From Here to There
Jon & Jack Faine | ABC Books | $40.00
A great Father's Day present! This book describes the journey Jon Faine did with his son Jack from Melbourne to London in a 4-wheel drive. They negotiated the Silk Road through Kashgar, Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, avoiding a cartwheeling sedan on a freeway near Tehran, wove around the shores of the Caspian Sea and headed into Europe through Turkey.
An intelligent and funny account of the countries they visited, people they met and the trouble they got into, 'From Here to There' is a tale of midlife crisis, father-son bonding, extreme adventure and a supercharged roadtrip, all woven into one life-changing journey.
Email us or phone us on 03 9417 4179 to order this book.
The Hard Light of Day
Rod Moss | UQP | $39.95
The Hard Light of Day offers a rare insight into the reality of life in the Centre, from the contours of the MacDonnell Ranges and the textures and sounds of Arrernte culture, to the endemic violence, acoholism and ill-health that continue to devastate Aboriginal lives. In recalling the relationships and experiences that have shaped his life and work in Alice Springs, Moss reveals the human face behind the statistics and celebrates the enriching, transformative power of friendship.
Email us or phone us on 03 9417 4179 to order this book.
Molotov's Magic Lantern: A Journey in Russian History
Rachel Polonsky | Faber and Faber | $50.00
Rachel Polonsky discovered the library of Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin's Henchman and arch survivor of that ferocious regime. She found that Molotov was an ardent bibliophile, an eager reader with a particular devotion to Chekhov. The library and the building in which Rachel Polonsky found it are at the heart of this book, the prism through which she looked at Russian history and at Russia as it is under Putin, and she kept returning to it in her journeys around Russia in search of the places associated with the writers in the library and with the politicians and soldiers who had lived in the Romanov house. Beautifully written, finely balanced and rich in exactly the kinds of detail that make Russia's culture come alive.
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On the Spartacus Road
Peter Stothard | Harper Press | $40.00
In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was something before no one had ever known.
The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the world's finest military forces between 73 and 71BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches along 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 year of world history.
'"On the Spartacus Road" makes for a wonderfully rich and endlessly thought provoking brew, part ancient history, part modern travelogue, part personal memoir, and with a distinctly philosophical strain...reminiscent of the writing of W G Sebald. Beautifully written, musing and far-sighted...it's an astounding success.' Christopher Hart, 'Literary Review'
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