Storytime: Growing up with Books by Jane Sullivan

$26.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

What was it exactly? Wonder, rapture delight, surprised recognition, laughter - but also darker feelings that made my heart beat fast and my stomach turn over, and sometimes a frantic urge to close the book before whatever it was sucked me in and destroyed me. But always, I read on.   In Storytime , author and literary critic Jane Sullivan takes us from Wonderland to Narnia, Moomintroll to Mr Toad and from Winnie the Pooh to the Magic Pudding, to find out why her favourite childhood books were so vitally important, and how they shaped the woman she is today.   This intimate, intense and emotional adventure down memory lane is much, much more than nostalgia. It is a surprising and sometimes disturbing voyage of self-discovery. As Jane relives old joys and faces old fears, she discovers that the books were not what she thought they were, and she was not the child she thought she was.      ...Show more

Great Ideas: Why I Write by George Orwell

$12.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language | Series: Penguin Great Ideas Ser.

Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.

The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane

$5.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

From the acclaimed author of The Old Ways and Landmarks -- an essay on the beauty and joy of reading, for anyone who has ever loved a book Every book is a kind of gift to its reader, and the act of giving books is charged with a special emotional resonance. It is a meeting of three minds (the giver, the author, the recipient), an exchange of intellectual and psychological currency, that leaves both participants the richer. Here Robert Macfarlane recounts the story of a book he was given as a young man, and how he managed eventually to return the favour, though never repay the debt. From one of the most lyrical writers of our time comes a perfectly formed gem, a lyrical celebration of the power and preciousness of the given book. ...Show more

Politics and the English Language by George Orwell

$1.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language | Series: Penguin Modern Classics Ser.

'The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's reals and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are p olitical issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.' ...Show more

The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell's 1984 by Dorian Lynskey

$32.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

1984 isn't just a novel; it's a key to understanding the modern world. George Orwell's final work is a treasure chest of ideas and memes - Big Brother, the Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, 2+2=5 - that gain potency with every year. Particularly in 2016, when the election of Donald Trump made it a bestseller ('Ministry of Alternative Facts', anyone?). Its influence has morphed endlessly into novels (The Handmaid's Tale), films (Brazil), television shows (V for Vendetta), rock albums (Diamond Dogs), commercials (Apple), even reality TV (Big Brother). The Ministry of Truth by Dorian Lynskey is the first book that fully examines the epochal and cultural event that is 1984 in all its aspects: its roots in the utopian and dystopian literature that preceded it; the personal experiences in wartime Britain that Orwell drew on as he struggled to finish his masterpiece in his dying days; and the political and cultural phenomena that the novel ignited at once upon publication and that far from subsiding, have only grown over the decades. It explains how fiction history informs fiction and how fiction explains history. ...Show more

Wordy by Simon Schama

$35.00 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

'Wordy is about the intoxication of writing; my sense of playful versatility; different voices for different matters: the polemical voice for political columns; the sharp-eyed descriptive take for profiles; poetic precision in grappling with the hard task of translating art into words; lyrical recall fo r memory pieces. And informing everything a rich sense of the human comedy and the ways it plays through historical time. It's also a reflection on writers who have been shamelessly gloried in verbal abundance; the performing tumble of language - those who have especially inspired me - Dickens and Melville; Joyce and Marquez.' Sir Simon Schama has been at the forefront of the arts, political commentary, social analysis and historical study for over forty years. As a teacher of Art History and an award-winning television presenter of iconic history-based programming, Simon is equally a prolific bestselling writer and award-winning columnist for many of the world's foremost publishers, broadsheet newspapers, periodicals and magazines. His commissioned subjects over the years have been numerous and wide ranging - from the music of Tom Waits, to the works of Sir Quentin Blake; the history of the colour blue, to discussing what skills an actor needs to create a unique performance of Falstaff. Schama's tastes are wide-ranging as they are eloquent, incisive, witty and thought provoking and have entertained and educated the readers of some of the world's most respected publications - the Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar and Rolling Stone magazine.   Wordy is a celebration of one of the world's foremost writers. This collection of fifty essays chosen by the man himself stretches across four decades and is a treasure trove for all those who have a passion for the arts, politics, food and life.   ...Show more

Literary Landscapes: Charting the Topography of Classic Literature by Modern Books

$49.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

Some stories couldn't happen just anywhere or any time - often the scenery , landscape or era is as central to the tale as any character- and just as easily recognised. Wh at adventures would Heidi have had without her mountain neighbours? W ould Jim Hawkins have experienced such an adventure had he not lived in mid - 1700s England? Literary Landscapes brings together an eclectic collage of over 50 familiar literary worlds paired with original maps and archive material, as well as illustrations and photography. In this collection of essays the reader will follow Leopold Bl oom's footsteps around Dublin, become immerse d in Les Mis rable's revolutionary Paris, feel the chill wind of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and hear the churning paddles of Mississippi steamboats in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The landscapes of enduring fictional characters and literary legends are vividly brought to life, evoking all the sights and sounds of the original works. For anyone wh o ever dreamt of escaping the everyday, Literary Landscapes will transport you to the greatest places in literature. ...Show more

Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literary Legacy by Benjamin Balint

$29.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

When Franz Kafka died in 1924, his loyal friend and champion Max Brod could not bring himself to fulfil Kafka's last instruction: to burn his remaining manuscripts. Instead, Brod devoted the rest of his life to canonizing Kafka as the most prescient chronicler of the twentieth century. By betraying Kafk a's last wish, Brod twice rescued his legacy - first from physical destruction, and then from obscurity. But that betrayal was also eventually to lead to an international legal battle over Kafka's legacy: as a writer in German, should his papers come to rest with those of the other great German writers, in the country where his three sisters died as victims of the Holocaust? Or, as Kafka was also a great Jewish writer, should they be considered part of the cultural inheritance of Israel, a state that did not exist at the time he died in 1924? Alongside an acutely observed portrait of Kafka and Brod and the influential group of writers and intellectuals known as the Prague Circle, Kafka's Last Trial also provides a gripping account of the recent series of Israeli court cases - cases that addressed dilemmas legal, ethical, and political - that determined the final fate of the manuscripts Brod had rescued when he fled from Prague to Palestine in 1939. It tells of a wrenching escape from Nazi invaders as the gates of Europe closed to Jews; of a love affair between exiles stranded in Tel Aviv; and of two countries whose national obsessions with overcoming the traumas of the past came to a head in the Israeli courts. Ultimately, Benjamin Balint invites us to question not only whether Kafka's legacy belongs by right to the country of his language, that of his birth, or that of his cultural and religious affinities - but also whether any nation state can lay claim to writers who belong more naturally to the international republic of letters. ...Show more

Nganga: A Dictionary of Aboriginal Terms and Phrases by Aunty Fay Muir; Sue Lawson

$16.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

Orwell on Freedom by George Orwell

$24.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.' GEORGE ORWELL is one of the world's most famous social commentators. His writing opposed imperialism, sought to expose the unjust sufferings of the poor and unemployed and warned us against totalitariani sm. This selection, from both his novels and non-fiction, charts his thoughts on FREEDOM: from individual liberty and character, to the nature of society and technology, to political liberty, revolution and the importance of free speech. His clear-eyed ambition to create a fairer and more egalitarian society is essential inspiration as we strive to make the world a better place for all. With an introduction by Kamila Shamsie ...Show more

Books V. Cigarettes (Penguin Great Ideas Series) by George Orwell

$9.95 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language | Series: Penguin Great Ideas Ser.

Beginning with a dilemma about whether he spends more money on reading or smoking, George Orwell's entertaining and uncompromising essays go on to explore everything from the perils of second-hand bookshops to the dubious profession of being a critic, from freedom of the press to what patriotism really means.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. ...Show more

Axiomatic (Stella shortlist 2019) by Maria Tumarkin

$34.99 AUD

Category: Books, Writing and Language

This boundary-shifting fusion of thinking, storytelling, and meditation takes as its starting point five axioms: * 'Give Me a Child Before the Age of 7 and I'll Give You the (Wo)Man' * 'History Repeats Itself...' * 'Those Who Forget the Past are Condemned to Repeat It' * 'You Can't Enter The Same River Twice' * 'Time Heals All Wounds'. These beliefs -- or intuitions -- about the role the past plays in our present are often evoked as if they are timeless and self-evident truths. It is precisely because they are neither, yet still we are persuaded by them, that they tell us a great deal about the forces that shape our culture and the way we live. The past shapes the present -- they teach us this in schools and universities. But the past cannot be visited like an ageing relative; the past doesn't live in little zoo enclosures. Half the time, the past is nothing less than the beating heart of the present. So, how to speak of the searing, unpindownable power that the past -- ours, our family's, our culture's -- wields now? ...Show more