en-US Wed, 02 Apr 2025 18:10:28 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 58444913
Operating with bare hands, dressed in his street clothes, he had taken those first steps that every training surgeon must take-gripping the handle of a scalpel and making the first, irrevocable cut into live human flesh. For the surgeon training in the early 1840s, these first surgical milestones were performed on a person who would recoil in terror and horror, flinch, pull away, shake-and scream and scream and scream.
Until 1846, surgery was performed without anaesthesia; extraordinary operations, carried out on conscious, terrified patients. Surgeons of that era were bold and courageous and saved many lives. But anaesthesia changed everything. With an unconscious patient, the surgeon could take his time. Surgery became slower, more careful and more delicate. And as anaesthesia removed the pain of surgery, the medical world gave more attention to surgical infection, heralding in the use of antiseptics and eventually aseptic surgery. By 1881, the operating theatre was unrecognisable- everything had changed.
Much has been written about surgery in the nineteenth century, but little has been said about the development of the relationship between surgeon and anaesthetist. For anaesthesia to mature and allow further advances in surgery, a professional relationship had to develop between surgeons and anaesthetists.
Joseph Clover arguably did more than any other anaesthetist to develop that relationship.
In The Chloroformist, Christine Ball tells the captivating story of an innovative, hard-working and deeply humane pioneer of modern patient care.]]> 322 Christine Ball 0522877745 Daniel 5 4.00
author: Christine Ball
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 62340025 'I'd walk across hot coals to speak alongside Mina Smallman... An amazing woman' - Jess Phillips, MP
'Mina Smallman is as tough as she is warm' - Guardian

Mina Smallman has lived through the unimaginable. On Saturday 6 June 2020, her daughters, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, were killed in a park by a male stranger as they celebrated Bibaa's birthday.

Mina has been fighting for justice ever since - for her daughters, and for the rest of us, by challenging the toxic culture in the Metropolitan Police and calling out the wider institutional misogyny, racism and classism in Britain. Now, she tells her story for the first time. Framed by Mina's experience of losing her two daughters, Bibaa and Nicole, A Better Tomorrow reflects on the lessons in strength, forgiveness and hope that life has taught her - from her difficult childhood, to her embrace of motherhood, her time as a schoolteacher, and then as the first woman of colour to be an Archdeacon in the Church of England.

Told through grief and with compassion, humour and love, this deeply personal memoir is Mina's beacon of hope.]]> 241 Mina Smallman 1529199735 Daniel 0 to-read 4.31
author: Mina Smallman
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 120058 576 Martin Stannard 0393306054 Daniel 4 4.03 1987
author: Martin Stannard
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 57933306 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening--and how to get our attention back.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.]]> 357 Johann Hari 0593138511 Daniel 0 to-read 4.22 2022
author: Johann Hari
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Daniel 0 to-read 4.37 2021
author: John Green
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36662444 200 A. Herbert Brewer 0852499469 Daniel 0 to-read 3.00 1931
author: A. Herbert Brewer
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1931
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195436024 The tender, sensual and moving new novel from the award-winning and bestselling author of The Slap and Damascus. A compelling contemporary love story between two middle-aged men, told with grace, heart and wisdom.

No life is simple, and no life is without sorrow. No life is perfect.

Two middle-aged men meet on an internet date. Each has been scarred by a previous relationship; each has his own compelling reasons for giving up on the idea of finding love.

But still they both turn up for the dinner, feel the spark and the possibility of something more.��Feel the fear of failing again, of being hurt and humiliated and further annihilated by love.

How can they take the risk of falling in love again. How can they not?

A tender, affecting novel of love, of hope, of forgiveness by one of our most fearless and truthful interpreters of the human heart, the acclaimed bestselling author of��The Slap a�Ի���Damascus.

Praise for Christos

'I've admired the risk and power of all his novels, but this might be the riskiest of all—so personal, so delicate and true—and I love it.' �� Charlotte Wood on 7 1/2

'A scorching, mythic work with a heart of the sweetest intimacy.'�� Helen Garner on 7 1/2

'The audacity of Tsiolkas is still a thrill. And, dare one say it, necessary.' �� Nigel Featherstone on 7 1/2

'Tsiolkas has proved himself a heroic writer, ready to enter the fray and wrestle with intractable moral and political questions. A powerful parable of our times.' �� The Saturday Paper on Damascus

'Every time I was 10 pages in a new book, I thought, "It's not Damascus", and put it aside for another day . . .' �� Stephen Romei, Weekend Australian on Damascus

'I finished Barracuda on a moved, elated, immersed . . . This is the work of a superb writer who has completely mastered his craft but lost nothing of his fiery spirit in so doing. It is a big achievement.' �� The Guardian

'Once in a while a novel comes along that reminds me why I love to The Slap is such a book . . . Tsiolkas throws open the window on society, picks apart its flaws, embraces its contradictions and recognises its beauty, all the time asking the reader, Whose side are you on? Honestly, one of the three or four truly great novels of the new millennium.' �� John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

'The Slap is nothing short of a tour de force, and it confirms Christos Tsiolkas's reputation as one of the most significant contemporary storytellers at work today . . . Here is a novel of immense power and scope.' �� Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn]]> 400 Christos Tsiolkas 1761188003 Daniel 4 3.66 2023
author: Christos Tsiolkas
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 8293532
Meet the Law family �� eccentric, endearing and hard to resist. Your guide: Benjamin, the third of five children and a born humorist. Join him as he tries to answer some puzzling questions: Why won’t his Chinese dad wear made-in-China underpants? Why was most of his extended family deported in the 1980s? Will his childhood dreams of Home and Away stardom come to nothing? What are his chances of finding love?

Hilarious and moving, The Family Law is a linked series of tales from a wonderful new Australian talent.]]> 220 Benjamin Law 1863954783 Daniel 4 3.83 2010
author: Benjamin Law
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/26
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 28092838
Haruki Murakami's passion for music runs deep. Before turning his hand to writing, he ran a jazz club in Tokyo, and from The Beatles' Norwegian Wood to Franz Liszt's Years of Pilgrimage, the aesthetic and emotional power of music permeates every one of his much-loved books. Now, in Absolutely on Music, Murakami fulfills a personal dream, sitting down with his friend, acclaimed conductor Seiji Ozawa, to talk, over a period of two years, about their shared interest. Transcribed from lengthy conversations about the nature of music and writing, here they discuss everything from Brahms to Beethoven, from Leonard Bernstein to Glenn Gould, from record collecting to pop-up orchestras, and much more. Ultimately this book gives readers an unprecedented glimpse into the minds of the two maestros. It is essential reading for book and music lovers everywhere.]]> 272 Haruki Murakami 1846559197 Daniel 0 to-read 3.93 2011
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63207649
When he was swept off his feet by a handsome Australian man in New York City, Sean's dreams of marriage and parenthood suddenly became a reality. The only things standing in his outdated marriage laws, hundreds of thousands of dollars and a healthy dose of internalised homophobia. Though he had to battle intense family drama, depression and a difficult move to the other side of the world, he succeeded in becoming a father to boy-girl twins.

What happens when the traditional parenting rules, 10,000 years in the making, simply don't apply? Not Like Other Dads is a raw, rollicking memoir about gay parents raising kids without a map �� or nap. Hilarious and tender, Sean's story helps all of us celebrate who we really are ... empowering straight and queer parents alike to rewrite the parenting script.]]> 320 Sean Szeps 1460715608 Daniel 0 to-read 4.13
author: Sean Szeps
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 116961811 Philip Pullman
Stephen Hough is indisputably one of the world's leading pianists, winning global acclaim and numerous awards.
This memoir recounts his unconventional coming-of-age story, from his beginnings in an unmusical home in Cheshireto the main stage of Carnegie Hall in New York aged 21. We read of his early love-affair with the piano which curdled, after a teenage nervous breakdown, into failure at school and six-hours a day watching television, engulfed in dreams, seesawing between sexual and religious obsessions.We meet his supportive, if eccentric parents - his artistically frustrated father, his housework-hating mother. We read of the teachers who encouraged and inspired, and others who hit him on the head screaming, "you'll do nothing with your life". Then finding his way back to the piano, having abandoned plans for an alternative life as a Catholic priest, he flourished at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Juilliard School, beginning his career as an international soloist as this book ends.]]> 272 Stephen Hough 0571362893 Daniel 3 3.82
author: Stephen Hough
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/05
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 48710250 310 Sue Course 1925893138 Daniel 4 3.93
author: Sue Course
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.93
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 227002 186 Barbara Pym 0330326481 Daniel 4 3.90 1978
author: Barbara Pym
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/21
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 29798924 576 Albrecht Dümling 3034319517 Daniel 0 to-read 4.50
author: Albrecht Dümling
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204058350 240 Clive Hamilton 1509559701 Daniel 0 to-read 4.27
author: Clive Hamilton
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 125004008 SHORTLISTED FOR THE NSW PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS
LONGLISTED FOR THE INDIE BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2024

‘A stand out amongst contemporary Australian literary fiction for its stylistic and structural ambition, God Forgets About the Poor is the novel Polites has been climbing to. It is moving, poetic, powerful - at once a folktale and a modern day lament. Christos Tsiolkas meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez.’��- Maxine Beneba Clarke, bestselling and award winning author of Foreign Soil and The Hate Race

�ҵ����God Forgets About the Poor, Polites has produced a masterpiece.�� - ArtsHub

‘a triumphant reclamation, written in prose clean as polished stones�� - The Saturday Paper

‘God Forgets About the Poor feels like a culmination; it’s the author’s most striking work yet.�� - The Guardian

‘an important literary achievement�� - The Conversation

��God Forgets About the Poor��is a reminder that everyone has a story worth telling and hearing, but not everyone gets the chance to share it. This is one told well.’��-��Books + Publishing

I will tell you why you should draft my story. Because migrant stories are broken. Some parts in a village where we washed our clothing with soot. Some parts in big cities working in factories. How we starved for food in Greece and starved for Greece in Australia.

You don’t know the first thing about me. A son can never see his mother as a woman. You will only see me in relation to you. I have had a thousand lives before you were even a thought. Hospitalised as a child for an entire year. Living as an adult without family in Athens when the colonels took control.

Start when I was born. Describe the village and how beautiful it was. On the side of a mountain but in the middle of a forest. If we walked to a certain point on the edge, we could look over the valley and see rain clouds coming. Sometimes we��would see a cat on a roof, we read that as a warning of a storm. When we looked down, we saw the dirt, which was just as rich as the sky. My island, your island, our island.

Sometimes I think God forgot about us because we were poor.

A stunning new novel from the author of Down the Hume and The Pillars, God Forgets About the Poor is a love story to a migrant mother, whose story is as important as any ever told.

PRAISE FOR GOD FORGETS ABOUT THE

��Polites brings to light his mother’s story, a migrant woman who has lived a number of lives, surely a common story in the Greek community, and while the title suggests god may forget about the poor, Polites wants to make sure the world does not.�� - Neos Kosmos

‘It is an exquisite mode for the diaspora story, a genre that is increasingly losing its meaningfulness in a time of its commodification. In God Forgets About the Poor, the old country is dead, yet it continues to live vividly in migrants' memories even as they evolve amongst future generations.�� - ABC Arts - The Bookshelf

��Peter Polites��is also sensitive to the ways in which migrant stories can be reduced, stereotyped and consumed in mainstream publishing]]> 257 Peter Polites 1761151657 Daniel 5 3.41 2023
author: Peter Polites
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/15
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves:
review:
Beautifully touching and raw; a nuanced and thoughtful look at post-war migration and the handprints it passes down.
]]> 191612158 499 Cara McGoogan 163576954X Daniel 0 to-read 4.51
author: Cara McGoogan
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29240881
So begins A Very Queer Family Indeed , which introduces us to the extraordinary Benson family. Edward White Benson became Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign, while his wife, Mary, was renowned for her wit and charm—the prime minister once wondered whether she was “the cleverest woman in England or in Europe.�� The couple’s six precocious children included E. F. Benson, celebrated creator of the Mapp and Lucia novels, and Margaret Benson, the first published female Egyptologist.

What interests Simon Goldhill most, however, is what went on behind the scenes, which was even more unusual than anyone could imagine. Inveterate writers, the Benson family spun out novels, essays, and thousands of letters that open stunning new perspectives—including what it might mean for an adult to kiss and propose marriage to a twelve-year-old girl, how religion in a family could support or destroy relationships, or how the death of a child could be celebrated. No other family has left such detailed records about their most intimate moments, and in these remarkable accounts, we see how family life and a family’s understanding of itself took shape during a time when psychoanalysis, scientific and historical challenges to religion, and new ways of thinking about society were developing. This is the story of the Bensons, but it is also more than that—it is the story of how society transitioned from the high Victorian period into modernity.
���ձ�> 344 Simon Goldhill 022639378X Daniel 0 3.43
author: Simon Goldhill
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 60429961
The older side, Buda, looks over at the picture-postcard panorama of modern Pest, developed in the late nineteenth century as the twin capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the city is full of reminders of a more distant past, from the second century AD when the Romans located thermal springs in Buda. For around two hundred years from the 1520s most of Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman Turks - just one of the periods when geography and politics placed the country directly on the faultline between East and West.

Throughout history the centre of gravity in Budapest and among Hungarians has shifted between East and West - culturally, politically, emotionally. The shifts have sometimes been violent. Victor Sebestyen describes revolutions, bloody battles, the Uprising of 1956 and wars of conquest: some won, some lost. Others were more peaceful, although the repercussions were no less significant: for example, the fall of Soviet-style Communism. The story of Budapest is dramatic, and full of extraordinary, colourful personalities. This is history on the grand scale.]]> 418 Victor Sebestyen 1474609996 Daniel 5 4.28 2022
author: Victor Sebestyen
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Daniel 0 to-read 3.92 2023
author: Paul Murray
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61413681 As Canon Daniel Clement tries to steady his flock, the parish is joined with Upper and Lower Badsaddle, bringing a new tide of unwanted change.
But church politics soon become the least of Daniel's problems. His mother - headstrong, fearless Audrey - is obviously up to something, something she is determined to keep from him. And she is not the only one.
And then all hell breaks loose when murder returns to Champton in the form of a shocking ritualistic killing...]]> 400 Richard Coles 1474612695 Daniel 0 to-read 3.89 2023
author: Richard Coles
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59588753
When Daniel announces a plan to install a lavatory in church, the parish is suddenly (and unexpectedly) divided: as lines are drawn, long-buried secrets come dangerously close to destroying the apparent calm of the village.

And then Anthony Bowness - cousin to Bernard de Floures, patron of Champton - is found dead at the back of the church, stabbed in the neck with a pair of secateurs.

As the police moves in and the bodies start piling up, Daniel is the only one who can try and keep his fractured community together... and catch a killer.]]> 352 Richard Coles 1474612652 Daniel 4 3.32 2022
author: Richard Coles
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 59411948
20 March. With Rupert now working from home my life is much easier, as I get regular cups of tea and a lovely hot lunch.

A year in and out of lockdown as experienced by Alan Bennett.

Alan Bennett's diary takes us from the filming of Talking Heads and memories of doomed childhood fishing expeditions, to thoughts on Boris Johnson, stair lifts, junk shops of old, having a haircut and encounters on the local park bench.]]> 49 Alan Bennett 1800811926 Daniel 0 to-read 3.70
author: Alan Bennett
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2580266 93 Michael Frederick Green 0395325102 Daniel 0 to-read 3.60 1981
author: Michael Frederick Green
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61083346 320 Alice Farnham 0571370500 Daniel 0 to-read 4.21
author: Alice Farnham
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203513933 298 John R Near 1648250866 Daniel 5 5.00
author: John R Near
name: Daniel
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 115165 145 André Previn 0385413416 Daniel 4 4.23 1991
author: André Previn
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 58772760 A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.

Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth--until one insane man makes her tell the truth.

John Waters's first novel, Liarmouth, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.]]> 240 John Waters 0374185727 Daniel 0 to-read 3.31 2022
author: John Waters
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208940774 218 Charlie Bell 1915412633 Daniel 0 to-read 0.0
author: Charlie Bell
name: Daniel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 184591 Not long after he published Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton moved from London to Beaconsfield, and met Father O'Connor. O'Connor had a shrewd insight to the darker side of man's nature and a mild appearance to go with it--and together those came together to become Chesterton's unassuming Father Brown. Chesterton loved the character, and the magazines he wrote for loved the stories. The Innocence of Father Brown was the first collection of them, and it's a great lot of fun.]]> 232 G.K. Chesterton 0809592533 Daniel 3 3.85 1911
author: G.K. Chesterton
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1911
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/22
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 100893 Le projet est monstrueux, hautement risqué, et voilà qu'il se révèle être un énorme succès. La copie va-t-elle surpasser l'original ? Et qu'adviendra-t-il si c'est elle que les touristes préfèrent visiter ?
Férocement drôle, drôlement impitoyable, impitoyablement au vitriol, voilà un portrait de l'Angleterre comme on n'en avait encore jamais vu.]]> 448 Julian Barnes 2070417646 Daniel 4 3.37 1998
author: Julian Barnes
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.37
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/30
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 262762 Forty years in the making, a new cultural canon that celebrates truth over hypocrisy, literature over totalitarianism.

Echoing Edward Said’s belief that “Western humanism is not enough, we need a universal humanism,�� the renowned critic Clive James presents here his life’s work. Containing over one hundred original essays, organized by quotations from A to Z, Cultural Amnesia illuminates, rescues, or occasionally destroys the careers of many of the greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists, and philosophers of the twentieth century. In discussing, among others, Louis Armstrong, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, James writes, “If the humanism that makes civilization civilized is to be preserved into the new century, it will need advocates. These advocates will need a memory, and part of that memory will need to be of an age in which they were not yet alive.�� Soaring to Montaigne-like heights, Cultural Amnesia is precisely the book to burnish these memories of a Western civilization that James fears is nearly lost.]]> 912 Clive James 0393061167 Daniel 0 to-read 4.11 2007
author: Clive James
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 158480381 Behaved like a drongo?
Added mayo to a story?
Lost your Reg Grundies?

Join bestselling storyteller William McInnes as he offers his own take on our colourful and colloquial way with words. From the simpler times of childhood to today's testing (and unprecedented!) times, or when we're wasting time, enjoying sporting times or hitting the big time, Australians have a turn of phrase for every situation. Our love of plain speaking communicates the essence of the thing to our mates, to those in the know - and to those who should know better.

Part memoir, part manifesto, this warm, witty, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny collection will have you thinking about what you say, how you say it and what that really says about us as a nation.

Praise for the writing of William McInnes
'Warm and engaging . . . feels a little bit like home' Daily Telegraph
' If there is a quintessence of Australia at its best, William McInnes has distilled it' The Age
'Warm, nostalgic, funny and undeniably Australian' Sydney Morning Herald]]> 234 William McInnes 073365066X Daniel 0 to-read 3.40
author: William McInnes
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.40
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58570566
In this eagerly anticipated follow up to One More Croissant for the Road, Felicity Cloake sets off on an epic bike ride round Britain to celebrate and investigate the legendary Great British Breakfast. She rates fry-ups on criteria from the crispness of the bacon to how long they keep her pedalling and stops for fact-based tea-breaks in place of last time's pause cafe. And a woman cannot live by All Day Breakfast alone, so as well as recipes for things like Omelette Arnold Bennett or proper porridge, she will report back on the delights of regional specialities she encounters along the way, from Lancashire hotpot to Welsh cakes, Balti to boxty and everything else that takes her fancy en route. All washed down with tea, naturally.

From the less celebrated breakfast items that often cause puzzlement to visitors abroad - baked beans on toast, for example, or Marmite or Weetabix - to the homely foods of different communities, the halwa puris and Polish rye breads, grilled plantain and century eggs, Felicity will take them all in. Her mission is to eat all the best breakfasts of Britain - whether a crumpet hot from the factory production line in Enfield or a desi breakfast in Birmingham or even a pease pudding stottie cake from the original Greggs in Gosforth, this will be a true tour of Britain. And Britain is a country that runs on breakfast.]]> 352 Felicity Cloake Daniel 5 3.96 2022
author: Felicity Cloake
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/14
date added: 2023/12/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 167006698
The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)

the forensic science writer

the blockbuster writer

the legal thriller writer

the literary writer

the psychological suspense writer

But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Of course, we should also know how to commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?]]> 320 Benjamin Stevenson 006327907X Daniel 0 to-read 3.82 2023
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61079859 In the��follow-up to the best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning Less, the awkward and lovable Arthur Less returns in an unforgettable road trip across America.

“Go get lost somewhere, it always does you good.��

For Arthur Less, life is going surprisingly well: he is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But nothing lasts: the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on a zigzagging adventure across the US.

Less roves across the “Mild Mild West,”��through��the South and to his mid-Atlantic birthplace, with an ever-changing posse of writerly characters and his trusty duo �� a human-like black pug, Dolly, and a rusty camper van nicknamed Rosina. He grows a handlebar mustache, ditches his signature gray suit, and disguises himself in the bolero-and-cowboy-hat��costume of a true “Unitedstatesian��... with varying levels of success, as he continues to be mistaken for either a Dutchman, the wrong writer, or, worst of all, a “bad gay.��

We cannot, however, escape ourselves—even across deserts,��bayous,��and coastlines.��From his estranged father and strained relationship with Freddy, to the reckoning he experiences in confronting his privilege, Arthur Less must eventually face his personal demons. With all of the irrepressible wit and musicality that made Less a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning, must-read breakout book,��Less Is��Lost��is a profound and joyous novel about the enigma of life in America, the riddle of love, and the stories we tell along the way.]]> 257 Andrew Sean Greer 1408713365 Daniel 3 3.50 2022
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/04
date added: 2023/11/04
shelves:
review:
This book didn’t feel as smooth as the previous Less epic. It felt like some of the story was more difficult to write than other sections, and the author was struggling to get a coherent storyline on the page.
]]> 62997563 384 Matt Preston 1761044451 Daniel 0 to-read 3.53
author: Matt Preston
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.53
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18073796 *Acute embarrassment at the mere notion of making a fuss;
*Extreme awkwardness when faced with any social greeting beyond a brisk handshake;
*An unhealthy preoccupation with meteorology.

Doctors have also reported several cases of unnecessary apologising, an obsessive interest in correct queuing etiquette and dramatic sighing in the presence of loud teenagers on public transport. If you have experienced any of these symptoms, you may be suffering from VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS. VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS are highly contagious. There is no known cure.

Rob Temple's hilarious new book reveals all the ways in which we are a nation of socially awkward but well-meaning oddballs, struggling to make it through every day without apologising to an inanimate object. Take comfort in misfortunes of others. You are not alone.]]> 270 Rob Temple 0751552593 Daniel 0 to-read 3.72 2013
author: Rob Temple
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Daniel 4 3.94 2005
author: Joan Didion
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/28
date added: 2023/09/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 55996492
Throughout the nineteenth century a fierce debate about the future of English music was raging in Britain. Just as English music was appearing to advance in quality, the impact of Richard Wagner altered the course of the debate. Alarmed at the Wagnerian influence on English composers, critics expressed relief when that influence appeared to abate, and then presented English music as the antidote to Wagnerian decadence. However, the optimism that England was in a position to lead the musical world was short-lived and a new generation of critics found English composition - with the exception of Elgar - severely lacking. The book identifies themes such as materialism and nationalism that emerged during the debate. It also places the narrative of 'The English Musical Renaissance' within its rightful wider historical context.]]> 258 Dr John Ling 1783276169 Daniel 0 to-read 0.0
author: Dr John Ling
name: Daniel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 161651 896 Peggy Post 0066209579 Daniel 0 to-read 4.22 1922
author: Peggy Post
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1922
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 938052 English Journey expresses Priestley's deep love of his native country and teaches us much about the human condition and the nature of Englishness. A fully illustrated special anniversary edition was published by William Heinemann in 1984, and in 1997 came the Folio edition which was a version of the 1984 edition with minor emendations. It contains many evocative photographs and an introduction by Margaret Drabble.]]> 320 J.B. Priestley Daniel 0 to-read 4.00 1934
author: J.B. Priestley
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 146493276

In this fascinating memoir, Lorin Clarke tells the story of growing up with her famous father, her art historian mother Helen, and her little sister Lucia. Much has been written about John Clarke, but this is the insider’s view—of his childhood, his relationship with his parents, his decision to leave New Zealand and live in Australia, and the choices he and Helen made to create a family life that is right out of the box.


Would that be funny? is a story about the almost imperceptible things that make a family what it is, from long-told folklore, in-jokes, and archetypes, to calamities like world wars, deep-seated traumas, and sudden loss.


Lorin Clarke, author of the celebrated podcast The Fitzroy Diaries brings to life her idyllic, hilarious and deeply nerdy childhood, and in doing so reveals not only the private man behind satirist John Clarke but the sense of love and security that comes from being able to laugh at yourself.


Lorin Clarke is the creator of the award-winning observational audio fiction serial, The Fitzroy Diaries, three series of which have been to air on ABC RN, as well as being released as a podcast. Lorin writes regularly for children’s television and her children’s book, Our (Last) Trip to the Market was published by Allen & Unwin in 2017. Lorin writes the fortnightly Public Service Announcement column for the Big Issue.]]> 276 Lorin Clarke 1922791474 Daniel 0 to-read 4.18 2023
author: Lorin Clarke
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 166515398
Bee Miles was a truly larger-than-life character. Famous for being outrageous in public, or, as she said, living' recklessly', she shocked and intrigued cities and towns across Australia. But she was no ordinary wanderer.

Born into a wealthy family, Bee moved in Sydney's literary and artistic circles in the 1920s and 1930s before she took up residence on the streets. A consummate performer and a perceptive critic, she caught the public's imagination with her spectacular acts of defiance, emerging majestically from the surf with a knife strapped to each thigh, stopping a country train in its tracks, hitchhiking across remote Australia and drawing large city crowds with her Shakespeare recitations. She was once even voted more famous than the Prime Minister. She was also repeatedly incarcerated in prisons, confined to mental hospitals and treated brutally by a succession of authority figures, starting with her father.

Bee constantly defied conventional expectations of female behaviour. The public found her captivating and fragments of her story have been told again and again in many forms. Until now, no-one has uncovered the real story behind the colourful legend. This first full biography offers a fascinating glimpse into a dark side of Australia's history.

'These pages dance with details of a forgotten Australia, in which the sane were in asylums, the rich were on the left and clever Bee Miles dominated the city of Sydney.' - Alison Bashford, author of An Intimate History of Evolution

'The remarkable tale of an eternal vagabond, Bohemian to her core.' - Lucy Frost, historian and author

'A thrilling ride through the life of one of Australia's most gifted yet misunderstood characters. I adored it!' - Mandy Sayer, award-winning author

'A brilliant rollercoaster of a book.' - Craig Munro, author of Literary Lion Tamers]]> 416 Rose Ellis 1761187341 Daniel 0 to-read 3.96
author: Rose Ellis
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56852365 Cello Suites are among the most cherished of all the works in the classical music literature. Shrouded in mystery - they were largely unknown for some two hundred years after their composition - they have acquired a magical aura which continues to attract and fascinate audiences the world over. To cellists they represent a musical bible, to listeners, scarcely less. Through what are on the surface simple dance suites, Bach takes us on a spiritual journey like no other, leading us from joy to tragedy, concluding in jubilation, even triumph.

Award-winning international cellist Steven Isserlis, whose recent recording of the Suites met with the highest critical acclaim goes deep into that emotional journey, bringing to bear all his many years' experience of performing the Suites. His book is intended as a rewarding companion for all music lovers, ranging from the casual listener to the performing musician. By offering his own very personal observations of the music, Isserlis's aim is to take the reader further into the world of the Suites in order to enhance the experience of hearing some of the greatest works ever composed.]]> 240 Steven Isserlis 0571366244 Daniel 0 to-read 4.10 2021
author: Steven Isserlis
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 31706404 Celebrated cellist Steven Isserlis adds his own extensive commentary to Schumann's words of wisdom. The advice is by turns practical, humorous, and profound, making this volume a must for all aspiring musicians of all ages and standards.

]]> 111 Robert Schumann Daniel 0 to-read 4.03 2016
author: Robert Schumann
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58910322 290 Sara Hardy Daniel 0 to-read 4.11 2021
author: Sara Hardy
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 165053077 336 Liam Mannix 1742238084 Daniel 0 to-read 4.47
author: Liam Mannix
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12654523 208 Ian Bostridge 0571252451 Daniel 0 to-read 4.09 2011
author: Ian Bostridge
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40116749 304 Madeleine K. Albright 0008282277 Daniel 0 to-read 4.13 2018
author: Madeleine K. Albright
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36588482
When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. A surgical resident, she throws herself into study and work, trying to forget - until Jack's sister Maude shows up. Maude suspects foul play, and she is determined to prove it.

DI Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of an 'accidental' overdose twenty years ago - of Jack and Maude's drug- and alcohol-addled mother. Cormac is under increasing pressure to charge Maude for murder when his colleague Danny uncovers a piece of evidence that will change everything...

This unsettling crime debut draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland and asks who will protect you when the authorities can't - or won't. Perfect for fans of Tana French and Jane Casey.]]> 380 Dervla McTiernan 0143133128 Daniel 0 to-read 3.90 2018
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 139426485 'Imagine Agatha Christie parachuting into the heady world of gay saunas and HIV research, and you're getting close to this delicious, camp and tightly-plotted murder mystery.' - BENJAMIN LAW - writer and broadcaster 'Dennis Altman is a giant in academia and the gay rights movement, and with Death in the Sauna , he brings his insight and deft hand to a crime story that starts with a bang, so to speak, and leads us from the intrigues of a gay sauna into a tangled web of deception, rivalry and danger set against the backdrop of an international AIDS Conference. There could be no better author to take us into this story of secret lives, sexuality, politics and competing agendas. A searing and enjoyable read.' - TARA MOSS - bestselling author of The War Widow, The Ghosts of Paris and The Fictional Woman 'Altman's novel has a unique setting, a tight plot, and is hugely entertaining. He keeps you guessing right to the end, and you'll learn a lot along the way.' - ROBERT GOTT - author of the William Power series of crime-caper novels]]> 216 Dennis Altman 064573280X Daniel 0 to-read 2.86
author: Dennis Altman
name: Daniel
average rating: 2.86
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12781
From the back cover.]]> 561 Salman Rushdie 0312270828 Daniel 0 to-read 3.73 1988
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6174
In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,�� was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi’s classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit.]]> 187 Primo Levi 0684826801 Daniel 0 to-read 4.20 1947
author: Primo Levi
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1947
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 7413231 Book by Armiger, Martin 0 Martin Armiger 1876485574 Daniel 0 to-read 3.00
author: Martin Armiger
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22085568 An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life. Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. She provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business, and combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice.]]> 290 Erin Meyer Daniel 5 4.32 2014
author: Erin Meyer
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/01
date added: 2023/06/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 75313072 A vibrant cultural history investigating pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama

Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before.

Characteristically, Schama’s message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope �� in hospitals and prisons, palaces, and slums �� are an unforgettable cast of a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong, and Mumbai.

At the heart of it all is an unsung Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as “the saviour of mankind�� for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world’s first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice.

Foreign Bodies��crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, “there are no foreigners, only familiars.”���ձ�> 478 Simon Schama 1328975312 Daniel 0 to-read 3.98 2023
author: Simon Schama
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58891551
As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. And when several months later Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.

Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the divisions of sectarianism, the violence faced by many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.]]> 390 Douglas Stuart 0802159559 Daniel 5 4.38 2022
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/04
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 77995454 An honest and candid memoir from one of Australia’s most phenomenal voices. A story of determination, humility and self-discovery.

All Anthony Callea wanted was to sing. From his first memories of singing for his family, Anthony knew that he wanted to share his voice with the world. He had a strongly held dream but was as surprised as anyone when his breakout moment (his heart-stopping rendition of ‘The Prayer�� on Australian Idol) turned him into a household name overnight.

Now, in his own words, Anthony shares the joys and challenges of becoming celebrated for his voice, all while navigating the twists and turns of life. It’s a story of a kid from the working-class western suburbs of Melbourne with a big dream and an even bigger voice, who had to finish growing up in the spotlight.

Anthony’s 20-year career has spanned stage, arena, and screen, and he now invites you backstage to share his journey. One day you are working at a suburban shopping centre as a Freddo Frog mascot, the next you are topping charts, winning awards and sharing stages with Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.

These candid, courageous and, at times, very amusing anecdotes take us beyond the slick facade of showbiz, to the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears that it takes to become one of Australia’s most enduring and beloved entertainers.]]> Anthony Callea 1761109316 Daniel 0 to-read 4.01 2023
author: Anthony Callea
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 75457059
Ethel Smyth (b1858): Famed for her operas, this trailblazing queer Victorian composer was a larger-than-life socialite, intrepid traveller and committed Suffragette.

Rebecca Clarke (b1886): This talented violist and Pre-Raphaelite beauty was one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra, later celebrated for her modernist experimentation.

Dorothy Howell (b1898): A prodigy who shot to fame at the 1919 Proms, her reputation as the 'English Strauss' never dented her modesty; on retirement, she tended Elgar's grave alone.

Doreen Carwithen (b1922): One of Britain's first woman film composers who scored Elizabeth II's coronation film, her success hid a 20-year affair with her married composition tutor.

In their time, these women were celebrities. They composed some of the century's most popular music and pioneered creative careers; but today, they are ghostly presences, surviving only as muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten - until now.

Leah Broad's magnificent group biography resurrects these forgotten voices, recounting lives of rebellion, heartbreak and ambition, and celebrating their musical masterpieces. Lighting up a panoramic sweep of British history over two World Wars, Quartet revolutionises the canon forever.]]> 568 Leah Broad 0571366139 Daniel 0 to-read 4.45 2023
author: Leah Broad
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55870757 Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, discussions about the afterlife with parishioners or being called out to perform the last rites, death is part of the Reverend Richard Coles' routine. But since his partner the Reverend David Coles died in December, much about death has taken Coles by surprise. David's death at the age of 42 was unexpected - he never recovered from an operation for internal bleeding.

Now the man that so often assists others to examine life's moral questions has found himself in the need of help. He is looking to others for guidance to steer him through grief. The flock is leading the shepherd. Much about grief has surprised Coles: the volume of 'sadmin' you have to do when someone dies, how much harder it is travelling for work alone, the pain of typing a text message to one's partner, then realising you are alone.

The Reverend Richard Coles' account of life after grief will resonate with the many thousands of his followers and listeners.]]> 177 Richard Coles 1474619622 Daniel 5 4.22 2022
author: Richard Coles
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/21
date added: 2023/03/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 59701022 ***AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4***A beautifully written exploration of the world of Edwardian folk music, and its influence on the composer Ralph Vaughan WilliamsIn January 1905 the young Vaughan Williams, not yet one of England's most famous composers, visited King's Lynn, Norfolk, to find folk songs 'from the mouths of the singers'. He had started collecting in earnest little more than a year before but was now obsessed with saving these indigenous tunes before they were lost forever. An old fisherman, James 'Duggie' Carter, performed 'The Captain's Apprentice', a brutal tale of torture sung to the most beautiful tune the young composer had ever heard.The Captain's Apprentice is the story of how this mysterious song 'opened the door to an entirely new world of melody, harmony and feeling' for Vaughan Williams. With this transformational moment at its heart, the book traces the contrasting lives of the well-to-do composer and a forgotten King's Lynn cabin boy who died at sea, and brings fresh perspectives on Edwardian folk-song collectors, the singers and their songs.While exploring her own connections to folk song, via a Hebridean ancestor, a Scottish ballad learnt as a child and memories of family sing-songs, the author makes the unexpected discovery that Vaughan Williams has been a hidden influence on her musical life from the beginning - an experience she shares with generations of twentieth-century British schoolchildren.Published for Vaughan Williams's 150th birthday in August, this evocative, sensitive look at the great composer will also be read on BBC Radio 4. 'Her gift is a work of love and infinite care' KEGGIE CAREW, author of Dadland'I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and its weaving of biography, social history and folk song' STEVE ROUD, author of Folk Song in England]]> 400 Caroline Davison 1784744549 Daniel 4 3.71
author: Caroline Davison
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/07
date added: 2023/03/07
shelves:
review:
If you want to know more about RVW’s use of folksong in his music, you’ll find limited material here. The story surrounding the background of one of the folksongs is the focus here, the untangling of its knotted history. Extremely well-researched, the narrative is a compelling one.
]]> 58604389 Monkey to the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit, creator of a myriad of unforgettable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, Miriam Margolyes, OBE, is the nation's favourite (and naughtiest) treasure. Find out how being conceived in an air-raid gave her curly hair; what pranks led to her being known as the naughtiest girl Oxford High School ever had; how she ended up posing nude for Augustus John as a teenager; why Bob Monkhouse was the best (male) kiss she's ever had; and what happened next after Warren Beatty asked 'Do you fuck?'

From declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave to being told to be quiet by the Queen, this book is packed with hilarious stories. With a cast list stretching from Scorsese to Streisand, a cross-dressing Leonardo di Caprio to Isaiah Berlin, This Much Is True is as full of life and surprises, as its inimitable author.]]> 427 Miriam Margolyes Daniel 0 to-read 4.08 2021
author: Miriam Margolyes
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201410 176 Theodor W. Adorno 0521338840 Daniel 0 to-read 4.20 1968
author: Theodor W. Adorno
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54996895 222 Stephanie Rocke 0367552930 Daniel 0 to-read 4.00
author: Stephanie Rocke
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23380282 The Reverend Richard Coles is a parish priest in Northamptonshire and a regular host of BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live. He is also the only vicar in Britain to have had a number 1 hit single: the Communards' 'Don't Leave Me This Way' topped the charts for four weeks and was the biggest-selling single of its year. Fathomless Riches is his remarkable memoir in which he divulges with searing honesty and intimacy his pilgrimage from a rock-and-roll life of sex and drugs to a life devoted to God and Christianity.
Music is where it began. Richard Coles was head chorister at school, and later discovered a love of saxophone together with the magic of Jimmy Somerville's voice. Against a backdrop of intense sexual and political awakening, the Communards were formed, and Richard Coles's life as a rock star began.

Fathomless Riches - a phrase characteristic of St Paul and his followers - is a deeply personal and illuminating account of a transformation from hedonistic self-abandonment to 'the moment that changed everything'. Funny, warm, witty and wise, it is a memoir which has the power to shock as well as to console. It will be hailed as one of the most unusual and readable life stories of recent times.]]> 289 Richard Coles Daniel 0 to-read 3.96 2014
author: Richard Coles
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60255208
From a military base in the Gulf to loving whispers caught between the bedsheets; and from touring overseas as a drag queen to a concert in Cairo where the rainbow flag was raised to a crowd of thousands, this collection celebrates the true colours of a vibrant Arab queer experience.]]> 216 Elias Jahshan 086356478X Daniel 4 4.41 2022
author: Elias Jahshan
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/30
date added: 2022/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 53952835
At the other end of the same bridge, an old man, Vic, smokes his last cigarette.

The two see each other across the void. A fateful connection is made, and an unlikely friendship blooms. Slowly, we learn what led Sam and Vic to the bridge that night. Bonded by their suffering, each privately commits to the impossible task of saving the other.

Honeybee is a heart-breaking, life-affirming novel that throws us headlong into a world of petty thefts, extortion plots, botched bank robberies, daring dog rescues and one spectacular drag show.

At the heart of Honeybee is Sam: a solitary, resilient young person battling to navigate the world as their true self; ensnared by a loyalty to a troubled mother, scarred by the volatility of a domineering step-father, and confounded by the kindness of new alliances.

Honeybee is a tender, profoundly moving novel brimming with vivid characters and luminous words. It's about two lives forever changed by a chance encounter -- one offering hope, the other redemption. It's about when to persevere, and when to be merciful, as Sam learns when to let go, and when to hold on.]]> 421 Craig Silvey 1760877220 Daniel 5 4.38 2020
author: Craig Silvey
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/30
date added: 2022/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 2479687 The Australian Ugliness remains the definitive statement on how we live and think in the environments we create for ourselves. In it Boyd railed against Australia's decorative approach to design and slavish imitation of all things American. His concerns are as important now, in an era of sustainability, suburban sprawl and inner-city redevelopment, as they were half a century ago. Caustic and brilliant, The Australian Ugliness is a masterpiece that enables us to see our surroundings with fresh eyes. Robin Boyd's original sketches and an afterword by major contemporary architects complement this handsome anniversary edition. 'Effortlessly readable, sharply observant and wittyâ ¦an Australian classic.' Brenda Niall]]> 304 Robin Boyd Daniel 4 3.87 1960
author: Robin Boyd
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/28
date added: 2022/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 63138561 The result is this book.
Set between the present day and flashbacks to delightfully indiscreet diary entries recalling landmarks from his remarkable life and glittering career, this is an immensely personal and profound memoir that celebrates and cherishes life’s unexpected joys.
Funny, moving and perceptive, A Pocketful of Happiness is an insight into the life of a much loved British actor.]]> 336 Richard E. Grant 139852011X Daniel 0 to-read 4.32 2022
author: Richard E. Grant
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60784359
A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems.

Between Falk’s closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge.

An outstanding novel, a brilliant mystery and a heart-pounding read from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors.]]> 356 Jane Harper 1250235359 Daniel 0 to-read 3.96 2022
author: Jane Harper
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 839814 The English Eccentrics has lost none of its vitality and wit. We find hermits, quacks, mariners, indefatigable travelers, and men of learning. We meet the amphibious Lord Rokeby, whose beard reached his knees and who seldom left his bath; the irascible Captain Thicknesses, who left his right hand, to be cut off after his death, to his son Lord Audley; and Curricle Coats, the Gifted Amateur, whose suit was sewn with diamonds and whose every performance ended in uproar.��This is a glorious gallery of the extremes of human nature, portrayed with humor, sympathy, knowledge, and love.]]> 376 Edith Sitwell 1873429738 Daniel 0 to-read 3.81 1933
author: Edith Sitwell
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1933
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58066445 270 James Tucker 1006970940 Daniel 0 0.0
author: James Tucker
name: Daniel
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/27
date added: 2022/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 58881512 Three women, three voices, three the Silbery family share their most personal memories and lessons learned. You know them as Isabelle, Kerry and Emmie Silbery from Foxtel and Channel 10 series Gogglebox, in which they give their thoughts on the week's TV highlights and show what a supportive and loving family they are. In Out Of The Box, these strong, independent women open up like never before, sharing intensely personal stories and considered opinions on the female experience �� and how that has changed during their lifetimes. Infidelity, grief, motherhood, money, feminism, body hair... no topic is off limits. The book will inspire mothers and daughters to start talking and sharing �� to have the conversations that will bring them closer together. Delving deep beneath the surface we see on our screens, this memoir is equal parts moving, hilarious and devastating as Isabelle, Kerry and Emmie talk about moments in their lives that their legion of fans would have never expected. Personal struggles, family heartache and plenty of sex, there is much more to the Silberys than meets the eye. Through it all, we get an even greater sense of how close and connected these mothers and daughters are. Like any other family, they don't see eye to eye on everything, but no matter what, their love for each other always triumphs.]]> 336 Isabelle Silbery 1761104683 Daniel 4 4.10
author: Isabelle Silbery
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/27
date added: 2022/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 38372211
A Book of the Year for The Times , Mail on Sunday and BBC History Magazine

The ‘Mermaid of Morwenstow�� excommunicated a cat for mousing on a Sunday. When he was late for a service, Bishop Lancelot Fleming commandeered a Navy helicopter. ‘Mad Jack�� swapped his surplice for leopard skin and insisted on being carried around in a coffin. And then there was the man who, like Noah’s evil twin, tried to eat one of each of God’s creatures��

In spite of all this they saw the church as their true calling. These portraits reveal the Anglican church in all its colourful madness.]]> 192 Fergus Butler-Gallie 1786074419 Daniel 5 4.01
author: Fergus Butler-Gallie
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/06
date added: 2022/09/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 59794918
Pianist Paul Roberts recasts Franz Liszt as a composer of poetic feeling rather than just a purveyor of technical brilliance. Reading Franz Revealing the Poetry behind the Piano Music immerses readers in Liszt’s world through a vivid exploration of his most beloved pieces and the literature that inspired them—from Petrarch’s love poetry to the sensibilities of Byron, Sénancour, Goethe, and others. The origins of artistic inspiration can be obscure. However, for Franz Liszt, literary quotations in his scores provide fascinating insights into the sources of his creative imagination, revealing a breadth of reading that inspired some of the greatest piano music of all time.

A knowledge of the writers whom Liszt revered and often quoted at length enriches an understanding and appreciation of his music. Roberts shows how Liszt in his pioneering piano works created a new concept of musical expression comparable to the emotional and dramatic power of the opera and novel. This book leads us into the essence of Liszt’s poetic world, revealing the relevance of his literary inspiration for today’s listeners as well as for performers coming to terms with its expressive demands.]]> 191 Paul Roberts 1538143356 Daniel 0 to-read 4.00
author: Paul Roberts
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60729912 ��
Apollo and Thelma have been a constant in Jon Faine’s life for decades. As a young lawyer, he was captivated by his favourite client, the Mighty Apollo, a legendary strongman and circus star, famous for pulling trams with his teeth and having an elephant stand on him. Apollo’s sister, Thelma, on the other hand, ruthless and rugged, had survived decades running solo one of the most remote pubs in the outback until unexpectedly dying, leaving behind a complicated estate.
��
Befriending Apollo and immersing��himself in Thelma’s estate, Jon is forced to untangle a long line of astonishing stories and episodes in our distant and recent history that keep intersecting with his own. Via the circuitous route of these two larger-than-life characters �� alongside a supporting cast of characters from the world of politics, law, literature and media ���� Jon reflects on their stories and is inevitably forced to rethink his own.
��
Apollo and Thelma��is a uniquely Australian story, beautifully told.]]> 384 Jon Faine 1743797087 Daniel 0 to-read 3.53
author: Jon Faine
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.53
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 19417254 358 Jon Faine Daniel 0 to-read 3.91 2012
author: Jon Faine
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60752357 A stunning, thought-provoking novel about facing up to your family and your future, Losing Face deals with timely issues around consent and inherited trauma.

Joey is young, indifferent. He’s drifting around Western Sydney unaware that his passivity is leading him astray. And then one day he is involved in a violent crime, one that threatens to upend his life entirely.

Elaine, his grandmother, is a proud Lebanese woman with problems of her own. When Joey is arrested, she is desperate to save face and hold herself together. In her family, history repeats itself, vices come and go, and uncovering long-buried secrets isn’t always cathartic.

This gripping and hard-hitting novel reveals the richness and complexity of contemporary Australian life and tests the idea that facing consequences will make us better people.]]> 271 George Haddad 0702265551 Daniel 0 to-read 3.95 2022
author: George Haddad
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48589363
Shuggie is different. Fastidious and fussy, he shares his mother’s sense of snobbish propriety. The miners' children pick on him and adults condemn him as no�� right. But Shuggie believes that if he tries his hardest, he can be normal like the other boys and help his mother escape this hopeless place.

Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain lays bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride. A counterpart to the privileged Thatcher-era London of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, it also recalls the work of Édouard Louis, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, a blistering debut by a brilliant writer with a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 449 Douglas Stuart 1529019303 Daniel 0 to-read 4.49 2020
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58872960
He also begins to tell us a story ��

A retired porn star is made an offer he can't refuse for the sake of his family and future. So he returns to the world he fled years before, all too aware of the danger of opening the door to past temptations and long-buried desires. Can he resist the oblivion and bliss they promise?]]> 360 Christos Tsiolkas 1761065335 Daniel 5 3.28 2021
author: Christos Tsiolkas
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/29
date added: 2022/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 59228226
The extraordinary true story of a courageous school principal who saw the dangers of Nazi Germany and took drastic steps to save those in harm’s way.
��
In 1933, the same year Hitler came to power, schoolteacher Anna Essinger saved her small, progressive school from Nazi Germany. Anna had read Mein Kampf and knew the terrible danger that Hitler’s hate-fueled ideologies posed to her pupils, so she hatched a courageous and daring to smuggle her school to the safety of England.
��
As the school she established in Kent, England, flourished despite the many challenges it faced, the news from her home country continued to darken. Anna watched as Europe slid toward war, with devastating consequences for the Jewish children left behind. In time, Anna would take in orphans who had given up all the survivors of unimaginable horrors. Anna’s school offered these scarred children the love and security they needed to rebuild their lives.
��
Featuring moving firsthand testimony from surviving pupils, and drawing from letters, diaries, and present-day interviews, The School that Escaped the Nazis is a dramatic human tale that offers a unique perspective on Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. It is also the story of one woman’s refusal to allow her belief in a better world to be overtaken by hatred and violence.]]> 464 Deborah Cadbury 1541751191 Daniel 0 to-read 4.32 2022
author: Deborah Cadbury
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60433832
Scrubbed is a raw, honest account of a life lived at the very edge of modern medicine, where heart surgeons tread the thinnest of lines between life and death, and yet where the greatest challenge can be the medical system itself.

From the drama of the operating theatre, filled with both triumph and tragedy, to the brutal realities of surgical training, and the sacrifices needed to reach the pinnacle of Nikki's vocation, to the grinding nature of hospital bureaucracy and politics, Scrubbed is one of the most revealing books yet to be published about the real life and experiences of a surgeon.]]> 344 Nikki Stamp 176087941X Daniel 0 to-read 3.89
author: Nikki Stamp
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1473470 230 Jackie French 0805038892 Daniel 0 to-read 3.85 1994
author: Jackie French
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58587556
Michelle de Kretser's electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down - just as migration has upended her characters' lives.

Lili's family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager. Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. All the while, Lili is striving to be A Bold, Intelligent Woman like Simone de Beauvoir.

Lyle works for a sinister government department in near-future Australia. An Asian migrant, he fears repatriation and embraces 'Australian values'. He's also preoccupied by his ambitious wife, his wayward children and his strong-minded elderly mother. Islam has been banned in the country, the air is smoky from a Permanent Fire Zone, and one pandemic has already run its course.

Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - roam through this mesmerising novel. Its reversible format enacts the disorientation that migrants experience when changing countries changes the story of their lives. With this suspenseful, funny and profound book, Michelle de Kretser has made something thrilling and new.

'Which comes first, the future or the past?']]> 320 Michelle de Kretser 1761065106 Daniel 0 to-read 3.35
author: Michelle de Kretser
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.35
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49354511 Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it.

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the ‘Scriptorium��, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word ‘bondmaid�� flutters to the floor. Esme rescues the slip and stashes it in an old wooden case that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world.

Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings relating to women’s experiences often go unrecorded. While she dedicates her life to the Oxford English Dictionary, secretly, she begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words.

Set when the women’s suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It’s a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape the world and our experience of it.]]> 384 Pip Williams 1925972593 Daniel 0 to-read 3.97 2020
author: Pip Williams
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3271565 426 Giles Milton 0465011195 Daniel 0 to-read 4.20 2008
author: Giles Milton
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60090377
Would your younger self believe the news of today? An entire city block blown up by a suicide bomber on Christmas Day because he believed phone towers spread disease. A Representative elected to the US Congress on a platform that Democrats are secretly harvesting an anti-aging chemical from the blood of abused children. Angry rioters in furs and horns overrun the Capitol in a bloody carnage of insurrection. The Prime Minister of Australia employing the wife of his friend who fronts a group the FBI has declared terrorists. A global pandemic which, even as they lie dying from it, people refuse to believe exists.

Many who sat in shocked disbelief as these events beamed around the world asked the same question: 'How did we get here?' For those rioters, it was the culmination of a journey of online radicalisation that began with the weaponisation of disinformation by their political leaders and outrageously biased 'news' commentators.

Facts and Other Lies puts fake news in its historical context and explains how disinformation has fractured society, even threatening democracy itself. It explains why disinformation is so potent and so hard to stop, and what we can do to help prevent its proliferation in Australia - where politicians and shock jocks are already operating from the same dark playbook. It outlines how anyone can defuse disinformation in the home, office or pub, or wherever the deluded gather to spread their nonsense. Be prepared!

'This is a timely account of a growing malignancy affecting all modern democracies'
Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia

'Fascinating and terrifying . . . illuminates so much about humans and social media'
Bri Lee, author of Who Gets to Be Smart

'Read this book if you want to save democracy'
Wayne Swan, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia

'Few have mapped our information dystopia more effectively - and entertainingly - than Coper'
Bernard Keane, Politics Editor, Crikey

'Essential reading for anyone wanting to cut through the nonsense and get to the truth'
Eason Jordan, former Chief News Executive, CNN

'We live in a world that unfolds at a pace, and with the violent twists and turns in the plot, of a thriller. This book captures the intensity of our politics and connects it to the science of misinformation . . . a great read'
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair in Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol]]> 392 Ed Coper 176106570X Daniel 0 to-read 4.16 2022
author: Ed Coper
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50815174 384 Christian Wolmar 1786499207 Daniel 0 to-read 4.08
author: Christian Wolmar
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 887348 Puckoon is Spike Milligan's classic slapstick novel, reissued for the first time since it was published in 1963.

In 1924 the Boundary Commission is tasked with creating the new official division between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border ends up running through the middle of the small town of Puckoon.

Houses are divided from outhouses, husbands separated from wives, bars are cut off from their patrons, churches sundered from graveyards. And in the middle of it all is poor Dan Milligan, our feckless protagonist, who is taunted and manipulated by everyone (including the sadistic author) to try and make some sense of this mess . . .

Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.]]> 160 Spike Milligan 0140023747 Daniel 4 3.73 1963
author: Spike Milligan
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/09
date added: 2022/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 567462 1981 Macmillan Re-Issue 717 H.F.M. Prescott 0020238304 Daniel 0 to-read 4.23 1952
author: H.F.M. Prescott
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43324037 320 Corey White 0670079340 Daniel 0 to-read 4.27
author: Corey White
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58514 247 Tom Sharpe 0871131420 Daniel 0 to-read 4.16 1973
author: Tom Sharpe
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3316968 336 David Whittle 0754634434 Daniel 0 abandoned 3.00 2007
author: David Whittle
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/28
date added: 2021/12/28
shelves: abandoned
review:

]]> 43582376 A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the science of our world both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe.

Now he turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories, The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up.

A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this book will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.]]> 450 Bill Bryson 0385539304 Daniel 0 4.30 2019
author: Bill Bryson
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/28
date added: 2021/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 16843 127 Christopher Isherwood 0816638616 Daniel 4 3.78 1945
author: Christopher Isherwood
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1945
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/28
date added: 2021/12/28
shelves:
review:
A beautiful short and sweet, but very deep read.
]]> 54633172 The Promise , winner of the 2021 Booker Prize, charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma's funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for -- not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land... yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.

The narrator's eye shifts and blinks: moving fluidly between characters, flying into their dreams; deliciously lethal in its observation. And as the country moves from old deep divisions to its new so-called fairer society, the lost promise of more than just one family hovers behind the novel's title.

In this story of a diminished family, sharp and tender emotional truths hit home. Confident, deft and quietly powerful, The Promise is literary fiction at its finest.]]> 293 Damon Galgut 1784744069 Daniel 0 to-read 3.81 2021
author: Damon Galgut
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5955421
A wide-ranging, exhortatory look at the pleasures of great conversation, including strategies for how to bring it about, from the witty pen of an Englishwoman wise in its ways

In The Art of Conversation , Catherine Blyth eloquently points out the sorry state of disrepair that conversation has fallen into—and then, taking examples from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and popular culture, she gives us the tools to rebuild. Her prose embodies the conversational values she It’s smart, succinct, self-deprecating, and light on its feet.

The Art of Conversation isn’t about etiquette, elocution, or knowing how to hold your teacup with your little finger crooked just so. It’s about something simple and connecting. In our distracted days, it’s easy to forget that each of us possesses a communication technology that has been in research and development for thousands of years. Conversation costs nothing, but can bring you the world.

Blyth offers us a chance to revel in the possibilities of conversation. As Alexander Pope nearly wrote, “True ease in talking comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance.�� Okay, Pope was actually talking about writing, but Catherine Blyth has that skill as well. When you have read The Art of Conversation , you’ll not only know the steps, but hear the music like never before.]]> 304 Catherine Blyth 1592404197 Daniel 0 to-read 2.77 2008
author: Catherine Blyth
name: Daniel
average rating: 2.77
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18802354 R.S. Ellery Daniel 4 4.67 1956
author: R.S. Ellery
name: Daniel
average rating: 4.67
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/11
date added: 2021/10/11
shelves:
review:
A very verbose but fascinating peek into the genesis of psychiatry in Australia.
]]> 54785557


Although Robert doubts the truth of Patrick's story, it fascinates him, and he thinks it might hold the key to his own foundering novel. Working to gain the other man's trust, Robert draws out the details of Patrick's past while ensnaring himself ever more tightly in what might be a fantasist's creation, or a devastating international plot.

Through an elegant, existential game of cat-and-mouse, Chris Power's A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking--and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell.]]> 320 Chris Power Daniel 0 to-read 3.22 2021
author: Chris Power
name: Daniel
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>