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Big Wars
Why Do They Happen and When Will the Next One Be?
John Storey
9781925736694
2021-09-07
A$11.99
Hybrid Publishers

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World War II was the biggest and most destructive war in history. For two centuries wars had grown ever larger, with the use of more terrible weapons and rising casualties, culminating in the cataclysmic global events of 1939–45. And then, quite suddenly, large international wars have all but disappeared. What caused wars to grow in size to such an extent and then shrink so precipitously? Is this a permanent state of affairs or could big wars make a comeback?
 
Lawyer and historian John P Storey explores these questions by looking at the evolution of military technology and tactics over the long history of warfare. From ancient bronze spears and chariots to World War II tanks and warplanes, from the nuclear weapons of the Cold War to the drones and robotics of the future, the changes in our methods of waging war has had, and will continue to have, a major impact on their size and destructiveness. The sobering conclusion Storey makes is that, based on past trends and the weapons in the pipeline for the future, there is a much higher risk of there being much bigger wars in the coming decades.


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Bisulo's Pig

Taz Liffman
9781925736861
2022-08-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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It’s the turn of the nineteenth century and a small contingent of British colonialists has been dispatched to a (fictitious) African country, their mission: to establish colonial dominion over an ‘unclaimed territory’. While some of colonialism’s cruelties have by this stage been realised, the ‘Scramble for Africa’, under the auspices of Darwinian theory, Christian charity and Eurocentrism, has assumed the guise of philanthropy. Colonialism’s ‘noble duty’ – the ‘white man’s burden’ – is ‘to save the savages from themselves’.
Told with a dry, caustic humour that lampoons the era’s language and sensibilities, Bisulo’s Pig aims to situate the reader in the colonial mindset, typical of the time, that fictionalised Africa and rendered its native inhabitants as pitiful, barbarous or subhuman – and to reveal that a great many of us might not be quite as free of an imperialistic outlook as we may fancy.
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‘In recent decades, countless novelists have been criticised for the ways in which they’ve treated Africa and Africans in their works. And often justly so: many of these handlings have been crude, prejudiced, ignorant and dehumanising.
‘The purpose of Bisulo’s Pig is to examine whether swinging too blindly in the other direction can also present problems …
‘Ultimately, Bisulo’s Pig is all about cultural relativism and suprarationalism: Anthropology 101. It aims to show there can be logic couched in absurdity, science undergirding superstition, reason amid randomness. While the book’s aim is to darkly parody the colonial project as an exercise in farce, its overriding purpose is to reveal the multifarious guises under which racial prejudices persist.’ – Taz Liffman
 


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Bitten by an Elephant
Memoir of a Maverick Lawyer
Gordon Lewis
9781925281484
2017-02-21
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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At the age of 65 Gordon Lewis was described by an enraged senior judge as a 'bloody maverick!' He took comfort from this assessment as he felt it confirmed that he was on the right track...
 
Gordon Lewis loves the humanity of the Law. That affection has led him to a legal career of great diversity. Whether as Director of the Victorian Law Institute, sitting as a County Court Judge, regular presentations on radio, guest speaker at both overseas and Australian conferences, or his role as Cricket Australia's Senior Code of Conduct Commissioner, his name has become almost as well known to the general public as it is to the legal profession.
 
Known for his warmth, compassion and quick wit, he has devoted many years to assisting and advising young lawyers. The textbook he originally co-authored with Justice Kyrou, Handy Hints on Legal Practice, was once described as the only legal textbook to ever make the readers laugh. Several years ago he decided to write 'a funny book about the law and his life so far.' This book is the result. Whether it is the law stripped of its pomposity, cricket, film reviewing, greyhounds or just coping with life's exigencies, the self-deprecatory humour in these pages gives a rare insight into the author's kindness and sense of fun. You might also think that apart from writing 'a funny book', almost coincidentally the author has recorded a testament to overcoming personal adversity.


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Bright Swallow
Making Choices in Mao's China: A Memoir
Vivian Bi
9781925736120
2019-02-15
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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"September 1972 was a happy month for me, because my mother had lung cancer. I hate to say those words, but it's the truth."
 
My Chinese name - Xiyan, meaning bright swallow - was chosen by my mother with great expectations. As one of China's "new women", she had travelled widely, dressed elegantly, and dined in fine restaurants. In the bleakness of Mao's China, she saw little opportunity for her only daughter to live such a life. Her last words to me were: "At least I lived a life". She could not have known how much defiance these words would stir in me.
 
Orphaned at fifteen, I fought against cold, hunger and discrimination. Without an adult at home, I listened to vinyl records of "bourgeois" music, read banned books and became a secret storyteller. I saved every penny for train trips to the country's natural wonders - something unheard of at that time. Sent to the countryside for re-education, I drew water from wells, collected manure from pigsties, drove a horse-drawn cart and bonded with animals. However, I never stopped looking for chances to escape the life that I had been placed in.
 
Bright Swallow is a moving story of endurance, hope and resilience.


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Carrots and Jaffas

Howard Goldenberg
9781742983325
2014-02-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Carrots and Jaffas tells the story of two red-headed identical twins whose oneness is ruptured when one of them is kidnapped. Their startling intimacy is both a strength and a fault line in their being, and once separated, their individuality emerges. In the course of this exhilarating domestic tale set in Melbourne and the Flinders Ranges, the reader encounters the twins' parents - emotional, scripture-quoting Luisa and calm Bernard - as well as two remarkable storytellers, Doc, an eccentric outback doctor and Greta, an Aboriginal elder. Trauma is followed by recovery through the unexpected agency of story and 'country' (in the Australian Aboriginal meaning of that term).
Howard Goldenberg is a doctor, writer, marathon runner and Olympic torch bearer. He has written two non-fiction books, My Father's Compass (2007) and Raft (2009). This is his first novel.


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Chaconne

Diana Blackwood
9781925282535
2017-10-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Chaconne is the story of an apprenticeship - in life, love and early music - in which not the least of the obstacles standing in the way of Eleanor's becoming who she might be is Eleanor Weston herself. Against the Cold War craziness of the early 1980s, the novel traces, with wit as well as lyricism, a young Australian woman's failed pursuit of love with a bourgeois communist in Paris and her subsequent shift to the periphery of a US airbase in the Rhineland, where she stumbles into marriage with a seemingly harmless American. When Thomas, a successful harpsichordist and self-hating German, comes to the village to recuperate after a nervous collapse, he and Eleanor form a deep musical connection that not only sets her voice free but allows her to find, in the crisis that ensues, more nerve and resolve than she ever knew she had.


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Cleaning the Stables
Thirteen stories, sixteen poems and a recipe
Morris Lurie
9781925280470
2015-10-01
A$4.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Shortly before his death in 2014, an elderly man brought his publisher friend a crumpled purple folder filled with type-written pages. Cleaning the Stables he called it: a selection of stories, poems and a recipe that he didn't want left behind.
In this posthumous collection we are given a feast of mostly unpublished treasures from the great literary life of Morris Lurie. Written in the wry and ironic style he was celebrated for, these pieces are sometimes odd, always clever, and at times profoundly moving as they give us insight into a man who had a truly unique way of interpreting and writing about the world around him.
'One of the most significant Australian writers of his generation.' - Peter Pierce, editor of the Cambridge History of Australian Literature
'A sharp, rare writer with an acerbic wit.' - Kevin Childs, The Guardian


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Collected Poems

Timoshenko Aslanides
9781925283471
2018-10-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Timoshenko Aslanides' first book of poems, The Greek Connection, won him the British Commonwealth Poetry Prize for 1978 for the best first book of poems in English, published the previous year in the British Commonwealth excluding England. He was the first Australian to win this prize.
 
In his numerous subsequent books of poetry, he has sought to describe and affirm what it is to be an Australian and to celebrate the natural and built environment of the country, and the history and imaginative genius of the people, all within the context of a lyric poetry inspired by love. Collected Poems assembles the best of his entire work as a poet, including some previously unpublished poems.
 
A proudly Australian-born and Australia-focused full-time professional poet, Timoshenko Aslanides has noted that this is probably his last book of poetry. He often needs to deal with the common misconception that, because he has a Greek surname, he must be an 'ethnic' poet who writes 'multicultural' poetry. He is not.
 
Aslanides is first and foremost someone in love with language, fascinated by form, committed to a sense of the Australian nation, and engaged with human experience at its many versatile levels.
 
He would like to see his poetry taught in Australian schools and universities so that, supplemented by the teaching of other Australian literatures, Australian children and young adults can obtain an appreciation of how they relate to each other and where they live, and what the possibilities are for them to make both a living for themselves in that environment and a positive difference for the nation.
 
Aslanides was named Artist of the Year for 2002 by The Canberra Times. His proposed preamble to the Australian Constitution was published in the April 2015 edition of Quadrant.


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Conveyancing Victoria 2020-21
The Ultimate Guide
Simon Libbis
9781925736526
2020-02-01
A$49.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Welcome to your 2020-21 edition of Conveyancing Victoria - The Ultimate Guide.
There has been a lot going on in the world of conveyancing since the last edition. Electronic settlement and lodgment are now the norm. The Sale of Land Act is still being amended and interpreted by the Supreme Court. Practitioners have a greater responsibility for the calculation and collection of state and federal taxes. We have a new contract of sale. These are among the developments covered in this edition.
The pace of change shows no sign of letting up. It is more important than ever to keep up to date with legislation, cases and processes.
One of the great pleasures of authoring this book is the opportunity to continue working with my good friend Louis de Vries of Hybrid Publishers. I doubt that I could keep doing this without his encouragement, support and occasional gentle cajoling. Hopefully we will continue in this vein for years to come.
The Law Institute bookshop sells a lot of these books. I am always grateful for the feedback and advice provided by Owen Hyde, who manages the bookshop. He gets an "honourable mention".
– Simon Libbis, February 2020


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Conveyancing Victoria 2022

Simon Libbis
9781922768001
2022-02-01
A$49.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Conveyancing is a process. As with all processes it can be reduced to a number of steps. But as any person involved with it knows, there is a lot more to conveyancing than just following the steps. Each transaction is a journey, and to help you on your way you need a roadmap. This is it. In much the same way that roadmaps are now accessed electronically via GPS, conveyancing is conducted digitally in cyber space. The destination is the same but the pathway is different. While most conveyancing trips stick to the main roads, you still need to know where the minor ones, and even the side tracks, will lead you. If you get lost some directions will be needed, and emergency assistance is required when you break down or become bogged. What if you crash? All this can be found in Conveyancing Victoria 2022.
 
It starts by explaining the basic elements of a conveyancing transaction, then provides a step-by-step guide to both the manual and electronic processes. This is complemented by detailed explanations and precedents. It envisages the problems that can arise and offers suggestions on how to avoid them. If it’s too late for that, then there are strategies for dealing with them.
 
This book will suit a person who just wants to know how to do conveyancing. It will also provide an invaluable reference for those practising in this area. The title includes a comprehensive index. Whatever your level of knowledge of, experience in or involvement with conveyancing, you cannot afford to be without Conveyancing Victoria 2022.


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Dark Clouds on the Mountain

John Tully
9781877006197
2011-03-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Set in wintry Tasmania in the early 1990s, with flashbacks to post-war Hobart and Europe during World War II, this story deals with dark secrets, crime and Nazi plots, interwoven with familiar domestic tensions of family life and marriage. Tully creates a fictional world strongly embedded in authentic details of real locations and well-conceived characters.
The earthy, passionate main protagonist, Jack Martin, is richly drawn: 'A typical copper - detective anyway - stressed out most of the time, running on adrenaline, nicotine and coffee. Booze too, but not as much as some of his mates. Running to flab from a diet of meat pipes and sauce, chips and the deep-fried dog's turds they called chicken rolls, gobbled down on the run between cases, ingesting cumulatively lethal doses of salt, sugar and saturated fats.'
In this elaborate web of intrigue the ground shifts, the past intrudes and time and place are vividly realised.
Brooding violence, tangled mysteries... a gripping read.


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Dig Two Graves

Carolyn Morwood
9781925281491
2017-05-15
A$4.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Six international artists are invited to a residency in southern Spain. What could possibly go wrong?
Writer's block and paintings of oranges. Love, lust, revenge. A sculptor left for dead on the side of a mountain.
Part love story, part thriller and wholly page-turning, Dig Two Graves shows us once again that 'Morwood is a classy act.' - The Australian
For readers who like their crime/thrillers gore-free and more refined.
In the vein of Jospehine Tey.


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Dog Ear Cafe
How the Mt Theo Program beat the curse of petrol sniffing
Andrew Stojanovski
9781877006159
2011-03-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Dog Ear Cafe is a true-life adventure story about how one Aboriginal community beat the odds and defeated petrol sniffing. It tells of the Mt Theo Petrol Sniffing Program: a story of culture clash, of two lines of fire that meet in the desert night, of partnerships that cross Australia's racial divide. Woven throughout are humour, taboos, bush mechanics, hope and tragedy. In a colloquial and narrative manner, this book invites the reader to a deeper analysis of the assumptions behind white and black economics, indigenous alcoholism, welfare dependency and the failure of well intended policy and programs. Hidden in the subtext is a mud map for reproducing successful partnerships with indigenous Australians.
The Mt Theo Program was founded in 1994, when half the teenage population of Yuendumu were sniffing. Eight years later no one sniffed, and ex-sniffers had become youth leaders and community workers. The elders of Mt Theo used their traditional bush knowledge to turn lives around.


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Doppelganger

David Finchley
9781925282511
2017-07-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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Australian Arnold Rosen is celebrating his 70th birthday with his family aboard a cruise ship in the Mediterranean.
By coincidence, on the same cruise ship, the American Gus Smith and his family are also celebrating his 70th.
The two men meet. They are identical in appearance but clearly not related. Arnold is the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, while Gus' parents were German - indeed, his father was a rabid anti-Semite.
It seems they are doppelgangers, or 'doubles'. However, it may be more complicated than that. Not only were the two men born on the same day, it turns out that they were both born in the same small town, in post-war Germany.
The two men's backgrounds are so different that despite their similarities, there is surely no possibility that they could be related...
What will they uncover when they travel to Waiblingen, the small town in Germany where they were both born, to seek the truth?


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Dragon's Gate

Vivian Bi
9781925736335
2020-02-01
A$9.99
Hybrid Publishers

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"Dragon's Gate is a superb book, a fascinating story written from the heart and woven into a complex cultural and historical tapestry - a modern classic in the making." - Robert Macklin, author of Dragon and Kangaroo
 
Shi Ding is seventeen. In an attempt to impress a girl, he joins a local Red Guard unit and succeeds in having a nine-year-old boy arrested and a widowed professor of foreign literature driven to a shameful suicide. But when his father's death is also revealed as suicide, Shi Ding is expelled from the gang. He suspects there was more to the relationship between his father and the professor than friendship and he moves into her empty house. There he discovers a library of translations of forbidden Western classics. Himself a born storyteller, he is transfixed by the stories in these books by the likes of Dostoevsky, Stendhal, Hugo, Dickens, and Dumas …
 
Set in China in the mid-60s, Dragon's Gate is about the power of storytelling. Within its overarching narrative, there are stories of little-known worlds: river logging in remote mountains, armed fighting between Red Guard factions, fortune telling on long train journeys, community life in the courtyards of Beijing hutong.
 
Memorable characters abound in this rich and varied tale - characters like Sun Lanfen, the nosy, tough but decent residential compound leader; the blind singer who was struck dumb when he had to sing songs set to Chairman Mao's quotations; and the Buffalo Boy who was reputed to have fathered a hundred children in a Tibetan village.
 
"The unique interweaving of fascinating tales set in exotic places with familiar and much loved western classics makes this book a page turner from beginning to end." - Jane Sydenham-Kwiet, German teacher and translator

 

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