Scribe

As if we all didn’t have enough to worry us, the Australian government has sooled its attack dogs on the Australian publishing industry. The Productivity Commission has been given the task of investigating whether Australian territorial copyright for books should be surrendered, so that parallel imports — foreign-originated or foreign-sourced books — might be freed legally to compete with local editions.

To understand any of this, a bit of history and context is needed. In 1991, the fundamental copyright protections available to Australian authors and publishers under the Copyright Act 1968 were qualified by the introduction of two new rules that were aimed at increasing, in bureaucrat-speak, ‘the timeliness and availability of books in the Australian market’. They were introduced, to put it bluntly, to stopping foreign-owned publishers from sitting on their rights and not exercising them, which was a practice that had been making Australian consumers and booksellers increasingly frustrated.

The first of these rules — the so-called ‘30-day rule’ — stipulated that in order for publishers to continue to be protected against parallel imports, they had to make new titles available for sale within 30 days of their first publication overseas. If a book was not published locally within this period, Australian booksellers could import it from foreign publishers and distributors themselves. A related provision, ‘the 7/90-day rule’, obliged publishers to supply the book trade, within 90 days of being asked to do so, of copies of foreign-sourced books to which they already had rights.

These ‘use it or lose it’ rules were the result of a lot of argy-bargy at the time between protectionists and free-traders. As it turned out, the political compromise that the rules represented was a masterstroke: it resulted in the flowering of the Australian publishing industry, to the great benefit of authors, book buyers, booksellers, book printers, and the culture as a whole.

Under these provisions, Australia virtually invented the trade paperback (because it was faster and cheaper to get to market than a hardback, which was the format in which the US and UK originated their titles); an improved range of books started to appear in bookshops promptly and at competitive prices; and smaller publishers, in particular, were able to expand their publishing programmes, and to support them with marketing expenditures and author tours.

Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, a publishing industry emerged that was to become the marvel of the Western world. With territorial copyright guaranteed, a rights-buying culture emerged, and then a rights-selling one. Microscopic independent publishers became small and then medium-sized ones; new publishers emerged and flourished; multinational publishers beefed-up their local programmes; independent booksellers retained their vitality and their market-share; local authors gained more publishing choices and greater visibility; major writers’ festivals sprang up and strengthened around the country, often headlined or attended by foreign authors who otherwise wouldn’t have been heard of; and the local media were continually offered a rich fare of talent to review and interview.

As a result, Australian book publishing has become the most successful cultural industry in the country (much more successful than the local film industry, for example) — all without any significant subsidies from government. It has never boomed financially but, compared to the US and the UK, it has become vibrant. Whereas it was once a plaything of foreign-owned distributors, it has become a complex ecosystem, with multiple symbiotic relationships increasing all the time.

All of this is now at serious risk. There are two main ways, I think, in which the industry would be decimated if parallel imports were allowed. Without the protection of territorial copyright, rights buyers would not be able to offer for overseas titles with any confidence, and certainly would not be able to support their publication with local marketing and promotional activities. In turn, our local publishing programmes, which are effectively underwritten by our access to overseas-originated titles, would shrink: there would be a reduction in quantity and diversity, and a forced emphasis on likely bestsellers.

Rights sellers, on the other hand, would face unbearable competition from foreign editions of their own titles — either offered at run-on marginal costs, or as remainders. In either case, their authors would get either low royalties or none at all. Local publishers would not be able to afford to pay high advances to prominent local authors, and local publishing programmes would contract significantly.

The collateral damage would also be significant. Book printers would be devastated, as their business has been built on local and UK-owned publishers printing locally to abide by the 30-day rule. Local authors and literary agents would be imperilled. And Australia would revert to its twentieth-century status of being a territorial dumping ground, our bookshops filled with books that other people wanted us to have.

All of these devastating consequences would follow from the imposition of a solution in search of a problem. Ironically, the main original problem of overseas-originated books not being available promptly no longer exists. Sometimes, we even publish US titles before they’re available in the United Kingdom.

Even the alleged problem of local books being more expensive than overseas versions has been dispatched by the plunge in value of the Australian dollar against most other currencies. In any case, book pricing is more at the mercy of booksellers than you might think; in recent years, when the local dollar was high, enterprising booksellers kept their windfall profits when importing US titles. And some booksellers have given recent evidence that they favour higher — not lower — prices — by selling a range of local books above their recommended retail prices.

Booksellers do have a legitimate grievance, but it’s not addressed by this inquiry: the ability of consumers to buy books from overseas online suppliers without having to pay GST. This is completely indefensible, and irrational — the government would earn additional revenue by levelling the GST playing field, and it would help local booksellers by doing so.

The federal government picked up parallel importation as a fit subject for investigation as a piece of ‘unfinished business’ from the previous regime. It has few dedicated proponents: one bookselling chain that’s keen to import titles directly, whatever the cost to anybody else; a former faux-intellectual Labor premier who seems to be compensating for having turned masterly inactivity into an art form during his reign; and maybe a Labor prime minister who wants to prove his ‘reform’ credentials in an industry that his predecessor found too hard.

Of course, referring this subject to the Productivity Commission is like asking duck-hunters what they’d like to shoot. The PC is the last redoubt of economic rationalism here, in an era when the whole world is paying very high costs for having believed that unregulated markets deliver acceptable results. As a hint of their attitude, a section of the PC’s ‘Issues Paper’, just released, wonders innocently whether ‘direct subsidies or other potential assistance mechanisms [could] provide similar benefits to Australian author/publishers as the parallel import restrictions’. This smells of so-called ‘transitional arrangements’ — drop-dead money that has been routinely proffered to all those manufacturing industries that have already been rationalised out of existence.

Still to come is Kevin Rudd’s famous ‘due process’: submissions to the PC, the release of its draft report, ‘roundtables’ to discuss the report, supplementary submissions, and a final report. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the PC to deliver a vindication of the current arrangements, though, or for the federal government to see the light.

I have been in this business, on and off, for over thirty years: I’ve been a book printer, an author, a freelance journalist, and book reviewer; our company won the inaugural small publisher of the year award in 2006, and we won it for the second time this year. I hope that’s enough experience to make people pay attention when I say that surrendering territorial copyright and allowing the parallel importation of books is a terrible idea. It is a dagger aimed at the heart of Australian publishing.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think we can say with confidence that if you wanted to come up with a policy to produce a healthy trade-publishing industry, and everything that went with it, you would produce the 30-day rule that has governed the provision of Australian territorial copyright since 1991. Conversely, if you wanted to destroy the industry, you would do away with the rule.

I have no confidence that the Productivity Commission will see it this way, or that the federal government will disagree with it. This will require a political campaign of massive proportions to overcome. I, for one, am prepared to abandon a lifetime of party-political support to stop the barbarians from getting their way.

Henry Rosenbloom

6:30pm

Trades Hall
Corner Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton, VIC

Sponsored by Socialist Alternative
For more info ph: 0402 175 330.

7.00 – 8.30 PM

Gisborne Library
Hamilton Street, Gisborne Vic 3437

This is a free event, but please book by phone on 5428 3962 or online at http://summerread27.eventbrite.com

6.30 – 7.30 PM

Warrnambool Library
25 Liebig Street, Warrnambool Vic 3280

This is a free event, but please book by phone on 5559 4990 or online at http://summerread22.eventbrite.com

Following a surge in bookseller demand for The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr Norman Doidge, we’ve just ordered another reprint to ensure that the title remains in stock throughout the pre-Christmas period. The reprint will be in the warehouse by 4 December.

‘Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”’

Here, for the first time, is a local edition of the bible of writing guides — a wry, honest, down-to-earth book that has never stopped selling since it was first published in the United States in the 1990s.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, a bestelling novelist and memoirist, distils what she’s learned over years of trial and error. Beautifully written, wise, and immensely helpful, this is the book for serious writers and writers-to-be.

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century — an astounding net worth of US$62 billion, and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura.

Journalist Roger Lowenstein draws on three years of unprecedented access to Buffett’s family, friends, and colleagues to provide the first definitive, inside account of the life and career of this American original. Buffett explains Buffett’s investment strategy — a long-term philosophy grounded in buying stock in companies that are undervalued on the market ,and hanging on until their worth invariably surfaces — and shows how it is a reflection of his inner self.

This first-ever fully annotated edition of one of the most beloved novels in the world is a sheer delight for Jane Austen fans. Here is the complete text of Pride and Prejudice with more than 2300 annotations on facing pages, including: Explanations of historical context: Rules of etiquette, class differences, the position of women, legal and economic realities, leisure activities, and more.

Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings: Parallels between the novel and Austen’s experience are revealed, along with writings that illuminate her beliefs and opinions.

Definitions and clarifications: Archaic words, words still in use whose meanings have changed, and obscure passages are explained.

Literary comments and analyses: Insightful notes highlight Austen’s artistry and point out the subtle ways she develops her characters and themes.

Maps and illustrations of places and objects mentioned in the novel.

An introduction, a bibliography, and a detailed chronology of events.

Of course, one can enjoy the novel without knowing the precise definition of a gentleman, or what it signifies if a character drives a coach rather than a hack chaise, or the rules governing social interaction at a ball, but readers of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice will find that these kinds of details add immeasurably to understanding and enjoying the intricate psychological interplay of Austen’s immortal characters.

With the intelligence and exuberance that made Woman an international sensation, Natalie Angier takes us on a whirligig tour of the scientific canon. Drawing on conversations with hundreds of the world’s top scientists, and her own Pulitzer Prize–winning reportage for the New York Times, The Canon is a magical guide to scientific literacy that will enrapture, inspire, and enlighten.

In a book that is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand the great issues of our time — from stem cells and bird flu to evolution and global warming — Angier leads a joyride through the major scientific disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy.

Somewhere between Lewis Carroll and Lewis Thomas, it's one of those rare books that reignites our childhood delight in discovery: we learn what’s actually happening when our ice cream melts, what our liver cells do when we eat a caramel, how the horse shows evolution at work, and that we really are all made of stardust.

People magazine says, 'Angier has that rare dual talent: a true passion for science combined with a poet’s linguistic flair.' Those gifts are on full display in The Canon, an ebullient celebration of science that stands to become a classic.

Here is an unusual and beautifully written Australian memoir destined to become a classic that captures the vulnerability and ardour of youth, and the fragility and strength of parental love.

It is 1965. Robert Hillman, a mere 16 years old, is planning an extraordinary adventure. Deserted by his mother, disliked by his stepmother, and puzzled by his father, Bobby needs comforting. His life in rural Victoria has offered no solace; his job at Melbourne’s Myer Emporium, selling ladies’ slippers, offers no prospects. So he does what any confused and lonely teenager would do: he escapes.

Boarding a ship bound for Ceylon, he begins his search for paradise, inspired by his father’s stories of a fabled island in the Indian Ocean. Bobby sets sail in a green suit, carrying a suitcase full of books and a typewriter. He has no money, no return ticket and, seemingly, no worries. He imagines the island he is heading for to be inhabited by beautiful, full-breasted women who will caress him while he writes prize-winning stories in the style of Chekhov.

What follows is an account by turns heart-breakingly tender and side-splittingly funny of an innocent abroad. Put ashore not in Ceylon but in Athens, Bobby barters his way to Istanbul, Tehran, and Kuwait, lurching from slums and brothels to an implausible job at a ritzy hotel in Shiraz. Finally, a long haul through the desert ends in a jail term on the Pakistan border where, ironically, he finds the affection and acceptance that have always been the true objects of his quest.

All the while, Hillman’s odyssey has been part of a larger family drama. Woven through his story is his father’s tale of struggle and sorrow. As the mature writer now realises, ‘I booked a ticket on a ship to install myself in a story my father had begun in his imagination.’

The Boy in the Green Suit is an unforgettable, bitter-sweet tale of the artist as a bewildered young man.

It is the 1990s. Letter-writing is about to give way to email, but elderly Grace will resist the trend. Through letters and stories, we learn of her friendships, interactions at the argumentative bowling club, her growing attraction to and relationship with Max, and the jealousy this engenders in her closest friend, Mildred. As the story unfolds, Grace faces new challenges: the problems of younger people invade her solitary life. Grace touches the lives of many with her warmth, her feistiness, her intelligence, and her frailty.

Starting life as a popular radio series, this is another compelling novel from bestselling author Jenny Pattrick.

Penang, 1939. Sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido.

But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. The enigmatic Endo is bound by disciplines of his own and when the Japanese invade Malaya, threatening to destroy Philip’s family and everything he loves, he realises that his trusted sensei — to whom he owes absolute loyalty — has been harbouring a devastating secret. Philip must risk everything in an attempt to save those he has placed in mortal danger and discover who and what he really is.

With masterful and gorgeous narrative, replete with exotic and captivating images, sounds and aromas — of rain swept beaches, magical mountain temples, pungent spice warehouses, opulent colonial ballrooms and fetid and forbidding rainforests — Tan Twan Eng weaves a haunting and unforgettable story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love.

Dallas, 1963. The world is shocked and America plunges into mourning when US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated by a lone gunman. But for CIA agent Paul Christopher, this is no random act of violence.

Through the haze of conspiracy, national tragedy, and the frantic response of American intelligence services, a clear picture of cause and effect starts to take shape in Christopher’s mind. But his theory is so destructive of the legend of the dead president that he is ordered to abandon the investigation.

Driven by his relentless desire to uncover the truth, Christopher goes it alone, following his intuition on a trail that leads from Washington to Europe, the Congo, and Vietnam.

The Tears of Autumn is an incisive study of power and an inspired portrayal of the force of illusion, the grip of superstition, and the overwhelming strength of family in the affairs of nations. It's also a taut and unsentimental political thriller whose brilliantly original and persuasive theory about who killed Kennedy will, once again, get minds racing.

Scribe congratulates Jacinta Halloran for the shortlisting of her novel _Dissection in the State Library of Victoria's Summer Read program.

See the whole shortlist or go straight to the Dissection page and vote!

After more than a decade of John Howard and the divisive politics that defined his era, how will Australia’s political cartoonists adjust to Kevin Rudd’s kinder, gentler government? One thing is sure, Labor’s honeymoon will be short. Following a brief team-building Queensland holiday with the Rudds, Australia’s funniest and most perceptive political cartoonists are already back on the job, pencils sharpened and eager to draw fresh blood.

The sixth edition of this best-selling series features the work of editorial cartoonists from all around Australia including: Alston, Brown, Davidson, Dyson, Katauskas, Knight, Kudelka, Leahy, Leak, Moir, Nicholson, O’Farrell, Petty, Pope, Rowe, Spooner, Tandberg, Weldon, and many more. Not just a collection, more a subversive first draft of history,  Best Australian Political Cartoons 2008 is the essential guide to the new Labor era.

Scribe congratulates authors Julian Burnside, Linda Briskman, Susie Latham and Chris Goddard for their nominations for the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2008 Human Rights Medals and Awards Literature Non-Fiction Award.

The books nominated are Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia by Linda Briskman, Susie Latham and Chris Goddard and Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice by Julian Burnside.

The shortlist for each award category (excluding the Human Rights Medal and the Young People’s Human Rights Medal) are available on the Commission’s website at: [www.humanrights.gov.au/hr_awards[( www.humanrights.gov.au/hr_awards)

Winners and highly commended entries will be announced and presented at a gala luncheon ceremony at the Grand Ballroom, Sheraton on the Park Hotel in Sydney, on 10 December from 12-3pm.

1.30pm to 4.00pm

Gathering Space, Our Lady Help of Christians, Henry Street, Eltham

ENTRY $ 12.00 includes fundraising lunch prepared by Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

Prepayments and bookings are essential: 9439 8700 or email Elthambookshop@bigpond.com

Scribe is rush-releasing two titles it has recently acquired on the US elections. First up is Obama’s Challenge: America’s economic crisis and the power of a transformative presidency, by Robert Kuttner, which will be published on 1 December 2008.

On 19 January 2009, the day before Inauguration Day, Scribe will publish ‘A Long Time Coming’: the historic, combative, expensive and inspiring 2008 election and the victory of Barack Obama, by Evan Thomas and Newsweek journalists.

Chief Minister and Minister for the Arts Jon Stanhope has announced the five short-listed nominations to the prestigious ACT Book of the Year Award. The Award for excellence in literature, valued at $10,000, recognises quality contemporary Australian literary works by ACT writers including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Two Scribe titles have been short-listed.

Congratulations go to Nicholas Drayson for Love and the Platypus, and Tony Kevin for Walking the Camino: A Modern Pilgrimage to Santiago!

For the first time, Scribe has sent a three-person team to the Frankfurt Book Fair: at the recently concluded 2008 fair, our fiction acquisitions editor, Aviva Tuffield, and our translations editor, Margot Rosenbloom, accompanied me on the most stimulating and gruelling trip in world publishing.

The three of us took part in over 100 meetings with agents and publishers during the week of the fair, pitching our own wares and looking at those of others. We’ve already bought several terrific titles that we were shown, and offered for others, and there’s been serious interest expressed in a number of our books. At this early stage, it feels like our best Frankfurt yet.

We came across the usual bullying rights-buying behaviour by large UK houses, who keep insisting on acquiring Australian rights within the rubric of ‘UK and Commonwealth’ rights (as they’re so quaintly named) when they’re shown new titles. This is blackmail, pure and simple, as I've said before. By threatening to withdraw their offers, or not offer at all, unless these rights are made available to them, they gazump or freeze-out Australian publishers, sweep up Australian rights for next to nothing, pay low ‘export’ royalties, and thereby prop up their bottom lines effortlessly. Perhaps these rights should be renamed ‘UK and British Empire’ rights, because that’s their true neo-colonial basis.

Luckily, US publishers and agents are waking up to this rort, and are more prepared than ever to ‘split rights’, as it’s called, with Australian publishers. Even they face some difficulty, though, with their own UK sub-agents — who, in some cases, are extremely reluctant to have their work lives complicated by having to consider Australian offers and thereby antagonising the large UK publishers they depend on for a living.

When I said something to this effect last week to The Age’s book review editor, Jason Steger, and he incorporated my typically diplomatic comments in a piece he wrote for his column, I was astonished to see my words ricochet around the world. A recently launched UK industry email-newsletter, BookBrunch, promptly headlined a report of Steger’s column with the words ‘Rights holders — bastards and cowards’. Now I know what to do to get attention: talk like an Aussie.

Frankfurt was conducted against a backdrop of deepening anxiety about the world financial crisis, of course, but there were no obvious signs that this affected the number of participants or their buying-and-selling animal spirits. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that trade publishers, by their nature, tend to be optimistic and forward-looking. I was asked about this on Ramona Koval’s ‘Book Show’ on ABC radio national on 24 October, and found myself saying that, ‘You can’t just retreat ... and hide and cower until it’s all over. You still have to assume there’s a market for good books.’

As it turned out, our October ‘sales’ were very strong — above budget, and above the same month last year. I put the word ‘sales’ within quotation marks because, as readers of this blog will know, invoiced sales are not necessarily the same as bookshop sales. We were helped greatly by having a bestseller on our list — The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge — which has now been reprinted four times, with over 20,000 copies in print.

In the meantime, visits to our website keep growing, to a level that would have astonished me a year ago. I think this has got a lot to do with the widespread publicity that our new books keep generating, the breadth and depth of the list, and the richness of the site.

So, as financial Armageddon approaches, we gird our loins, and keep fighting the good fight.

Author Anya Ulinich has been selected to receive this years' Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers for her novel, Petropolis. The prize, which includes a residency at Ledig House International Writers' Colony, is given annually to an American Fiction writer of exceptional talent and promise for a first or second book.

The award will be presented at a ceremony on Monday, December 22nd at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington DC, where Anya will receive a $2500 cash prize.

Time: 6.00pm

Venue: Melbourne Law School
The University of Melbourne
185 Pelham St
Carlton

Reservations are essential. Please call Georgie on (03) 9349 5955 or email marketing@scribe.com.au for bookings.

Time: 6.00pm

Venue: Melbourne Law School
The University of Melbourne
185 Pelham St
Carlton

Reservations are essential. Please call Georgie on (03) 9349 5955 or email marketing@scribe.com.au for bookings.

Time: 6.00pm

Venue: Melbourne Law School
The University of Melbourne
185 Pelham St
Carlton

Reservations are essential. Please call Georgie on (03) 9349 5955 or email marketing@scribe.com.au for bookings.

Venue: ANU Coop Bookshop Building 17, Union Court, Canberra ACT 0200

Time: 5.00pm for 5.30pm

This is a free event but please RSVP by phone at (02) 6249 6244 or email dkay@coop-bookshop.com.au.

On a rainy night in Paris, Paul Christopher’s lover, Molly Benson, falls victim to a vehicular homicide minutes after Christopher boards a jet bound for Vietnam. To explain this seemingly senseless murder, The Last Supper takes its readers back, not only to the earliest days of Christopher’s life, but also to the origins of the CIA in the clandestine operations of the OSS during World War II. Moving seamlessly from tales of refugee smuggling in Nazi Germany, to OSS-coordinated guerilla warfare against the Japanese in Burma, to the confused violence of the Vietnam War, McCarry creates an intimate history of the shadow world of deceit and betrayal that penetrates the psyches of the men and women who live within it.

Perhaps the most richly complex of McCarry’s renowned Paul Christopher novels, The Last Supper is an epic recreation of the history of an organisation ensnared by a culture of conspiracy, subterfuge, and senseless violence.

How one man's consuming passion for dogs saved a legendary breed from extinction and led him to a difficult, more soulful way of life in the wilds of Japan's remote snow country

In this beautifully written book, Martha Sherrill brings us to the remote and forbidding snow country of Japan. In a mountain village during World War II, we first meet Morie Sawataishi, a fierce individualist who has chosen to break the law by keeping an Akita dog hidden in a shed on his property.

During the war, the magnificent and intensely loyal Japanese hunting dogs are donated to help the war effort, eaten, or used to make fur vests for the military—so much so that, by 1945, there are only sixteen Akitas left. The survival of the breed becomes Morie’s passion and, due in part to his perseverance, the Akita breed strengthens and becomes wildly popular, sometimes selling for millions of yen. Yet the radically unconventional Morie won’t sell his spectacular dogs. He only likes to give them away. Morie and Kitako remain in the snow country today, living in the traditional Japanese cottage they designed together more than thirty years ago — with no central heating. In his nineties, Morie still raises and trains the Akita dogs that have come to symbolise his life.

Dog Man provides a profound look at what it is to be an individualist in a culture that reveres conformity.

In the early hours of 2 October 2001, Mamdouh Habib and two young German men were taken off a bus traveling between Quetta and Karachi by Pakistani security officers. It was shortly after 9/11, and only days before the United States attacked Afghanistan. The Pakistanis were rounding up anyone who looked foreign or in any way suspicious, interrogating them, and passing them on to the Americans. A few unlucky ones were then ‘rendered’ to a third-party country to be further interrogated and tortured, where they either disappeared into a web of secret prisons or were sent to Guantanamo Bay.

This is what happened to Mamdouh Habib. Branded as a terrorist, accused of attending al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and of training the 9/11 terrorists in martial arts, Mamdouh Habib was incarcerated and tortured — first in Pakistan, and then in Egypt, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. Eventually, after three-and-a-half years, he was released without charge from Guantanamo, and reunited with his wife and four children in Australia.

Here, for the first time, Mamdouh Habib reveals the full story of his journey to hell and back. He exposes the complicity of the Australian government in his abduction and maltreatment, as well as its subsequent neglect of him while in Guantanamo. He also describes his encounters with other well-known alleged terrorists, including his meetings with David Hicks both in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo.

My Story is also the account of a young Egyptian man who migrated to Australia in 1982 in order to settle down and to make a good life for himself. It is about his marriage to Maha, a remarkable young woman originally from Lebanon, who was to become his steadfast companion and who, throughout the years of their ordeal, tirelessly fought for the release of her husband and the restitution of his name.

In February 1946, the Australians of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) moved into western Japan to ‘demilitarise and democratise’ the atom-bombed backwater of Hiroshima Prefecture. For over six years, up to 20,000 Australian servicemen, including their wives and children, participated in an historic experiment in nation-rebuilding dominated by the United States and the occupation’s supreme commander, General MacArthur.

It was to be a watershed in Australian military history and international relations. BCOF was the last collective armed gesture of a moribund empire. The Chifley government wanted to make Australia’s independent presence felt in post-war Asia-Pacific affairs, yet the venture heralded the nation’s enmeshment in American geopolitics. This was the forerunner of the today’s peacekeeping missions and engagements in contentious US-led military occupations.

Yet the occupation of Japan was also a compelling human experience. It was a cultural reconnaissance — the first time a large number of Australians were able to explore in depth an Asian society and country. It was an unprecedented domestic encounter between peoples with apparently incompatible traditions and temperaments. Many relished exercising power over a despised former enemy, and basked in the ‘atomic sunshine’ of American Japan. Yet numerous Australians developed an intimacy with the old enemy, which put them at odds with the ‘Jap’ haters back home, and became the trailblazers of a new era of bilateral friendship.

Travels in Atomic Sunshine is a salutary study of the neocolonialism of foreign occupation, and of Australia’s characteristic ambivalence about the Asian region.

In these sublimely sophisticated tales, Cate Kennedy opens up worlds of finely observed detail. Her stories are populated by people at tipping points in their lives – moments that find them poised between a familiar past and an unfamiliar future. A cancer sufferer boards a plane with three kilos of cocaine in her luggage; a neglected wife plans an unsavoury revenge on her boorish husband; a married couple realise their too-tight wedding rings may symbolise wider aspects of their relationship. Heartbreaking, evocative and richly comic, Dark Roots unveils the traumas that incite us to desperate measures, and the coincidences that drive our lives.

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a sharp decline in respect for human rights and the international rule of law. The legal conventions of the new realpolitik seem to owe more to Guantanamo than Geneva.

Australia has tarnished its reputation in the field of human rights, through its support for illegal warfare, its failure to honour international conventions, its refusal to defend its citizens against secret rendition and illegal detention, and its introduction of secretive anti-sedition legislation and draconian anti-terror laws.

In Watching Brief, noted lawyer and human rights advocate Julian Burnside articulates a sensitive and intelligent defence of the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, and the importance of protecting human rights and maintaining the rule of law. He also explains the foundations of many of the key tenets of civil society, and takes us on a fascinating tour of some of the world's most famous trials, where the outcome has often turned on prejudice, complacency, chance, or (more promisingly) the tenacity of supporters and the skill of advocates. Julian Burnside also looks at the impact of significant recent cases — including those involving David Hicks, Jack Thomas, and Van Nguyen — on contemporary Australian society.

Watching Brief is a powerful and timely meditation on justice, law, human rights, and ethics, and ultimately on what constitutes a decent human society. It is also an impassioned and eloquent appeal for vigilance in an age of terror — when 'national security' is being used as an excuse to trample democratic principles, respect for the law, and human rights.

The Western tradition relies on a balance between fulfilling the ego and allowing the soul freedom to speak. But, with modernity, the old certainties that guided human life have faded. A crisis of meaning has followed.

In this substantially revised edition of Ego and Soul, John Carroll examines the battlegrounds across which a struggle for meaning is being fought — including work, sport, intimacy, the university, shopping, tourism, computers, democracy, and a retreat into nature.

On the one side, depressive pessimism, rancour, and disenchantment have arisen, accompanied by rampant consumerism. The upper-middle-class elites, with their high culture, have lost their way. On the other side, much of what people still do disguises a search for meaning. Groping unconsciously for direction, inhabitants of the modern West are even, in their ordinary and everyday lives, casting lines into the transcendent in the hope of a catch. And there is success.

Ego and Soul offers a surprising and compelling new look at the way we live today, and the way we try to make sense of our lives.

Isabel Weaving, is not quite who she seems. True, she’s a daughter, a sister, a mother and an ex-wife, having escaped one unsatisfactory marriage, although not with her relationships with her children intact. Her second husband, Max, is the love of her life but is no longer around, the grief caused by his absence only tempered by the visits of her beloved granddaughter. Gradually and unwittingly, Isabel reveals more and more about herself, her relationships and Max’s disappearance.

This dark and elegant literary mystery will have you gasping at its unexpected revelations, but also doubled over at Isabel’s blackly comic wit.

In these sublimely sophisticated tales, Cate Kennedy opens up worlds of finely observed detail. Her stories are populated by people at tipping points in their lives – moments that find them poised between a familiar past and an unfamiliar future. A cancer sufferer boards a plane with three kilos of cocaine in her luggage; a neglected wife plans an unsavoury revenge on her boorish husband; a married couple realise their too-tight wedding rings may symbolise wider aspects of their relationship. Heartbreaking, evocative and richly comic, Dark Roots unveils the traumas that incite us to desperate measures, and the coincidences that drive our lives.

The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a sharp decline in respect for human rights and the international rule of law. The legal conventions of the new realpolitik seem to owe more to Guantanamo than Geneva.

Australia has tarnished its reputation in the field of human rights, through its support for illegal warfare, its failure to honour international conventions, its refusal to defend its citizens against secret rendition and illegal detention, and its introduction of secretive anti-sedition legislation and draconian anti-terror laws.

In Watching Brief, noted lawyer and human rights advocate Julian Burnside articulates a sensitive and intelligent defence of the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees, and the importance of protecting human rights and maintaining the rule of law. He also explains the foundations of many of the key tenets of civil society, and takes us on a fascinating tour of some of the world's most famous trials, where the outcome has often turned on prejudice, complacency, chance, or (more promisingly) the tenacity of supporters and the skill of advocates. Julian Burnside also looks at the impact of significant recent cases — including those involving David Hicks, Jack Thomas, and Van Nguyen — on contemporary Australian society.

Watching Brief is a powerful and timely meditation on justice, law, human rights, and ethics, and ultimately on what constitutes a decent human society. It is also an impassioned and eloquent appeal for vigilance in an age of terror — when 'national security' is being used as an excuse to trample democratic principles, respect for the law, and human rights.

Julian Burnside and Michael Bachelard drew a large crowd of over 100 people at Readings in Hawthorn last Wednesday. There to celebrate the publication of Michael's book _Behind the Exclusive Brethren, the two engaged in a lively panel discussion and question and answer session with the audience.

Time: 12.00 to 1.00 pm

Angus & Robertson
Shop T30-32 Centro Bankstown
North Terrace
Bankstown NSW 2200

Reprint #4 of The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr Norman Doidge is in stock. Bookshops will have their back-orders fulfilled immediately, so they should be available for sale to the public in a few days' time.

Time: 6.00 pm for 6.30

Venue: Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122

This is a free event but please book on: 9819 1917

Time: 6.30 pm for 7.00pm

Venue: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, NSW
Cost: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome
Book: gleebooks - (02) 9660 2333

Time: 6.30 pm for 7.00pm

Venue: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, NSW
Cost: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome
Book: gleebooks - (02) 9660 2333

Time: 7.00 pm

Venue: Glebe Café Church 37-47 St Johns Road Glebe NSW

Drinks and nibbles will be provided.

RSVP is essential so email mail@ajustaustralia.com or call Zhi on (02) 9571 73231 by Monday, 3 November for catering numbers.

Reprint #3 of The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr Norman Doidge is out of stock, less than 24 hours after having reached our distributor's warehouse. We've ordered a new reprint, which will be in the warehouse by 23 October. In the meantime, bookshops that ordered reprint #3 are in the process of receiving their copies, and will have them available for sale later this week.

Venue: Shrine of Remembrance Visitor Centre. Enter at Birdwood Ave, South Yarra. (Melway Reference 2F J12)

Time: 3.30pm for 4.00 pm

Please RSVP by 6 November 2008. Telephone: (03) 9349 5955 or email: marketing@scribepub.com.au

Time: 6.00 pm for 6.30

Venue: Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122

This is a free event but please book on: 9819 1917

Reprint #3 of The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr Norman Doidge is now in stock.

On Boxing Day the film adaptation of The Conviction of Richard Nixon is released to Australian cinemas. See the trailer here or on the official film website.

Or best of all, read the full untold story behind the Richard Nixon interviews by James Reston Jr, before you see the film.

After a stunning appearance at the Brisbane Writers Festival where he delivered the Opening Night Address – described as ‘phenomenal’ and ‘awe-inspiring’ — Chris Abani, author of Song For Night, will be a guest on Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, this Monday, 6 October.

Make sure you don’t miss this interview.

Enough Rope with Andrew Denton — Monday 9.35 pm ABC 1

In the midst of one of the most serious financial upheavals since the Great Depression, George Soros, the legendary financier and philanthropist, writes about the origins of the crisis and proposes a set of policies that should be adopted to confront it. Soros, whose breadth of experience in financial markets is unrivalled, places the current crisis in the context of his decades of study of how individuals and institutions handle the boom-and-bust cycles that now dominate global economic activity. ‘This is a once in a lifetime moment,’ writes Soros in characterising the scale of financial distress spreading across Wall Street and other financial centers around the world.

In a concise essay that combines practical insight with philosophical depth, Soros makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the great credit crisis and its global implications.

In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the United States were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear; but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long-held agenda to enhance presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.

The Dark Side is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world—decisions that not only violated the Constitution to which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author Jane Mayer relates the impact of these decisions: U.S.-held prisoners, many of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century.

In all cases, whatever the short-term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, and the US's place in the world, and its sense of itself. The Dark Side chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency.

In the eighteenth glorious year of Enclosure, long after The Flood, a young girl named Honor moves with her parents to Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life on the tropical island is peaceful — there is no sadness and no visible violence in this world. Earth Mother and her Corporation have created New Weather. Sky color is regulated and it almost never rains. Every family fits into its rightful, orderly, and predictable place . . .

Except Honor’s. Her family does not follow the rules. They ignore curfew, sing songs, and do not pray to Earth Mother. Honor doesn’t fit in with the other children at the Old Colony School. Then she meets Helix, a boy who slowly helps her uncover a terrible secret about the Island: sooner or later, those who do not fit disappear, and they don’t ever come back.

Except Honor’s. Her family does not follow the rules. They ignore curfew, sing songs, and do not pray to Earth Mother. Honor doesn’t fit in with the other children at the Old Colony School. Then she meets Helix, a boy who slowly helps her uncover a terrible secret about the Island: sooner or later, those who do not fit disappear, and they don’t ever come back.

Western nations are worried about the problems of an ageing population. But if we take into account the health trends in younger generations we arrive at a frightening prediction: for the first time in history, we have produced a generation which may not outlive its parents.

Like a growing number of doctors throughout the developed world, general practitioner Carole Hungerford became concerned about these trends, and began to question a health industry based on a model of 'curing disease'.

The result is Good Health in the 21st Century, an encyclopaedic health guide that provides an extraordinary amount of easily understood information and a radically different way of maintaining well-being. Rejecting the routine cocktails of medication, with their complicated interactions and side effects, Dr Hungerford shows how to provide a chance for minerals, vitamins, and essential fatty acids to do their health-giving work.

The subjects covered in Good Health in the 21st Century include asthma, arthritis, cancer, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, mental health and neurological disorders; hormone-replacement therapy and vaccination; and macronutrients and minerals, vitamins, and essential fatty acids.

This monumental work will be used by parents, patients, and doctors for years to come.

The acclaimed science writer Jennifer Ackerman lends her keen eye and lively voice to this marvellous exploration of the human body. Taking us through a typical day, from the arousal of the senses in the morning to the reverie of sleep and dreams, Ackerman reveals the human form as we’ve never seen it: busy, cunning, and miraculous.

Advances in genetics and medical imaging have allowed us to peer more deeply inside ourselves than ever before, and one of the most amazing recent discoveries is that we are intensely rhythmic creatures. The human body is like a clock — actually an entire shop of clocks — measuring out the seconds, minutes, days, and seasons of life. Weaving pieces of her own life with that of Everyman, Ackerman shows the importance of synchronising our actions with our biological rhythms — and how defying them can cause us real harm.

We learn the best time of day to drink a cocktail, take a nap, run a race, give a presentation, and take medication, along with a host of other curious facts, such as why you succumb to a cold and your spouse doesn’t, even though you’ve both been exposed to the same sick child.

Did you know that you can tell time in your sleep? Or that up to half of the calories you consume can be burned off simply by fidgeting? That women have more nightmares than men? That tuna, sardines, and walnuts may ease depression?

At once entertaining and deeply practical, this fascinating book will make you think of your body in an entirely new way.

Out of nowhere in 2004, an obscure religious sect burst onto the political stage in Australia. Almost unheard of until then, the Exclusive Brethren was suddenly spending up big in election advertising in support of conservative political parties. But its members were shy to the point of paranoia about who they were — preferring, as they said, to ‘fly under the radar’. Brethren members assiduously lobbied politicians, but did not vote. And they were very close to the-then prime minister John Howard.

What exactly was their interest in politics? Why did their activism suddenly blossom almost simultaneously across the world, from Canada and the United States to Sweden and Australia? And how did a small, fringe group, whose values are utterly detatched from those of most Australians, infiltrate the highest office in the land?

Michael Bachelard uncovered the facts about this secretive sect for more than two years while working as an investigative reporter at The Age. The results of his inquiries are the most comprehensive book ever written about the Exclusive Brethren. It’s a fascinating story of politics and power. But it's a very human story, too — of damaged lives, of broken families, and of hurt and anger that stretches back decades.

Reprint #2 is now in stock, and high levels of continuing demand have already led us to order a further reprint. The new reprint should be in our distributor’s warehouse by 6 October, and should reach bookshops shortly thereafter.

Time: 6.30 pm for 7.00pm

Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe, NSW
Cost: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome
Book: gleebooks - (02) 9660 2333

Time: 5.30 for 6.00 pm

Venue: Centre for Aboriginal Studies - Building 211, Curtain University of Technology, Kent Street, Bentley, Perth

Ellie Nielsen has won the 2008 French Flair Awards for Buying a Piece of Paris. The French Flair Awards celebrate contributions to French culture in Australia. Past winners have included Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, Stephanie Alexander (restaurateur/writer), Will Stud (cheese importing) and Sarah Turnbull (Almost French).

Time: 7.00 for 7.30 pm

Venue: Sandybeach Centre, cnr. Sims and Beach Rd, Sandringham

Time: 6.00 pm for 6.30

Venue: Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122

This is a free event but please book on: 9819 1917

Time: 6.30 for 7.00 pm

Venue: gleebooks. 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW, 2037
Cost: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome
Book: gleebooks - 9660 2333

Time: 5.30 pm for 6.00 pm

Venue: Dixson Room in the Mitchell Wing, State Library of NSW.

Time: 6.45 pm

Venue: Niddree Library, 483 Keilor Rd, Niddrie 3042

Scribe authors were very prominent at this year's Brisbane Writers Festival, which ran from Wednesday, 17 September to Sunday, 21 September.

Norman Doidge, the author of The Brain That Changes Itself addressed several packed-out sessions. His book sold out, becoming the top-selling title at the festival, and setting a book-sales record for the BWF.

Chris Abani, the author of Song for Night, delivered an electrifying keynote address, and mesmerised his audiences at each of his sessions. Chris' book became the festival's #2 bestselling title.

All the other Scribe authors attracted significant attention, large attendances, and good book sales: Mahvish Khan (author of My Guantanamo Diary); Leilah Nadir (author of The Orange Trees of Baghdad); Gwynne Dyer (author of Climate Wars); and Julian Burnside (author of Watching Brief) .

Scribe thanks all its attending authors for their enthusiastic participation in what turned out to be a well-organised and highly successful writers' festival.

Scribe is delighted to to invite you to celebrate the publication of Idan Ben-Barak's Small Wonders, to be launched by Peter C. Doherty, AC at Melbourne University.

Love and Loss in Baghdad

Leilah Nadir, author of Orange Trees of Baghdad joins Michael Hastings, author of I Lost My Love in Baghdad (MUP) in conversation with Peter Manning.

Scribe launches Human Rights Overboard

Please join us for a compelling panel discussion with authors Linda Briskman, Susie Latham, and Julian Burnside QC.

Chris Abani, award-winning author of Song For Night will be joined in conversation by Nicole Bieske, President of Amnesty International Australia.

Nick Gadd, winner of the Victorian Premiers Prize for Unpublished Manuscript, will be at Watsonia Library to present his prize-winning novel Ghostlines.

Dr Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself is a guest of the Brisbane Writers Festival.

Dr Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself will be a guest of the Brisbane Writers Festival.

Following remarkable national publicity for The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge, we have been inundated with orders and enquiries, and have ordered a second reprint of this book. The reprint will be in our distributor's warehouse on 23 September, and should reach bookshops shortly thereafter.

Gleebooks 49 Glebe Point Road Glebe NSW 2037 Sydney Australia

Events: $10/$7 conc. gleeclub welcome
RSVP Phone 9660 2333 or go to www.gleebooks.com.au/events