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For decades, Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire has shaped political landscapes, influenced elections, and fuelled public opinion. But behind the headlines lies a darker story — of targeted campaigns, smear tactics, and relentless attacks on those who don’t fit the Murdoch mould. From LGBTQI communities and women’s rights advocates to progressive politicians, human rights defenders, and even conservatives deemed ‘not right enough’,  this book reveals how News Corp turns disagreement into a declaration of war.

The Battle for Public Education: How did we end up pitting our kids against one another? For decades, Australia has been pumping money into private education while public schools struggle. The current system contributes to greater inequity, decreased integration of different communities and even traffic jams as parents are more likely to drive their kids to a private school further from their house. At the same time, with higher rates of private school attendance and the marketisation of education, parents have increased anxiety when faced with the decision of where to send their child. How did we get here? Jane Caro walks through the decades of policy decisions that have created this situation and identifies the choices that have created the current education crisis. With her trademark no-nonsense analysis and drawing from her personal experiences, Caro lays out the steps that brought us to this point and what Australia can do to get a public education system worthy of such a wealthy country.

On the thirtieth anniversary of John Howard coming to power, a searing analysis of the untouchable prime minister: how the ‘great economic manager’ sold our future.John Howard is often revered as one of the great Australian prime ministers (1996–2007): economically prudent, politically astute, ‘relaxed and comfortable’ with Australia’s identity, venerated by the Liberal Party and grudgingly admired by the left.  Why then – just twenty years after his government ended – are we in such a mess?Amy Remeikis is one of our most astute and convincing political commentators, and here she argues for a complete revision of how we see Howard’s tenure, for the first time holding him to account for the future he created.

The revealing biography of a leading and enigmatic Australian novelist. Australian novelist Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of the most intense, original and highly regarded psychological fiction of the twentieth century. Then she abruptly stopped writing in the 1970s and became one of the most puzzling mysteries of Australian literature. Why didn't she continue? Harrower gave elusive answers to friends and interviewers, and only since her death in 2020 has a deeper search been possible. When Harrower's four novels were brought back into print between 2012 and 2014, followed by a novel she had withdrawn from her publisher in 1971 and a collection of her short stories, a renaissance of admiration followed. In this engrossing biography, Susan Wyndham grapples with the questions that remained unanswered, the dynamics of Harrower's circles of famous friends, and her remarkable books and their timeless dissections of the human heart.

In both her life and work, Holmes has consistently broken barriers. The first female presenter of the ABC’s flagship sports programme, Grandstand, she has pioneered coverage of and by women in sport. Her longform style of interviewing and her reporting on world events like the Olympics and FIFA World Cups have introduced us to athletes from all backgrounds and nations, from our own Cathy Freeman and James Hird to Ayrton Senna and Pele. Anchor, reporter, podcaster and – for a rocky spell over the 2000 Sydney Olympics – media manager, Holmes has never sought to divorce sport and the politics of the world it’s played in. As well as recounting highlights (and a couple of lowlights) from her career, in this book she shares her views on drugs in sport, Sam Kerr, and what challenges face the Olympics before the 2032 Brisbane Games.

Brisbane, 1975: Andie Tanner's world is small but whole. Her mum is complicated, but she adores her dad and the kennel of racing greyhounds that live under their house. Andie is a serious girl with big plans: finish school with her friends, then apprentice to her father so she can become a greyhound trainer, with dogs of her very own.But real life rarely goes to plan, and the world is bigger and more complicated than Andie could imagine. When she loses everything she cares about - her family, her friends, the dogs - it's up to Andie to reclaim her future. But she'll need all her wits to survive this new reality of secrets, half-truths and addiction.

Jacqueline traces the social and political issues that inspired Australian radical women writers and their desire to change the world. Australia's crusaders for women's voting rights and the radical feminists of the 1970s changed lives across the country and around the globe. But what about the generation in between? Throughout the twentieth century, a group of trailblazing women writers challenged the nation's status quo. Miles Franklin's forceful voice invigorated the emerging women's movement, Mary Gilmore was a groundbreaking feminist journalist, and novelists Katharine Susannah Prichard and Eleanor Dark explored the colonial displacement of Australia's Indigenous people. Kylie Tennant spoke up for battlers during the Depression. Dymphna Cusack, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Dorothy Hewett, all members of Australia's Communist Party, advocated for social reform. Ruth Park's The Harp in the South jolted the NSW government into developing slum clearance programs. And the work of First Nations poet and activist Kath Walker (later Oodgeroo Noonuccal) was crucial in achieving constitutional reform for Indigenous peoples. Acclaimed biographer Jacqueline Kent traces these women's stories,

In SAFFRON INCORPORATED, music industry legend Stuart Coupe shows how showbusiness and the underworld are intrinsically linked - from nightclub fires, corrupt cops, cocaine, smack, illegal gambling, vice, celebrities, standover men and rock'n'roll promoters, musicians who partied hard and lost their way, dodgy accountants and gangland shootings -one man, the original King of the Cross, lay the foundations for more than fifty years of intrigue, murder and mayhem.

Australia has forgotten what keeps it safe. So argues Michael Wesley in this sharp and compelling essay about our place in the world. His previous books include There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia and Mind of the Nation: Universities in Australian Life. He is Professor of Politics and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Global, Culture and Engagement) at the University of Melbourne and was formerly head of the Lowy Institute and dean of ANU's College of Asia and the Pacific.

One of Australia’s most influential public health thinkers, Emeritus Professor Simon Chapman AO has released a new book that reflects on a career spent reshaping how Australians understand health and responsibility. Better to be looked over, than overlooked: 50 years of public health research and advocacy, is part memoir, part manifesto, tracing five decades of scholarship and advocacy that helped counter powerful industry interests and bring public health into the national conversation.  For many, public health may feel like something that happens behind the scenes in government departments or academic journals. Professor Chapman’s career demonstrates the opposite. Public health is about applying a critical lens to social norms, changing environments, and equipping communities with the information they need to live healthier lives. Few have done more to advance that mission in Australia than Professor Chapman.

In the year 2000, an Australian woman travels to The Hague to work as the secretary for an Australian judge. There, she sits through the trial of a former military man who has been charged with war crimes. As the trial proceeds, she is confronted with two conflicting impulses: being deeply affected by the testimony of witnesses, while at the same time plagued by an enduring doubt as to the defendant's guilt.Meanwhile, she begins an unexpected romance and friendship, and these relationships help her to understand the stories of extraordinary survival she hears about during the trial. When she is called back to Australia to reckon with her own childhood, she finds she can't quite leave everything she's heard behind. Out of the Woods asks what it means to bear witness to the suffering of people who have experienced real tragedy and whether it is possible, afterwards, to resume a normal life.'A triumph. Out of the Woods traces the complex lines of complicity and grief a deeply compelling and humane story about what it means to bear witness. This is a book that looks into your soul.' Stephanie Bishop'This searchingly original novel counters the historical weight of human cruelty with small acts of attention and persistence. Shirm's empathy and intelligent precision exert a quiet moral authority on every page.' Delia Falconer

Calendar is an essay collection in the form of a daybook, written in real-time over a year. The book takes inspiration from writers who use experiments and constraints, such as Georges Perec/Oulipo and Bernadette Mayer, as well as autobiographical writers who use inventive structures, such as Christina Sharpe in Ordinary Notes, and Sheila Heti in Alphabetical Diaries. Calendar is based on the French Republican calendar of the late 18th century, in which every day was dedicated to an object, and applies this concept to objects of contemporary life. For a year Berry paid attention to her encounters with objects over the course of the day, and every night wrote an essay based on one object, and drew an illustration of it. Combining the narrative of a year and stories of the 365 objects themselves, Calendar is about tuning in to the unexpected, playful and solemn lives of the objects around us.

***WARNING: Contains some graphic medical content *** It all started when a daughter asked her father 'Are there any risks?'. Investigative journalist Charlotte Grieve had a very personal reason to be interested in celebrated orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Her father had lost his leg almost sixty years before a chance meeting with Dr Al Muderis, who raised concerns about her father's ongoing mobility. The famous doctor told him that osseointegration surgery would keep him out of a wheelchair. Her mother suggested a second opinion. The collision of the personal and professional would spark an investigation that led to a $20 million defamation trial. Charlotte uncovered serious concerns about the doctor's surgical practice and evidence that he routinely failed to adequately inform patients of the risks involved in his signature procedure. Doctors have a duty of care, but they also legally have a duty to warn. It means that they must warn patients of any risks. When that is not done, vulnerable people have to live with the consequences. Buy the book here: https://gleebooks.com.au/p/duty-to-warn

The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country, and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar. Across sleepless nights, fractured alliances and self-destructive coping strategies, The Rot is what happens when poetry swallows more rage than it can console, quiet or ironise – this book demands you ready yourself for a better world. Buy the book here - https://glee.circlepos.com/p/the-rot

Above an already swamped Sydney, a disastrous weather system looms. The city is not repaired from one storm before the next hits. There is enormous distrust of the civil service, including police. Redfern is now a swampland. Anyone who has the financial means or the property to, sells up and heads to the Blue Mountains and beyond, or better yet, New Zealand. Sydney is full of climate refugees from Asia and the Pacific, and from the east coast of Australia. Food and water insecurity have created tension. There is poverty, suspicion and cultural disharmony. A world of have and have nots. Developers raise most of their money here from building detention camps. But how closely are those builds monitored? After all the 1% aren't going to be living there.