In Life As I Know It, Michelle Payne tells her deeply moving story. It will lift your spirits, stir your heart and give you courage.Michelle was six months old, the youngest of eleven children, when the family was hit with the tragic death of their mother, Mary. Their father, Paddy, a renowned horseman, raised his children alone. As a family, they ... Read more...

Australians came to the ABC's The Killing Season in droves, their fascination with the brutal Rudd-Gillard struggle as enduring as the saga itself. This is the book that brings you the uncut version of The Killing Season, taking you behind the cameras to reveal the untold stories and candid moments that didn't go to air. For the first time a more co... Read more...

If you want to understand the next Prime Minister of Australia, this is essential reading.In For the Common Good, Bill Shorten reflects on the values and beliefs that led him to devote himself to the labour movement and stand for the nation's highest office. He looks back on the emphasis on education and social justice in his childhood in suburban M... Read more...

We are not born readers, we learn to turn words into worlds. But why is fine writing lauded while excellent reading is ignored?In The Art of Reading, philosopher Damon Young reveals the pleasures of this intimate pursuit through a rich sample of literature: from Virginia Woolf's diaries to Batman comics. He writes with honesty and humour about the b... Read more...

On 14 July 1789 thousands of Parisians seized the Bastille fortress in Paris. This was the most famous episode of the Revolution of 1789, when huge numbers of French people across the kingdom successfully rebelled against absolute monarchy and the privileges of the nobility. But the subsequent struggle over what social and political system should re... Read more...

In a period of profound environmental and social upheaval, climate change has become one of our greatest challenges. Yet for many of us, fear, confusion and frustration mean we are reluctant to consider, let alone act on this pressing issue.Rational engagement with science is vital to forming solutions to this challenge. But a cultural shift is also... Read more...

The Meanjin winter issue takes on the culture wars. It's an essential primer in this election season written by Melbourne academic Mark Davis, the man who brought you Gangland, the book that revealed the baby boomer cultural monopoly. Now Davis turns his attention to the shady world of cultural politics, a world dominated by race, climate, and irrat... Read more...

Why should Indigenous people have a direct say in the decisions that affect their lives? Australia is one of the only liberal democracies still grappling with such a fundamental question.The idea of constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians has become a highly political and contentious issue. It is entangled in institutional processes t... Read more...

How does Indigenous policy signed off in Canberra work—or not—when implemented in remote Aboriginal communities? Mark Moran, Alyson Wright and Paul Memmott have extensive on-the-ground experience in this area of ongoing challenge. What, they ask, is the right balance between respecting local traditions and making significant improvement ... Read more...

The greatest drugs scandal in Australian sport goes well beyond who took what. 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... Read more...

The Forgotten People challenges the assumption that constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians is a project of the left in Australia.It demonstrates that there may be a set of reforms that can achieve the change sought by indigenous leaders, while addressing the critical concerns of constitutional conservatives and classical liberals. More... Read more...

Libertarianism—the philosophy of government that pairs free market economics with social liberalism— presents a vigorous challenge and viable political alternative to the old Left-Right partisan shouting match.Libertarianism offers surprising new solutions to stagnant policy debates over issues such as immigration and civil rights, and p... Read more...

This provocative book examines the vision of Australia in nineteenth-century English literature. The industrial revolution destroyed the myth of an idyllic rural way of life in England, and writers like Charles Dickens, Bulwer Lytton and Charles Reade created it anew in the improbable environment of Australia. The popular image of Australia in Engli... Read more...

The Western District of Victoria. Even the name conjures up establishment families, history and grandeur. This area, extending from the Grampians region in the south-west of the state to Geelong in the east, and stretching as far north as Ararat, has some of the most productive land in Australia and some of its most renowned homesteads and gardens. ... Read more...

First Australians is the dramatic story of the collision of two worlds that created contemporary Australia. Told from the perspective of Australia's first people, it vividly brings to life the events that unfolded when the oldest living culture in the world was overrun by the world's greatest empire.Seven of Australia's leading historians reveal the... Read more...

The Most Dangerous Man in the World is the definitive account of WikiLeaks, threats against its existence and the man who is as secretive as the organisations he targets. Through interviews with Julian Assange, his inner circle and those who fell out with him, Andrew Fowler tells the story of how a man with a turbulent childhood and brilli... Read more...

James Button fell in love with the Geelong Football Club as a boy. It was a family affair. But as the years wore on and the defeats mounted, one nagging question became louder and louder: would his team ever win a premiership again?Comeback tells the Geelong story—how a town unloved by the big city up the road turned to football to show it was... Read more...

Shooting The Picture is the story of Australian press photography from 1888 to today—the power of the medium, seismic changes in the newspaper industry, and photographers who were often more colourful than their subjects. This groundbreaking book explores our political leaders and campaigns, crime, war and censorship, international events, dis... Read more...

Ride the wave of nostalgia with Surf-o-rama, the largest collection of Australian beach culture memorabilia, including artefacts, ephemera and photographs. Meet Duke Kahanamoku, who gave the first public demonstration of surfboard riding in Australia. Relive the glories of Midget and Gidget and cruise the kitsch and the cool in your salt-encrusted p... Read more...

Kathy Jackson was hailed as a heroine for blowing the whistle on the million-dollar fraud of Michael Williamson, the corrupt boss of the Health Services Union. While remaining steadfast in this very public ordeal, she endured bitter personal attacks from enemies in the Labor Party and the union movement. But what if Jackson was just as corrupt as Wi... Read more...