians believed. In fact, this young American civilian was a covert double agent working with the FBI. The Cold War wasn't really over. It had just gone high-tech. How to Catch a Russian Spy is the one-of-a-kind story of how one young man's post-college adventure became a real-life US counter-intelligence coup. He had no previous counter-espionage experience. Everything he knew about undercover work, he'd learned from Miami Vice and Magnum P.I. reruns and movies like Ronin, Spy Game, and anything with Bond or Bourne in the title. And yet, hoping to gain experience to become a Navy intelligence officer, he convinced the FBI and the Russians they could trust him. With charm, cunning, and a big load of naiveté, he matched wits with a veteran Russian military-intelligence officer who was recruiting spies on American soil, out-maneuvering the Russian spy and his secret-hungry superiors. Along the way, Jamali and his FBI handlers cast a rare light on espionage activities at the Russian Mission to the United Nations in New York and earned a solid US win in the escalating hostilities between Moscow and Washington. Now, Jamali reveals the whole engaging story behind his double-agent adventure--from coded signals on Craigslist to the Russian spy's propensity for Hooters' Buffalo wings. Cinematic, news-breaking, and wildly entertaining, How to Catch a Russian Spy is an armchair spy fantasy brought to life. Film rights sold to 20th Century Fox for director Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, 500 Days of Summer).A Second Wind: A Memoir
By Philippe Pozzo di Borgo. 2012
Soon to be a major motion picture—The Upside—starring Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart, and Nicole Kidman.Born with wealth and privilege, Philippe…
Pozzo di Borgo was not generally someone in the habit of asking for help. Then, in 1993, right on the heels of his wife’s diagnosis of a terminal illness, a paragliding accident left him a quadriplegic. He was forty-two-years-old and unable to do anything—even feed himself—without the help of another person. Passing his days hidden behind the high walls of his townhouse, after his paralysis Philippe found himself isolated and depressed. The only person who seemed unaffected by Philippe’s condition was someone who had been marginalized his entire life—Abdel, the unemployed, outspoken Algerian immigrant who would become his unlikely caretaker. In between dramas and jokes, he sustained Philippe’s life for the next ten years. A Second Wind, the basis for the upcoming major motion picture The Upside, is the inspiring true story of two men who refused to ask for help, and then wound up helping each other.Siena seems at first glance a typical Italian city: within its venerable medieval walls the citizens sport designer clothes, wield…
digital phones, and prize their dazzling local cuisine. But unlike neighboring Florence, Siena is still deeply rooted in ancient traditions--chiefly the spectacular Palio, in which seventeen independent societies known as contrade vie for bragging rights in an annual bareback horse race around the central piazza.Into this strange, closed world steps Robert Rodi. A Chicago writer with few friends in town and a shaky command of conversational Italian, he couldn't be more out of place. Yet something about the sense of belonging radiating from the ritual-obsessed Sienese excites him, and draws him back to witness firsthand how their passionate brand of community extends beyond the Palio into the entire calendar year. Smitten, Rodi undertakes a plan to insinuate himself into this body politic, learn their ways, and win their acceptance.Seven Seasons in Siena is the story of Rodi's love affair with the people of Siena--and of his awkward, heartfelt, intermittently successful, occasionally disastrous attempts to become a naturalized member of the Noble Contrada of the Caterpillar. It won't be easy. As one of the locals points out, someone who's American, gay, and a writer is the equivalent of a triple unicorn in this corner of Tuscany. But like a jockey in the Palio outlasting the competition in the home stretch, Rodi is determined to wear down all resistance. By immersing himself in the life of the contrada over seven visits at different times of the year--working in their kitchens, competing in their athletic events, and mastering the tangled politics of their various feuds and alliances--the ultimate outsider slowly begins to find his way into the hearts of this proud and remarkable people.By turns hilarious and heartwarming, and redolent with the flavor of the Tuscan countryside, Seven Seasons in Siena opens a window on daily life in one of the most magical regions in all of Italy--revealing the joys to be found when we stop being spectators and start taking an active part in life's rich pageant.The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers
By Josh Kilmer-Purcell. 2010
What happens when two New Yorkers (one an ex-drag queen) do the unthinkable: start over, have a herd of kids,…
and get a little dirty? Find out in this riotous and moving true tale of goats, mud, and a centuries-old mansion in rustic upstate New York-the new memoir by Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of the New York Times bestseller I Am Not Myself These Days. A happy series of accidents and a doughnut-laden escape upstate take Josh and his partner, Brent, to the doorstep of the magnificent (and fabulously for sale) Beekman Mansion. One hour and one tour later, they have begun their transformation from uptight urbanites into the two-hundred-year-old-mansion-owning Beekman Boys. Suddenly, Josh-a full-time New Yorker with a successful advertising career-and Brent are weekend farmers, surrounded by nature's bounty and an eclectic cast: roosters who double as a wedding cover band; Bubby, the bionic cat; and a herd of eighty-eight goats, courtesy of their new caretaker, Farmer John. And soon, a fledgling business, born of a gift of handmade goat-milk soap, blossoms into a brand, Beekman 1802. The Bucolic Plague is tart and sweet, touching and laugh out loud funny, a story about approaching middle age, being in a long-term relationship, realizing the city no longer feeds you in the same way it used to, and finding new depths of love and commitment wherever you live.I've Got This Round: More Tales of Debauchery
By Mamrie Hart. 2018
When Mamrie simultaneously enters her 30s and finds herself single for the first time since college, the world is suddenly…
full of possibilities. Emboldened by the cool confidence that comes with the end of one's 20s plus the newfound independence of an attachment-free lifestyle, Mamrie commits herself to living life with even more spirit, adventure, and heart than before. Mamrie dives into new experiences at full-tilt and seeks out once-in-a-lifetime opportunities (like meeting the Dixie Chicks), bucket-list goals (like visiting the Moulin Rouge), and madcap adventures (like going anchors-away on a Backstreet Boys cruise)—all while diving back into the dating world for the first time in a decade.1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point
By Irina Prokhorova. 2013
Although 1989 and 1991 witnessed more spectacular events, 1990 was a year of embryonic change in Russia: Article 6 of…
the constitution was abolished, and with it the Party's monopoly on political power. This fascinating collection of documentary evidence crystalizes the aspirations of the Russian people in the days before Communism finally fell.It charts--among many other social developments--the appearance of new political parties and independent trade unions, the rapid evolution of mass media, the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs, a new openness about sex and pornography and a sudden craze for hot-air ballooning, banned under the Communist regime.1990 is a reminder of the confusion and aspirations of the year before Communism finally collapsed in Russia, and a tantalizing glimpse of the paths that may have been taken if Yeltsin's coup had not forced the issue in 1991.Nobody's Son: A Memoir
By Mark Slouka. 2016
“There comes a time in your life when the past decides to run you down,” Mark Slouka writes in this…
heartbreaking and soul-searching memoir about one man's attempt to reckon with the past. Born in Czechoslovakia, Mark Slouka’s parents survived the Nazis only to have to escape the Communist purges after the war. Smuggled out of their own country, the newlyweds joined a tide of refugees moving from Innsbruck to Sydney to New York, dragging with them a history of blood and betrayal that their son would be born into. From World War I to the present, Slouka pieces together a remarkable story of refugees and war, displacement and denial—admitting into evidence memories, dreams, stories, the lies we inherit, and the lies we tell—in an attempt to reach his mother, the enigmatic figure at the center of the labyrinth. Her story, the revelation of her life-long burden and the forty-year love affair that might have saved her, shows the way out of the maze.