These Wild Houses by Omar Sakr

$20.00 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

I won’t keep you long. First, I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, on whose land the majority of this collection was written. Now you are about to read the poetry of an Arab Australian, which is a rare thing when it shouldn’t be. Now you are about to read the work of a queer Arab Austra lian, which is a rare thing when it shouldn’t be. Now you are about to read the life of a queer Muslim Arab Australian from Western Sydney, from a broke and broken family – not rare, but it should be. This is not a definitive statement on Islam. This is not a definitive statement on Arab identity, not Arab Australian identity, not bisexuality, not even Western Sydney. It is a statement – an exploration of me and what I’ve seen. The only thing I ask of you is that you do not stop with me. Discover the other diverse writers and poets in this country – find us, find our books. We’re here, and we’re growing. –Omar Sakr ...Show more

The Book Collectors of Daraya by Delphine Minoui

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

'There is no jail that can imprison the free word, nor is there a siege tight enough that can prevent the spread of information.' MAZEN DARWISH, Syrian human rights activist, in a speech given on April 23, 2016, following his release from jail in 2015. In 2012 the rebel suburb of Daraya in Damascus was brutally besieged by Syrian government forces. Four years of suffering ensued, punctuated by shelling, barrel bombs and chemical gas attacks. People's homes were destroyed and their food supplies cut off; disease was rife. Yet in this man-made hell, forty young Syrian revolutionaries embarked on an extraordinary project, rescuing all the books they could find in the bombed-out ruins of their home town. They used them to create a secret library, in a safe place, deep underground. It became their school, their university, their refuge. It was a place to learn, to exchange ideas, to dream and to hope. Based on lengthy interviews with these young men, conducted over Skype by the award-winning French journalist, Delphine Minoui, The Book Collectors is a powerful testament to freedom, tolerance and the power of literature. 'This is an urgent and compelling account of great bravery and passion. Delphine Minoui has crafted a book that champions books and the individuals who risk everything to preserve them.' Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book ...Show more

Tree Beings by Raymond Huber

$34.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

We depend on trees for our survival, yet few of us understand just how fascinating these beings really are. With a foreword by the world-renowned anthropologist Jane Goodall, Tree Beings is an adventure through the secret world of trees. Challenging the perception that trees are just ‘silent statues’, i t focuses on four big ideas: Trees give life to the planet. Trees can help save us from climate change. Trees are like beings. Trees need our help and protection. Along the way, you'll meet some of the scientists and explorers who helped uncover the mysteries of the world's oldest living things. You’ll encounter the eccentric British professor who travelled the world for seventy years telling people how trees can save us, and you’ll learn about the 9-year-old-boy who has a plan to plant a trillion trees to save the planet! You’ll also learn the science behind trees, including discoveries about how they ‘talk’ and why they are our best allies in the fight to slow down climate change. Explore tree wisdom from many different cultures and some famous and fascinating tree species, brought to life in a vibrant combination of illustrations and text. Trees are essential to our world. Tree Beings is your guide to appreciating trees through the stories of people who love them. So strap on your hiking boots, and enjoy this informative adventure through the wonderful world of Tree Beings! ...Show more

BIG BLACK THING CHAPTER TWO by SWEATSHOP VARIOUS

$19.95 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

The Big Black Thing: Chapter. 2 is the second issue in a new series of prose and poetry by emerging and established writers from Indigenous, migrant and refugee backgrounds.

BIG BLACK THING CHAPTER ONE by SWEATSHOP VARIOUS

$19.95 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

The Big Black Thing: Chapter 1 is the first issue in a new series of poetry and prose from emerging and established writers of Indigenous, migrant and refugee backgrounds.

The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

$27.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

'On the third of September, not so long ago, something truly wondrous happened on the Beauford Farm and Estate. At the moment of her death, Imogen Zula Nyoni – Genie – was seen to fly away on a giant pair of silver wings ...' As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital after ha ving suffered through a long illness, her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that transcend time and space. It is also the story of her forebears - Baines Tikiti, who, because of his wanderlust, changed his name and ended up walking into the Indian Ocean; his son, Livingstone Stanley Tikiti, who, during the war, took as his nom de guerre Golide Gumede and who became obsessed with flight; and Golide's wife, Elizabeth Nyoni, a country-and-western singer self-styled after Dolly Parton, blonde wig and all. With the lightest of touches, and with an overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel sketches, through the lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground, decades of national history (a country in Southern Africa that is never named) - from colonial occupation through the freedom struggle, to the devastation wrought by the sojas, the HIV virus, and The Man Himself. At turns mysterious and magical, but always honest, The Theory of Flight explores the many ways we lose those we love before they die.Winner of the 2019 Barry Ronge Fiction Prize'The Theory of Flight may be Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu's first novel, but it's written with the kind of excellence and detail one would expect of an author with decades of experience. Enchanting…you feel as if you're part of the very fabric this interconnected story is woven on. The book is a delightful, heartrending, thrilling and heartbreaking read that will leave the reader sad that they couldn't be a part of Genie's short yet impactful life.' – Pam Magwaza, Drum Magazine'Ndlovu is a gifted storyteller, skillfully interweaving the real and the magical, beauty and devastation, historical and personal perspectives, simplicity and complexity. She has a vivid imagination and the tale shimmers with magic…A marvellous and unusual flight of fancy. When Genie dies, and flies away on huge silver wings, she will take a little piece of your heart with her.' – Kate Sidley, Sunday Times'[Ndlovu has a] glorious gift of storytelling.'  – Diane de Beer, Business Day. ...Show more

Searching for Charlotte: The Fascinating Story of Australia's First Children's Author (Charlotte Waring Atkinson) by Kate Forsyth; Belinda Murrell

$34.95 AUD

Category: Teaching Tools & Resources

In Searching for Charlotte, Forsyth and Murrell tell Charlotte's story along with that of their own journey to discover her. In an intriguing account, the sisters join the reader in reacting to Charlotte's actions: wondering what could have motivated certain choices; admiring the strength of spirit that pushed Charlotte through turmoil in the Australian colonies; and reviling attitudes that were common to the mid-1800s but are abhorrent in the twentieth century.The extraordinary, long-buried life story of Australia's earliest published children's author, Searching for Charlotte combines elements of biography, recreation of history and rediscovery of family history. It is a sometimes confronting but ultimately heartwarming journey into the story of a family with writing in its blood. For almost 140 years, the author of Australia's first book for children was a mystery. Known only by the descriptor 'a Lady Long Resident in New South Wales', she was the subject of much speculation. It was not until 1980, after a decade of sleuthing, that legendary bibliographer Marcie Muir gave her a name: Charlotte Waring Atkinson. And not only a name, but an extensive creative family history, connecting her to two of the nation's celebrated contemporary children's writers, Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell. To Forsyth and Murrell, Atkinson (also known as Barton) is great-great-great-great grandmother and the subject of the stories they grew up on—part of a thread of creative women that runs through the history of their family. Hers is one of the great lost stories of Australian history: a tale of love, grief, violence and triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. After spending half her life educating the children of the well-to-do in England, in 1826, at 30 years of age, Charlotte Waring accepted a job on the other side of the world. She was to teach the children of Maria Macarthur, daughter of former New South Wales governor Philip Gidley King. But on the voyage, love diverted her to a different future: marriage to the eligible James Atkinson meant she spent just seven short months with her charges. What followed were years of hardship in the New South Wales bush, including the death of Atkinson and her subsequent marriage to an abusive drunk, a brutal attack by bushrangers, penury and the threat of having her children taken away. In Searching for Charlotte, Forsyth and Murrell tell Charlotte's story along with that of their own journey to discover her. In an intriguing account, the sisters join the reader in reacting to Charlotte's actions: wondering what could have motivated certain choices; admiring the strength of spirit that pushed Charlotte through turmoil in the Australian colonies; and reviling attitudes that were common to the mid-1800s but are abhorrent in the twentieth century. The extraordinary, long-buried life story of Australia's earliest published children's author, Searching for Charlotte combines elements of biography, recreation of history and rediscovery of family history. It is a sometimes confronting but ultimately heartwarming journey into the story of a family with writing in its blood. ...Show more

The Relationship Is the Project: Working with Communities by Edited by Jade Lillie with Kate Larsen, Cara Kirkwood, Jax Jacki Brown

$29.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

A new ‘right now’ resource to help artists, cultural workers and organisations better engage with community-based projects There is increasing demand on artists, institutions and organisations to work well in community-engaged contexts, but few resources or training opportunities are currently available to develop the sector's capacity in this area. The breadth of the advice shared in this non-academic, practitioner-led book includes insights into the ethics and logistics of working in community contexts – from collaboration and leadership to platforming and duty of care. Contributors include Genevieve Grieves about working in First Nations contexts; Caroline Bowditch on access and disability; Dianne Jones, Odette Kelada and Lilly Brown on racial literacy; Ruth De Souza and Robyn Higgins on cultural safety in the arts; as well as Esther Anatolitis, Adolfo Aranjuez, Paschal Berry, Lenine Bourke, Tania Cañas, Rosie Dennis, Alia Gabres, Eleanor Jackson, Samuel Kanaan-Oringo, Fotis Kapetopoulos, Kate Larsen, Lia Pa’apa’a, Anna Reece, Daniel Santangeli, and Jade Lillie herself. ...Show more

The Little Green Grammar Book by Mark Tredinnick

$29.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

What really goes on inside a sentence? What is your subject, where is your verb, what is its tense, where is your modifier, and why does it matter? Where do you need a comma, and where do you not? Why are dashes and semicolons so misunderstood? When is it which and when is it that? In The Little Green G rammar Book, Mark Tredinnick asks and answers the tough grammar questions, big and small, with the same verve and authority readers encountered in The Little Red Writing Book. The Little Green Grammar Book does for grammar what The Little Red Writing Book did for style. It will have you writing like a writer in no time. ...Show more

The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Tredinnick

$29.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

"The Little Red Writing Book" is a book on technique, style, craft and manners for everyone who writes and wants to do it better. It is a manual of good diction, composition, sentence craft, paragraph design, structure and planning. Enriched by examples of fine prose from great writers including Tim Win ton; flush with exercises informed by the author's expertise in both creative writing and functional prose; and written with flair, "The Little Red Writing Book" is a lively and readable guide to lively and readable writing. ...Show more

Love Marriage in Kabul: a Memoir by Sanaz Fotouhi

$24.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

The World Is Not Big Enough: A Personal Journey to Understand One Refugee's Life by Vanessa Russell

$29.99 AUD

Category: Non-fiction

The World Is Not Big Enough is the story of one woman's journey to understand the human cost of a broken system. At once an investigation into the murder of a refugee and an exploration of Australians' collective guilt, The World Is Not Big Enough explores the ways we are all hurt by Australia's migrat ion policies and their history.   In 2013, on a whim Vanessa Russell googled Ahmad Shah Abed, an Afghan asylum seeker she had exchanged letters with a decade earlier, to find he had been murdered in 2009. The news came as a shock. Ahmad Shah had been living in detention in Port Hedland when Vanessa had first started writing to him as a student hoping to do some good. Their relationship had been brief but impactful. After all these years, Vanessa couldn't shake the feeling that she had failed him. With the news of Ahmad Shah's murder, Vanessa realised she needed to find answers.  The World Is Not Big Enough tracks Vanessa's journey as she tries determinedly to unravel what happened to Ahmad Shah and why. Deeply felt and superbly written, the book travels with Vanessa to Port Hedland, Christmas Island and Perth as she interviews Ahmad Shah's friends, fellow refugees, refugee advocates, support workers, people who worked in detention centres, and spends a year talking with the murderer himself. What she uncovers is the multilayered and often untold story of detention in Australian and its very human consequences.   ...Show more