What happened at Essendon, what happened at Cronulla, is only part of the story. From the basement office of a suburban football club to the seedy corners of Peptide Alley to the polished corridors of Parliament House, The Straight Dope is an inside account of the politics, greed and personal feuds which fuelled an extraordinary saga.Clubs and coach... Read more...

Nothing prepares a person for the job of chief of staff to a Commonwealth Minister. There are no professional development courses, no specialist recruitment agencies and no training manuals.It was into this vortex that Allen Behm became chief of staff to Greg Combet in 2009, the minister responsible for managing carbon pricing and the pink batts cri... Read more...

Featuring a new introduction in response to Julia Gillard's memoir, this revised edition brings Paul Kelly's masterpiece on the Rudd-Gillard years up to the present.Drawing on more than sixty on-the-record interviews with all the major players, Triumph and Demise is full of remarkable disclosures. It is the inside account of the hopes, achievements ... Read more...

Born and bred in north-western New South Wales, Tony Windsor has held the balance of power in state and federal parliaments for nearly a third of his public life. He has always stood as an Independent, believing it was the only way he could achieve the attention country voters deserved from the major parties.Windsor's Way reveals Tony's courageous p... Read more...

But does a powerbroker like Stephen Loosley ever leave the political world?In his candid memoir, Loosley writes about defending the indefensible, the best way to start and kill off rumours, the value of truth in campaigning, how to use humour to squash a scandal, the key to fundraising and why bullshit always comes back to smother you. Read more...

Why do seemingly intelligent men and women leave their families to spend more than half the year travelling to Canberra, and spending night after night at electorate and campaign events? Surely there are easier ways to earn a living.A Letter to My Children is Christopher Pyne's honest account of how a belief in the power of public service, inspired ... Read more...

How much do we know about the second most important office in the nation? Who was Australia's first treasurer? Who resigned because of a relationship breakdown with the PM? And who did Frank Hardy base his character Ted Thurgood in Power without Glory on?The Money Men is the first in-depth look at the twelve most notable and interesting men to have ... Read more...

Far from being the work of a madman, Anders Breivik's murderous rampage in Norway was the action of an extreme narcissist. As the dead lay around him, he held up a finger asking for a Band-Aid.Written with the pace of a psychological thriller, The Life of I is a compelling account of the rise of narcissism in individuals and society. Manne exam... Read more...

B.A. Santamaria was one of the most controversial Australians of our time. An ardent anti-Communist and devout Catholic, he was fiercely intelligent and a natural leader, polarising the community into loyal followers and committed opponents.In the 1940s Santamaria created the anti-Communist organisation 'The Movement'. In the 1950s he was a key figu... Read more...

Leadership is about emotional connections; it is about trust; it is about being authentic.John Cantwell knows this from almost forty years of leading men and women in some of the toughest situations imaginable. Now he reveals all he has learned about leadership during his rise through the ranks from Private to General in the Australian Army.Leadersh... Read more...

His wife Margaret was his 'best appointment', he called Malcolm Fraser 'Kerr's cur' after the Dismissal and when Sir Winton Turnbull called out in parliament 'I am a country member', Gough interjected 'I remember'.When it was suggested he was funny, Gough responded: 'Funny! Funny? Witty, yes. Epigrammatic perhaps, but not funny. You make me sound l... Read more...

Our bush heritage helped to define our identity, but today Australia is a nation of cities. A higher proportion of Australians live in cities than almost any other country, and most of our national wealth is generated in them. For most of the twentieth century, our cities gave us some of the highest living standards in the world. But they are no lon... Read more...

When Kenneth Baillieu Myer's father fell dead on the footpath in 1934, Ken's life changed in an instant. As the eldest son of the Jewish immigrant retailing genius, Sidney Baevski Myer, who went from pedlar to philanthropist millionaire in fifteen years, 13-year-old Ken was immediately acknowledged as head of the family. Despite a conventional educa... Read more...

The twenty years preceding the arrival of television are usually described as the 'Golden Years' of Australian radio broadcasting. It was the time of 'Mo', the beginning of June Salter's career, and when such stars as Peter Finch, John Meillon and Queenie Ashton graces the airwaves. It was a period of unique activity, and Richard Lane has provided b... Read more...

This 'family biography' by award-winning writer Brenda Niall traces the emergence of an extraordinary artistic tradition. She places the Boyds in their historical and personal contexts, tells the interwoven stories of their brilliant careers, and analyses the shaping influences on their lives.Most remarkable is the story, told here for the first tim... Read more...

Amid the excitement and disorder of the gold rush, Melbourne's middle class created the University of Melbourne—known to many generations as 'The Shop'—to serve the interests of its sons. The foundation professors were well acquainted with the ancient universities of England and Ireland, but they swiftly realised that colonial society ha... Read more...