Welcome to the Paperback - New Releases - August 2008
Freedom Paradox
Clive Hamilton
Clive Hamilton argues that the paradox of modern consumer life is that we are deprived of our inner freedom by our very pursuit of our own desires. He turns to metaphysics to find a source of transformation that lies beyond the cultural, political and social philosophies that form the bedrock of contemporary western thought. His search takes him to an unexpected conclusion: that we cannot be truly free unless we commit ourselves to a moral life. A radical reconsideration of the meaning of freedom and morality in the modern world from the author of Affluenza and Growth Fetish.more details...
more Philosophy, Politics and Current Affairs...
Life In Seven Mistakes
Susan Johnson
After years of patient, passionate effort, Elizabeth Barton's career as a ceramicist is finally taking off. She's about to fly to New York for her first solo show at one of the world's most prestigious galleries. First, though, she has to survive Christmas with her family on the Gold Coast. Johnson explores the shift in family relations when children begin to care for their ageing parents in a black family comedy that is both ironic and unexpectedly moving.more details...
more Fiction...
Modern Times
Goad and Macnamara
Richly illustrated and beautifully designed, Modern Times reveals how modernism transformed all aspects of Australian culture across five tumultuous decades from 1917 to 1967. Fields as diverse as art, advertising, photography, film, fashion, the body, architecture, interiors, recreational sites such as the new swimming pools and fountains, milk bars and auto culture are gathered together to show how design in all these areas was changed by new ideas . Modernism embodied the utopian possibilities of the 20th century and transformed Australian cities into complex metropolises and offered access to new cosmopolitan cultures. Modern Times tells that story with stories from more than 20 authors and more than 300 images.more details...
more Australian Non-fiction...
On Experience
David Malouf
MUP's new series Little Books on Big Themes pairs leading Australian thinkers and cultural figures with some of the big themes in life: rage, experience, longing and ecstasy. In this beautifully written, eloquent piece David Malouf asks: what is experience and how do we come by it? He explores the connections between writing and the imagination and offers wonderful insights into his own experiences of the writer's life. Other titles this month include Germaine Greer s On Rage, Blanche d Alpuget, On Longing and Barrie Kosky, On Ecstasy. More titles are to follow later in the year.more details...
more Philosophy, Politics and Current Affairs...
Travels With Herodotus
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Travels with Herodotus depicts Kapuscinski s beginnings as an inexperienced young Polish journalist and reveals what drove him throughout his extraordinary life. At every encounter with a new culture he is curious and observant, thirsting to understand its history and its people. Everywhere and always, he has with him his travelling companion, The Histories by Herodotus. Here in his final book the thoughts of Kapuscinski and Herodotus, though separated by twenty-five centuries, are intertwined to produce a unique work of reportage and insight.more details...
more History...