Item category 1: Society & Culture

The English language has no specific word for the parent that has lost a child. There exist words for orphan, widow and widower, but there is no word that captures and conveys this tragic type of loss. It has been eleven years since Diane Foley's son, the American journalist James Foley, was kidn...

Subject: Fine tea leaves and resplendent utensils are only two elements of what is a dynamic process to fully enjoy tea. However, without skill in steeping tea, without a suitable environment to drink tea, without good spring water, without proper fire to boil water, without an understanding of t...

WESTERN PHILOSOPHY: ANCIENT, TO C 500. Philosophers didn't always busy themselves with life's big questions. The earliest ancient philosophers were primarily concerned with the world of nature, including phenomena such as earthquakes and eclipses. But one enigmatic Greek named Socrates began to e...

A fun, gruesomely fascinating and scientifically accurate guide to some of the most bizarre ways to die. What would happen if you stuck your head into a nuclear particle accelerator? What if you jumped into an interstellar black hole, or slipped out of a deep-sea submarine wearing only a pair of ...

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism." In Animal Liberation Now, Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures, destroying the spurious justifications behi...

Gathered together in this fascinating book are the lore and legends of the animal world, alongside the realities of nature. Yet whatever their natural attributes, in folklore animals can do almost anything. They can be our friends and foes - and of course they can talk to each other. They can be ...

For several years, Andrew Marantz, a New Yorker staff writer, has been embedded in two worlds. The first is the world of social-media entrepreneurs, who, acting out of naïvete and reckless ambition, upended all traditional means of receiving and transmitting information. The second is the world ...

"The Arabian nights" is your magic carpet ride to exotic lands full of wonders and marvels. First collected nearly a thousand years ago, these folktales are presented as stories that crafty Scheherazade tells her husband, King Shahryar, over a thousand-and-one consecutive nights, to pique his int...

Learn how you and your partner can fight smarter, communicate like pros, and handle any challenge as a team! You know that feeling right after an argument you've had with your partner? You feel kind of sick to your stomach, your head is buzzing, and you're zoned out. You regret what you said or h...

Inspired by Jules Verne's hero Phileas Fogg, David Damrosch set out to counter a pandemic's restrictions on travel by exploring eighty exceptional books from around the globe. Following a literary itinerary from London to Venice, Tehran and points beyond, and via authors from Woolf and Dante to N...

On the scorching February day in 2009 that became known as Black Saturday, a man lit two fires in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. In the Valley, where the rates of crime were the highest in the state, more than thirty people were known to police ...

WRITING & EDITING GUIDES. One has to look no further than the audiences hungry for the narratives served up by "Downton Abbey" or "Wolf Hall "to know that the lure of the past is as seductive as ever. But incorporating historical events and figures into a shapely narrative is no simple task. The ...

Whether you view living alone as the ultimate compromise or the ultimate luxury, it presents daily challenges, such as cooking for one, organising a holiday, eating out alone, juggling finances, or trying not to succumb to the siren call of wine, Ugg boots and binge Netflix. And there are the les...

A pioneer in the field of self-help, Dale Carnegie distilled his experiences as a salesman and lecturer in his first guide to successful speech-making, The Art of Public Speaking. Its direct, practical advice for emphasizing ideas for easy comprehension and high impact ranges from finding an appr...

Great for self-help and self-improvement readers, as well as anyone wanting to get tips on improving their ability to orate. Dale Carnegie is the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Are free-solo climbers, underwater cave explorers and big-wave surfers crazy... or cautious? How do soldiers and fighter pilots manage risk? What can we learn from how BASE jumpers and drag racers prepare that we can take into our own lives? 'Harry' Harris -- Thai Cave Rescuer, joint Australian o...

Startling successes in machine intelligence using 'deep learning' have dramatically raised the stakes in the rise of AI. However, Harry Collins argues that it is still impossible to foresee a time when machines will be sufficiently embedded in society to be independent of human input or when we c...

Asbestos in Australia presents for the first time a multi-dimensional view of Australia's asbestos story featuring contributions from experts in the disciplines of history, journalism, medicine, law and public health. It also includes first-hand accounts of those whose lives have been touched by ...

When Tanya Selvaratnam met then New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman at the Democratic National Convention in July 2016, they seemed like the perfect match. Behind closed doors, however, Schneiderman became controlling, mean, and manipulative. He drank heavily and used sedatives. Sex...

Shows you the key to discovering your hidden talents, your deepest desires and the ways you can avoid negative influences that may distract you from achieving your true life purpose.

Countries die. Sometimes it's murder, sometimes it's by accident, and sometimes it's because they were so ludicrous they didn't deserve to exist in the first place. Occasionally they explode violently. A few slip away almost unnoticed. Often the cause of death is either 'got too greedy' or 'Napol...

From the heart of the Western Queensland Channel Country, Australia's oldest and favourite newspaper details our country's very rocky start to a millennium that was supposed to be one of great optimism and innovation. 2020 was meant to be our year of healing. A time to tend to the wounds of a cou...

ABC Radio Australia has been a constant voice in international broadcasting for more than 80 years. Australia Calling: The ABC Radio Australia Story is an account of Australia's international radio service from its earliest days as an anti-propaganda service in the opening days of WWII. It tracks...

ASIO has kept a file on Frank Moorhouse since he was 17. Frank has decided it is time to report on ASIO. In 2013 ASIO made new efforts to extend its surveillance powers to internet and mobile phone communication and some other extensions of its powers including the making the issuing of warrants ...

Understand the Australian political system and make your vote count! Get to grips with the good, the bad and the ugly of Australian politics. Whether you're a seasoned political punter or a voting novice, this is your essential guide to understanding politics in Australia. Master the ins and outs...

Australian Public Law provides a foundation for understanding the ideas and principles that underpin Australian public law and develops a concept of public law through analysis of the mechanisms of power and control. Now in its third edition, this text provides a theoretical framework for investi...

From the elegant outfits of the 1930s to the Hollywood-inspired evening gowns of the 1950s, from the psychedelic patterns and micro-minis of the 1960s to the bold and bohemian styles of the 1970s, this book charts the evolution of Australian fashion through the pages of Australian icon The Austr...

Australia's relationship with China is one of the dominant geopolitical stories of our times. The need to understand the tectonic forces of history moving beneath the surface of these critical events has never been more pressing. In Australia's China Odyssey, acclaimed historian James Curran expl...