Cirrus@Austlit

'Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past. Indigenous recognition and a new push for a republic await action.

'Judging by the Captain Cook statue controversy, though, our debates about the past have never been more fruitless. Is there a way beyond the history wars that began under John Howard? And in an age of free-floating fears about the global, digital future, is history any longer relevant, let alone equal to the task of grounding the nation?

'In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the frontier, the Anzac legacy and deep time. He drags some fascinating new scholarship into the light, and pushes the debate about history beyond the familiar polarities.' (Publication summary)

'Journalist Jenny Valentish investigates the female experience of drugs and alcohol, using her own story to light the way. Her travels around Australia take her to treatment facilities and AA groups. Mining the expertise of leading researchers, she explores the early predictors of addiction, such as childhood trauma and temperament, and teenage impulsivity. Drawing on neuroscience, she explains why other self-destructive behaviours - such as eating disorders, compulsive buying and high-risk sex - are interchangeable with problematic substance use. Valentish follows the pathways that women, in particular, take into addiction - and out again. Woman of Substances is an insightful, rigorous and brutally honest read.' (Publication Summary)

'The Monthly, a new national magazine of politics, society and the arts will give space to long essays and thoughtful reviews, to investigative journalism and zingy reportage, to bold photography and a brash design.'

Source: http://www.themonthly.com.au/thankyou/index.html (Sighted 08/05/2005)

'They have no graves, no markers of ever having existed.

'The millions of people murdered by the Nazis live on only in the memories of the survivors. In his seventy-ninth year, Andor Schwartz was driven to record the lives of his family and friends who perished.

'Writing with the instincts of a born storyteller, Andor takes us back to the world of his childhood in rural Hungary in the years leading up to World War II. His love of nature and country life, his friendships, the harvests, the Jewish festivals, the age-old customs - now lost - are evoked with intense vitality, before dark clouds gathered to obliterate this Arcadian childhood.

'We live with him through the horrors of the Holocaust, on the run in Budapest, evading death time and time again under the protection of his Malach (angel), whose name had been given to him by his father on their separation. Andor survived, but his entire family was killed. He takes us to Israel and then to Australia, where he prospered, his children had children, and the cycle of life returned to its natural order.' (Abstract for the 2010 edition, from the publisher's website.)

'Pig is an adventure-thriller about Alan Treval, a conservationist who sets out to trap a monstrous black pig whose lethal tusks have already massacred several dogs, and almost ripped a man to pieces.

'This feral fugitive assumes human proportions when it calculatingly evades capture and seems to be hell-bent on killing Treval, and his teenage son, Michael.

'Like an insane despot, this king piglords over the other wild pigs in the area and seems to mastermind the relentless destruction of the surrounding landscape.

'Treval enlists the support of a local farmer Tom Robbins and his daughter Anne. They join forces against the pig and even try to flush it out with a light plane piloted by Anne.

'Pig plunges us into a gripping chase sequence with Treval fighting a lethal animal, a harsh environment, and a pattern of senseless destruction by masses of ravaging feral pigs.

'The harrowing climax to the book will leave you in a state of nervous exhaustion and disquieted about the fragile balance between man and his environment.

'Pig epitomizes what can happen when nature goes out of control.'

Source: Goodreads.