The Way Home: Tales From a Life Without Technology by Mark Boyle

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers- the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce. In this honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life without modern technology, Mark Boyle expl ores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the stream, foraging and fishing.What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring. ...Show more

Poster Boy: A Memoir of Art and Politics by Peter Drew

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

I've stuck up thousands of posters across Australia to interrogate our national identity. With each, the response has grown. You might expect I have unshakable convictions about social justice, but I don't. I reject the label 'activist'. So why do what I do? Maybe it's time I made sense of my motivation s. Artist Peter Drew wanted a better Australia. In 2013, frustrated at the political discussion around asylum seekers, he put up a poster, commenting on Australia's offshore detention. What followed was an outpouring of community support, and a national, then global, following for his art. As Peter's profile rose, he began to question his beliefs - a struggle that led to destructive behaviour and affected his relationships. When compelled to face a painful family legacy, Peter realised that his behaviour and his motivation to make art shared a common thread- his father. Their relationship had been shaped by an outdated Australian machismo - a mix of bravado, inadequacy and shame that not only affects sons and their fathers, but informs social relations more broadly, including the way we as a nation treat outsiders. Told with humour, sincerity and an attentive eye, Peter's story is both intimate and inclusive, drawing a parallel between our personal relationships and Australia's national narratives. This is a book about family and identity, about the lies we tell ourselves and the past we bury. It is an expedition to be a better citizen of his country. ...Show more

Don Dunstan: The Visionary Politician Who Changed Australia by Angela Woollacott

$32.99 AUD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: 3 Biography

Don Dunstan was one of the most significant political figures of twentieth-century Australia. As Premier of South Australia, he blazed a trail of reform. But his influence reached far beyond his home state. He was seen as the architect of a new kind of Australian society, and his decade in office marked a golden age. This is the first comprehensive biography of a larger than life figure. Angela Woollacott recounts how he battled Adelaide's conservative establishment to win office for Labor, and then pioneered Aboriginal land rights, abolished the death penalty, supported women's rights, relaxed censorship and drinking laws and decriminalised homosexuality. He worked against the White Australia Policy, and was an ardent supporter of the arts and food. Although he was much loved by the public, Dunstan's career was marked by controversy and vilification, with scandal surrounding his personal relationships. Dunstan's life story helps us to appreciate just what a watershed era the 1960s and 1970s were in Australia, and to see how one small state could, for a time, lead a nation.'A fitting tribute' - Penny Wong 'Whitlam and Dunstan were the Washington and Jefferson of modern Australian Labor politics.' - Mike Rann'Angela Woollacott's biography captures what was so special about him.' - Maggie Beer ...Show more

Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories by Svetlana Alexievich; Richard Pevear (Translator); Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

$29.99 AUD

Category: History

Stunning stories about what it was like to be a Soviet child during the upheaval and horror of the Second World War, from Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich I finished first grade in May of 41, and my parents took me for the summer to the Pioneer camp. I came there, went for a swim once, and two days la ter the war began. German planes flew over, and we shouted "Hurray!" We didn't understand that they could be enemy planes. Until they began to bomb us... Then all colours disappeared. All shades. What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War? In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich started interviewing people who had experienced war as children, the generation that survived and had to live with the trauma that would forever change the course of the Russian nation. With remarkable care and empathy, Alexievich gives voice to those whose stories are lost in the official narratives, uncovering a powerful, hidden history of one of the most important events of the twentieth century. Published to great acclaim in the USSR in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, this masterpiece offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human consequences of the war - and an extraordinary chronicle of the Russian soul. ...Show more

A Cloud a Day by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

$34.99 AUD

Category: Science

Cloudspotter and bestselling author Gavin Pretor-Pinney delivers a moment of calm atmospheric contemplation to members of his Cloud Appreciation Society by sharing a cloud image and story every day. A Cloud a Day urges all of us to keep our heads in the clouds with 365 fascinating formations from his ex traordinarily popular Cloud Appreciation Society collection. Inspirational quotes and informative cloud facts accompany provocative and meditative images of the sky, encouraging readers to pause for a moment and look up. A beautifully illustrated book, A Cloud a Day makes a wonderful gift for dedicated or erstwhile cloudspotters--as for any of us with our heads lost in them. ...Show more

Australian Art Deco Hotels by Geoffrey Goddard (Photographer, Cover Design by, Designed by)

$79.95 AUD

Category: Architecture

Australia Modern - Architecture, Landscape and Design 1925-1975 by Hannah Lewi; Philip Goad

$80.00 AUD

Category: Architecture

From the Sydney Opera House and the National Gallery of Victoria to sought-after homes across the country, the pervasive presence of modernism is inescapable in Australia. Led by the likes of Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler and Walter Burley Griffin, modernist architects and designers set out to rebuild at al l scales, from vast infrastructure projects, to public health and education institutions, to new centres of culture, consumption and leisure. Australia Modern vividly captures this architectural legacy with a survey of 100 significant modern sites, richly illustrated with archival images and newly commissioned photographs. Contextual essays by leading voices in architecture and conservation explore modernism's influence on every facet of life in Australia and the ongoing challenges facing preservation. Showcasing projects from the iconic and the urban to the everyday, the regional and the lesser known, Australia Modern cultivates an appreciation for the modern architects and buildings that will increasingly constitute the heritage of tomorrow. ...Show more