Reader's Feast - Humanities

Inside Pine Gap
Price: AUD 35.00 Author: David Rosenberg

David Rosenberg was at the Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap for 18 years, working as an American representative. Now a citizen of Australia, he reflects on those years and provides a rare glimpse into what takes place at this high security facility, located in the Australian desert. This is a view of a defence facility from both an insider and an obsesrver of international politics.

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The Big Tilt
Price: AUD 29.95 Author: Bernard Salt

The speed of change in the last decade is frightening or exhilarating, or a combination of both, depending on your viewpoint. Demographer Bernard Salt bravely tries to imagine what will unfold in the coming years. When you think of the rapidity with which the "i's" have become part of our daily life - iPhones, iPads, etc. - it is no doubt essential to have a discussion such as Bernard Salt initiates.

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Medical Muses
Price: AUD 32.99 Author: Asti Hustvedt

In Paris in the 1870s three women - Blanche, Augustine and Genevieve - are under the care of Jean-Martin Charcot at Salpêtrière Hospital. They are studied, paraded and labelled as hysterics. This account exposes a fascinating and disturbing chapter in the history of neurological research.

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The Next Decade
Price: AUD 32.95 Author: George Friedman

Friedman applies a harsh and unforgiving logic to his predictions for the next decade and, indeed, the next 100 years based on an analytical appreciation of history and politics. He believes America will in fact remain a dominant force and, thus, American presidents must dedicate themselves to looking outward through foreign policy.

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Adapt
Price: AUD 35.00 Author: Tim Hardford

Tim Harford, columnist for the Financial Times, reminds us that it is only through failure that we have success; and that our desire to avoid failure at all costs is stultifying. "If the whole process of learning from failure means discarding stuff that's not working, but in fact, our natural reaction is to keep going, to throw more money behind it, to throw more emotional energy behind it ... that's a real problem," he says.

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The Origins of Political Order
Price: AUD 59.99 Author: Francis Fukuyama

The first of two volumes by the author of The End of History, this study grapples with the history of liberal democracies and the decisions to follow this model, or not, as the case may be. He expands on this by examining the influence of this model now and into the future. He questions all types of political systems.

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The Wonderful Future that Never Was
Price: AUD 34.99 Author: Gregory Benford

There was a time when people believed the future was a place of hover cars, jet packs, waterproof furniture, floating restaurants and personal helicopters. From the 1950s, and even as recently as the 1990s, people dreamed about what lay beyond the 2000s. Whilst it has turned out to be a world away from what they envisioned, it is nonetheless a "wonderful future" we are experiencing.

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Why Read the Classics?
Price: AUD 24.95 Author: Italo Calvino

"A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers". Italo Calvino offers 36 essays on his canon of great works. Shane Carmody is Director, Collections and Access at the State Library of Victoria, a position he has held since 2002. Shane studied History at the University of Melbourne and the University of Toronto and continues to research and write in his spare time.

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Who Am I? And if so, how Many?
Price: AUD 26.95 Author: Richard David Precht

This book combines the history of philosophy with neuroscience. Taking a light-hearted but authoritative tone, Richard David Precht delves into the big philosophical questions by concentrating his book in three parts - what can I know; what should I do; and what can I hope for?

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Through the Language Glass
Price: AUD 24.95 Author: Guy Deutscher

Truly fascinating, Guy Deutscher's book debates the theory that language reflects cultural difference, resoundingly questioning the view that all languages are inherently the same and bears no relationship to the way we think. He unlocks the reader's mind to consider the way language defines us and how it shapes our thoughts, decisions, and perceptions.

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Telling Tales
Price: AUD 24.95 Author: Melissa Katsoulis

This fascinating catalogue of literary hoaxes raises ethical questions as well as capturing the avid reader's interest 'after the fact' - would you spot a fake on first glance?

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Swallow
Price: AUD 39.95 Author: Mary Cappello

Philadelphia's Mütter Museum is home to Chevalier Jackson's collection of more than 2,000 items removed by him and other medicos from people's airways and stomachs over the first half of the 20th century. This is a fascinating and bizarre book.

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Sexually I'm more of a Switzerland
Price: AUD 29.99 Author: David Rose

These personal ads from the London Review of Books elicit a range of reactions - pain, embarrassment, but mostly laughter. David Rose has collated the advertisements since 1998 and brings some of the best together in this collection. Two samples: "I'm not Cary Grant, but who are you - Lana Turner?" / "I walk the line between indifference and, meh, whatever. If you're going to write, do it quickly."

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Crime
Price: AUD 29.95 Author: Ferdinand von Schirach

Ferdinand von Schirach is one of Germany's most prominent defence lawyers and this book chronicles eleven of his clients' cases. In it, he gets the reader to question our notions of guilt and justice. We hear from an abused husband, an obsessed security guard, and a reluctant bank robber, amongst others.

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Coffee
Price: AUD 27.95 Author: Scott Parker et al

This is a social history of coffee that covers the discovery of the precious bean, the rise of it as a daily staple and the marketing of it to the world. Pivotally, the 18 essays in the book debate the ethics of coffee from a purely philosophical perspective. This elixir of life is not without its critics and the way in which it is produced is coming under ever increasing scrutiny.

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Buried in Books
Price: AUD 24.95 Author: Julie Rugg

For me there is as much joy in choosing a book for myself and others as there is in receiving a book. Steve, who is Dublin based but a visitor to Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller during his time in Melbourne, sent me Buried in Books for Christmas - a delightful present. This "Reader's Anthology" brings back memories of books read; reminders of books to be read; and conjures images of famous readers and writers through history. At a time when many are enticed by the wonders of digital books, this book served to affirm my belief that readers will have, as whole or part, libraries of printed books to inform and excite their world.

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