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| AUGUST |
Friday August 15, 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
David Levell: Tour to hell: Convict Australia's great escape myths |
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This book tells the riveting and often tragic stories of the convicts who escaped, or tried to escape, Australia's early penal settlements. With the continent a blank slate to the newcomers, a ‘convict escape mythology' developed, suggesting sanctuaries in the bush and short overland journeys to other countries. With an engaging and fast-paced narrative, this is Australian history at its rollicking best. |
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Monday 18 August 2008 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Nick Bleszynski: Bloodlust (Random House Australia)
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Eat or be eaten...that was the terrible choice facing the eight convict bolters from Macquarie Harbour, Australia 's most remote and brutal penal colony. Bloodlust re-examines this story from 1822, as told through the eyes of convict (and cannibal) Alexander Pearce, who has until now, been condemned as a monster. |
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| SEPTEMBER 2008 |
Thursday September 4 at 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Maude Barlow: Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (Black Inc) |
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"Blue Covenant" addresses an environmental crisis that – together with global warming – poses one of the gravest threats to our survival. World-renowned activist and author Maude Barlow has been at the forefront of international water politics, and in this timely and important book she discusses the state of the world’s water, how water companies are reaping vast profits from declining supplies, and how ordinary people from around the world have banded together to reclaim the public’s right to clean water. Essential reading for all who care about the planet, "Blue Covenant" is the most up-to-date look at the global water crisis and its impact on humans and the natural world.
Maude Barlow is visiting Australia from Canada for the Melbourne Writer's Festival.
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Wednesday 10 September 6.30pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Lijia Zhang: Socialism is great! (UWA Press) |
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A spirited memoir by a former Chinese factory worker who grew up in Nanjing, participated in the Tiananmen Square protest and ended up an international journalist.
Zhang's disillusionment with “The Glorious Cause” drove her to study English, which strengthened her intellectual independence – from bright, western style clothes to organizing the largest demonstration by Nanjing workers in support of Tiananmen Square Protest in 1989. By narrating the changes in her own life, Zhang chronicles the momentous shift in China 's economic policy. |
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Wednesday September 17 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Graeme Blundell: The Naked Truth: A life in Parts (Hachette Australia ) |
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A candid and engaging memoir of a life on the stage, behind the scenes, in the wings, and between the sheets: it reveals what it was really like to be Australia 's first pin-up.
Actor, director, producer and writer Graeme Blundell recounts the dramas and comedies; the makeshift and the highly polished, the great successes and the failures of Australia's theatre, film and TV landscape… and of the man himself.
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Friday 19 September, 12.30pm Level 3 Civic Centre
THE BIG READ: Original poetry readings to celebrate International Day of Peace |
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Local poets and those from around Sydney are invited to compose a poem/poems around the theme of peace for International Day of Peace 21 September. Each poet has up to 5 mins at the microphone.
Poets registrations close 17 September 2008.
Audience and poets bookings are essential. Please contact 9716 1810. |
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Wednesday 24 September 6.30pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Lesley Potter: A Passion to care: nursing and nurses, Western Suburbs Hospital 1894 -1982 |
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Records the history of the hospital through the memories and experiences of the nurses who trained there. Using research, oral history and story telling the book brings to life, for the reader, a firsthand account of what it was like to be a nurse in this era when nurse training was hospital based. While the book documents the history of the nursing staff it also celebrates the work of women both through everyday events and the achievements of some who gained public acknowledgement for their work. Western Suburbs Hospital was well supported by the local community and many patients were from the surrounding area: this book will remind the reader of a past era. |
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| OCTOBER 2008 |
Wednesday October 8 2008 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Hanifa Deen: The Jihad Seminar (UWA Press) |
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Freedom of speech versus freedom from religious vilification is under the spotlight.
In March 2002, three Muslims attend an Evangelical Christian seminar promoted to reveal the inner secrets of ‘Holy Jihad'. Shocked by what they hear, they convince the Islamic Council of Victoria to lodge a complaint against Catch the Fire Ministries, under a controversial new hate speech law. A case expected to be over in three days turns into an unholy war of words lasting five years.
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Thursday 9 October, 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
David Millar: The Rome of Michelangelo |
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A Florentine, Michelangelo left Florence for Rome aged only 21. It was here that he sculptured his astounding ‘Pieta' which was greeted with rapturous applause. Pope Julius II commissioned him to create the most colossal tomb for a pope. This led to the painting of the Sistine Chapel; a prodigious symphony in paint.
Lecture with slides. |
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Friday October 10 at 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Halina Robinson: Treading water in the Promised Land ( Sydney Jewish Museum) |
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At the end of World War II, Halina Robinson was entirely alone. All the members of her large Jewish family had perished in the Holocaust. In her new book she tells of her migration to Israel in 1957, with her Polish husband and two small children. They settled in Beer Sheva on the edge of the Negev Desert , and made determined attempts to adjust to very different lives and work with fellow Jews from all over the diaspora. After four years in Israel they decided to move to Australia , for the sake of the education of their children. This memoir is Halina's moving story. |
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David Millar
illustrated lecture: John Constable's England
Thursday October 30 2008 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre |
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John Constable was one of the world's greatest painters of landscape. He abandoned the conventions that had hitherto dominated landscape painting in both England and Europe. Instead he opted for modest, rural views, with a strong preference for the landscape around his birthplace on East Anglia. His pictures took some time to be accepted by the British who found this new art of his too unconventional. Ironically, it was some of the French painters who, upon seeing his work in Paris , began to change their way of painting, a movement which would end in the emergence of the French Impressionists.
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| NOVEMBER 2008 |
Thursday 6 November, 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
David Millar: The Florence of Botticelli |
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Commencing as a trainee goldsmith, Botticelli became a painter. Here, his skill led him to enter the service of a great banking family – The Medici- leaders in the political life of Florence . By now, the Renaissance was well under way and Botticelli showed his knowledge of the pagan classical world, such as in ‘The Birth of Venus' and ‘Primavera'.
Lecture with slides. |
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Friday 7 November, 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Susannah Fullerton: Katherine Mansfield |
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Katherine Mansfield is New Zealand 's greatest writer. She set new standards in the writing of short stories, was admired by Virginia Woolf, D.H.Lawrence and many others.
Susannah Fullerton will tell the tale of Katherine Mansfield's short, strange life and discuss the genius of her writing.
Illustrated lecture. |
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Friday 14 November 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
Awakening: A Step-by-Step Guide to Authentic Meditation by Yogi Brahmasamhara (Rockppol Publishing) |
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This book will take you on a journey, a deeply personal one guided by a Master. Whether you are a novice or an experienced meditator, Yogi Brahmasamhara will take the reader step by step, from the very first ‘toe in the water’ to quite literally, as far as they want to go. This teacher has been well taught and the exercises on breathwork are excellent, and even an experienced reader will be given the skills to go beyond the breathwork and into the stillness that we all crave. |
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Thursday 20 November, 1pm Level 3 Civic Centre
David Millar : Assisi , St Francis and Giotto |
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It was in the thirteenth century that two people helped change dramatically the world of Medieval Europe. Many Franscicans left the cloistered life to work with the poor and disposed. Meanwhile the life of St Francis was depicted in Assisi by Giotto whose use of perspective, animation and emotion was a turning point in European art.
Lecture with slides. |
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