Cirrus@Austlit

'This is compelling memoir combined with rigorous thinking and analysis that prompts questions about how we live.

'The concerns of philosophy are important to us all, yet the voices and thoughts of women have often been missing from the conversation. In this extraordinary new book, award-winning Australian writer Julienne van Loon addresses the work of leading international women thinkers. She discusses friendship with pre-eminent philosopher Rosi Braidotti, wonder with cultural historian Marina Warner, play with celebrated novelist Siri Hustvedt, love with cultural critic Laura Kipnis, work with socialist feminist Nancy Holmstrom, and fear in relation to the work of Helen Caldicott, Rosie Batty and Julia Kristeva.

'By constantly linking the personal and the political, and prompting insightful questions about how we live today, van Loon invites us into a lively exchange of ideas with these remarkable women. This deeply thoughtful book urges readers to look anew at the question of what it means to live a good life.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This is a true story … A young man heads off on a journey to find out if magic still exists in the world, to know its wonder, and to see if it might save him when his own life is unexpectedly at stake.

'In the Caribbean, he meets a Rastafarian Don Juan who teaches him about the ‘natural mystic’. Fate propels his travels through the Americas and Europe to locate the source of this knowledge in Mother Africa, where his own emerging mastery of mysticism is tested by the Sahara desert. He is imprisoned in Nigeria, and tortured, and then sold as a slave.

'Magic is an incredible journey, both physical and spiritual, that reverberates with the uniqueness of lived adventure and of a passionate heart and vision. Upon closing the last page of this book, we ache for the innocence to lose our way and travel deeper, to rediscover the savage but delicious nature of the miraculous in our own lives.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.