Boomerang:
The Meltdown Tour by Michael Lewis $39.95 Hardback (Allen Lane)
Iceland,
Greece and Ireland we know about. On Spain, Portugal and Italy we've heard the
warnings. Britain is a fear rumbling in the distant background of precarious
triple-A ratings. But surely Germany is safe, isn't it? Michael Lewis's
brilliant tragi-comic romp across Europe shows how the financial crisis is about
to hit everyone in the face. The cheap credit that rolled across the planet
between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was
temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their
characters they could not normally afford to indulge. A wise, sharp and
sometimes hilarious book.
Making
Trouble by Robert Manne Paperback $34.95 (Black)
As
this eloquent and important book shows, no one in Australia makes a better
argument than Robert Manne. In Making Trouble, one of Australia's leading
public intellectuals takes aim at the 'new Australian complacency'. This is a
book that will enlighten and provoke. It covers much ground – from Howard to
Gillard by way of Rudd, from Victoria's bushfires to the Apology, from Wilfred
Burchett to Primo Levi. Making Trouble includes an essay on the new
Australian complacency, as well an exchange of letters with Tony Abbott, an
appreciation of W.E.H. Stanner, and an incisive analysis of the asylum-seeker
issue, among others.