'I wasn't happy. I wasn't unhappy. I was there at that time and that was all. I didn't involve myself in philosophical reflections, but my mind was like a camera, imprinting forever the idyllic beauty of the European summer of 1939.' 
The idyll does not last long. Within days a young Jewish girl and her family are engulfed by the Second World War in Warsaw, Poland. Outside the concentration camps and mostly outside the ghetto, the adolescent heroine and her family experience the war with a secret. Living in a country house, they survive on false papers and 'good looks', while hiding four of their close relatives in the cellar. One day they have to cope with waves of German soldiers bursting through their houses; the next moment the Warsaw ghetto burns; another day they wake to find the front line in their front garden.
The author recreates this inhuman world though the eyes of her adolescent self. There are moments of poetic vision and moments of searing pain, but the book is a testament to heroism and concern.

Come Spring: an autobiographical novel

Biographies & Memoirs

Lewitt, Maria

Community & Culture

Scribe US

Ronald Joseph Ryan was hanged in Melbourne on 3 February 1967, following his conviction for the shooting murder of a prison warder during a daring escape from the maximum-security Pentridge prison thirteen months before. The decision of the Victorian government in December 1966 to proceed with Ryan’s death sentence sparked immediate media condemnation and angry political protests, and put the Liberal premier, Sir Henry Bolte, under siege for the duration of the case. State governments around the country moved to abolish the death penalty in the 1970s and 1980s, and Ronald Ryan became the last man to be hanged in Australia. Today, many years later, the Ryan case still prompts spirited debate about the guilty finding against Ryan, the merits of capital punishment, and the politics behind his execution. But who was Ronald Ryan, and how did he come to be the focus of such dramatic political events? Drawing on previously unpublished documents and personal accounts ― including details of Ryan’s childhood and his early turn to crime ― this book reveals the truth about Ryan’s guilt. It also goes behind the scenes to tell for the first time of the life-long anguish of the judge who pronounced the death sentence, the inner workings of the secret cabinet meeting that decided Ryan’s fate, and the dramatic political process that resulted in the rejection of eleventh-hour appeals to save Ryan. Mike Richards first became involved in the case as the leader of student protests against Ryan’s execution. Now he has written a masterly, compelling account that retrieves the individual and the drama at the centre of the most divisive capital case in Australia’s history. Through the depth of its original research and the persuasiveness of its insights, Mike Richards’ award-winning biography of Ronald Ryan provides a definitive account of the life and death of the man whose execution stopped a nation.

The Hanged Man: the life and death of Ronald Ryan

Richards, Mike

Historical

A collection of beautiful photographs that invites you to immerse yourself and revisit the cool, quirky, glamorous, exciting, menacing, and wonderful times of Retro Sydney. This collection of photographs celebrates the vibrant and exciting coming of age of Australia's first city in the 'golden era' of 1950 to 2000. From the bustling heart of the CBD, to the quaint suburbia of the outer suburbs, the fashionable streets of Double Bay, the seedy and glamorous Kings Cross, and the carefree beachside suburbs of Sydney, Retro Sydney captures the city's most significant postwar milestones, and highlights its development and transformation into an international metropolis. Adapted from the highly popular 'Retro Sydney' Instagram account, this collection is a celebration of Sydney. It allows us to behold iconic sights and scenes--some as they were, and some as they still are, generations later. For many readers, it offers a chance to indulge in rare memories of growing up in Australia's first city.

Retro Sydney 1950–2000

Arts & Photography

Mete, Nathan

Photography & Video

Hinduism is one of the world's oldest and greatest religious traditions. In captivating prose, Shashi Tharoor untangles its origins, its key philosophical concepts and texts. He explores everyday Hindu beliefs and practices, from worship to pilgrimage to caste, and touchingly reflects on his personal beliefs and relationship with the religion. Not one to shy from controversy, Tharoor is unsparing in his criticism of 'Hindutva', an extremist, nationalist Hinduism endorsed by India's current government. He argues urgently and persuasively that it is precisely because of Hinduism's rich diversity that India has survived and thrived as a plural, secular nation. If narrow fundamentalism wins out, Indian democracy itself is in peril.

Why I Am a Hindu

SHASHI THAROOR

Leaders & Notable People

Kruso

2017, Hardcover with dust jacket, 462 pages

Literature & Fiction

Lutz Seiler

Literary

The Paula Principle: how and why women work below their level of competence

Mr Tom Schuller

Client Earth

James Thornton

Martin Goodman

'It wasn't uncommon in my childhood for roti to be off the menu because the rolling pin was broken again.' Ernest van der Kwast's childhood is peopled by an array of colourful characters: from his strait-laced Dutch father, to Bollywood star Uncle Sharma, and talented heptathlete Aunt Jasleen. But it is his overbearing yet loving Indian mother who is at the centre of this big-hearted, hilarious family saga. Veena van der Kwast is a woman with an iron will, hilarious directness, and a talent for haggling. When she is armed with her trusty rolling pin, every man she meets is eventually beaten to submission - especially her husband and three sons. Intriguing, surprising, and moving in equal measure, this novel inspired by a very unusual family will make you smile from beginning to end.

Mama Tandoori

Romance

Ernest van der Kwast

Contemporary

In the desolate wastelands between the sierra and the jungle, under an all-seeing, unforgiving sun, a single day unfolds as relentlessly as those that have gone before. People are trafficked and brutalised, illegal migrants are cheated of their money, their dreams, their very names, even as countless others scrabble to cross the border, trying to reach a land they call El Paraíso. In this grim inferno, a fierce love has blossomed _ one that was born in pain and cruelty, and one that will live or die on this day. Estela and Epitafio too were trafficked, they grew together in the brutal orphanage, fell in love, but were ripped apart. They have played an ugly role in the very system that abused them, and done the bidding of the brutal old priest for too long. They have traded in migrants, put children to work as slaves, hacked off limbs and lives without a thought, though they have never forgotten the memory of their own shackles. Like the immigrants whose hopes they extinguish, they long to be free; free to be together and alone. Here in an unnamed land that could be a Mexico reimagined by Breughel and Dante, on the border between purgatory and inferno, where Paradise is the mouth of hell and cruelty the only currency, lives are spent, bartered and indentured for it. Must all be bankrupt among the lost?

Among The Lost

Monge, Emiliano

We are now living in a world where Brexit and Trump are daily realities. But how did this come about? And what does it mean for the future? Populism and ultra-nationalism brought about the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s. Now, as Trump sits in the White House, Britain negotiates its way out of the EU, and countries across Europe see substantial gains in support for the extreme Right, award-winning journalist, author, and historian Gwynne Dyer asks how we got here, and where we go next. Dyer examines the global challenges facing us all today and explains how they have contributed to a world of inequality, poverty, and joblessness, conditions which he argues inevitably lead to the rise of populism. The greatest threat to social and political stability, he argues, lies in the rise of automation, which will continue to eliminate jobs, whether politicians admit that it is happening or not. To avoid a social and political catastrophe, we will have to find ways of putting real money into the pockets of those who have no work. But this is not a book without hope. Our capacity for overcoming the worst has been tested again and again throughout history, and we have always survived. To do so now, Dyer argues, we must embrace radical solutions to the real difficulties facing individuals, or find ourselves back in the 1930s with no way out.

Growing Pains: the future of democracy (and work)

Politics & Social Sciences

gwynne-dyer

Sociology

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