The Book is Dead - (Long Live the Book)
Sherman Young

RRP $29.95
Alumni price $26.96 

Sometime in the late twentieth century the book died. Sherman Young, passionate book lover and a consumer and producer of digital technology, is on a mission to make book culture matter again. Shirking nostalgia and without apology, The Book is Dead (Long Live the Book)  investigates the economics and technological demands of publishing, making a case for books and reading all the while. His bold and exciting book will inspire readers, non-readers and publishers to put books centre-stage again, even if they’re not books as we now know them...
 

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Aboriginal People, Parliament and ‘Protection’ in NSW 1856 – 1916
Anna Doukakis

RRP $39.95
Alumni price $35.96

Doukakis draws upon 60 years of NSW parliamentary debates to investigate early attitudes towards Aborigines, and towards policies and legislation which affected them, including legislation empowering the State to remove Aboriginal children from their parents.

She shows that the men elected to the first democratic Parliament in NSW in 1856, and their successors to 1916, held wide-ranging views on Aborigines. Some even actively supported their inclusion in colonial society. Their debates ranged from the right to vote to the provision of blankets, from wages to the settlement of Aborigines.

The book shows that no one group of politicians dominated policy or debate. This encouraged an openness which enabled Aboriginal participation in the political process. Some politicians spoke in Parliament on behalf of Aborigines who had approached them with their grievances.  By shedding light on the men who made up the NSW Parliament, The Aboriginal People, Parliament and “Protection” in NSW 1856-1916 provides an unusually nuanced picture of parliamentarians and, through them, colonial society.

“I see no reason why we should shut them out from the franchise [of voting]. We have despoiled them of their land, and have robbed them of everything but their euphonious names, and I am sure there is not one person in our midst who would deliberately prevent them from exercising the franchise in their native land. I, for one, will not be a party to any proposal of that kind.”
Edward William O’Sullivan, Parliamentary Debates, 12 August 1891

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It’s Every Monkey for Themselves
Vanessa Woods

RRP 24.95
Alumni price $22.26

Vanessa Woods left leafy Canberra and headed for the remote, wild and distinctly unsafe jungles of Costa Rica. She had a research job, a contract with Disney Channel and would spend the year working with a small community of dedicated like-minded scientific souls researching the behaviour of capuchin monkeys while making a documentary about Costa Rican wildlife. Or so she thought.

As it turned out, Vanessa's housemates in the monkey house didn't appreciate her Australian sense of humour, she was stung so often by wasps and killer bees she developed a lethal allergy, and the monkeys were evasive, mean and aggressive. Over the course of a wild, bruising and tumultuous year that can most accurately be characterized as Dian Fossey meets Big Brother, Vanessa learned that not all monkeys - or people - are alike, that friendship can be more important than sex, and that sometimes it takes a brush with death and an abscess the size of a melon on your head to make you realise that being pretty isn't always enough.

This is a story of love, loss, bitter rivalry and vicious battles - and that's just the monkeys.

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Brain Food July 25 - Susan Thompson

Planning Australia - An Overview of Urban and Regional Planning
Edited by Susan Thompson

RRP $69.95
Alumni price $62.96 

This book is the first comprehensive Australian planning text to be written in over 30 years. It provides a comprehensive view of the major issues and principal activities which occupy planning practitioners today. The conceptual framework of the text is underpinned by the tenets of sustainability and social equity. Richly illustrated with current case study examples, Planning Australia will have broad appeal for those with an interest in planning - students, community groups, practitioners and the concerned citizen.
 

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Brain Food May 23 - Richard Goodwin

Richard Goodwin Performance to Porosity 1990 – 2005
Richard Goodwin, Paul McGillick

RRP $90.00
Alumni price $81

 Performance and Porosity traces the career of Richard Goodwin through his artistic development and philosophy.

Richard Goodwin has evolved from an architect to sculptor and public artist. This book features his early performance work from 1975 to recent large scale public projects in 2006.

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Brain Food April 19 - Ludmilla Stern

Western Intellectuals in the Soviet Union 1920 – 1940
Ludmilla Stern

RRP $225
Alumni price $202.50

Despite the appalling record of the Soviet Union on human rights questions, many western intellectuals with otherwise impeccable liberal credentials were strong supporters the Soviet Union in the interwar period. This book explores how this seemingly impossible situation came about. Focusing in particular on the work of various official and semi-official bodies, including Comintern, the International Association of Revolutionary Writers, the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and the Foreign Commission of the Soviet Writers' Union, this book shows how cultural propaganda was always a high priority for the Soviet Union, and how successful this cultural propaganda was in seducing so many Western thinkers.

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