Scan barcode
scribepub's reviews
497 reviews
The Western Front Diaries: The Anzacs' Own Story, Battle by Battle by Jonathan King
Informative, inspiring … an incredible story.
Peter Fitzsimons, Journalist and Author
It’s absolutely incredible. It’s five hundred pages of absolutely absorbing material the likes of which you otherwise can’t get your hands on.
Jon Faine, ABC Radio, The Conversation Hour
Peter Fitzsimons, Journalist and Author
It’s absolutely incredible. It’s five hundred pages of absolutely absorbing material the likes of which you otherwise can’t get your hands on.
Jon Faine, ABC Radio, The Conversation Hour
Rhyme Cordial by Antonia Pesenti
There’s something quite architectural about this wonderful book of word play with its simple lines and solid blocks of colour … Bright simple colours, black and white stripes and white stars on black backgrounds repeat throughout the book in cohesive visual echoes as pleasing as the word play.
Adelaide Advertiser
The bright, bold illustrations and board book format of Rhyme Cordial may be designed for the baby market, but the book’s humorous wordplay makes it equally appealing to older children as well.
Child Magazine
Adelaide Advertiser
The bright, bold illustrations and board book format of Rhyme Cordial may be designed for the baby market, but the book’s humorous wordplay makes it equally appealing to older children as well.
Child Magazine
Ironbark by Jay Carmichael
Jay Carmichael approaches the world as a poet, from an angle that is all his own. He reveals a hidden, pulsing reality beneath the surface of the everyday.
Miles Allinson, Author of Fever of Animals
In sparse and quiet prose, Jay Carmichael's debut is an enveloping novel about grief, survival, and the futility of finding peace in a place you don't belong.
Shaun Prescott, Author of The Town
‘[An] accomplished debut … Carmichael has a poetic turn of phrase, and he plays with time, moving the story back and forth ... keeping readers on their toes.
Books+Publishing
Jay Carmichael's Ironbarkdoes the extraordinary. It achieves what we readers want from the best of fiction: to tell a story anew, and to capture a world in all its wonder, ugliness, tenderness, and cruelty. This is a novel of coming of age and of grief that astonishes us by its wisdom and by its compassion. It's a work of great and simple beauty, so good it made me jealous. And grateful.
Christos Tsiolkas
What Ironbark captures beautifully is the yearning one might feel while growing up unable to understand or express love and attraction freely; a yearning to kiss your best friend, a longing for an end to a loneliness, like cracked land waiting for rain. Ironbark is a still, quiet, compelling novel that reaches an ending both sad and peaceful.
Good Reading
The novel draws deeply on the love of nature that once inspired Carmichael to pursue botanical science … It is almost poetic in its descriptions of a slightly surreal landscape overcome by an oncoming storm that seems to mirror Markus’ silent struggles.
sbs.com.au
[A] subtle, impressionistic novel about adolescent alienation and masculinity in rural Australia … Carmichael paints an exquisitely tender portrait of doomed adolescent longing and love.
The Monthly
Ironbark is an elegant novel, one that reveals itself slowly. It is both a wonderful evocation of the listlessness of grief and a disturbing portrait of shame and self-doubt. In many ways the story is as familiar as the town, hot and dusty with drought, but it is also fresh and new, as it questions with an unexpected urgency what it means to be a man.
Adelaide Advertiser
Miles Allinson, Author of Fever of Animals
In sparse and quiet prose, Jay Carmichael's debut is an enveloping novel about grief, survival, and the futility of finding peace in a place you don't belong.
Shaun Prescott, Author of The Town
‘[An] accomplished debut … Carmichael has a poetic turn of phrase, and he plays with time, moving the story back and forth ... keeping readers on their toes.
Books+Publishing
Jay Carmichael's Ironbarkdoes the extraordinary. It achieves what we readers want from the best of fiction: to tell a story anew, and to capture a world in all its wonder, ugliness, tenderness, and cruelty. This is a novel of coming of age and of grief that astonishes us by its wisdom and by its compassion. It's a work of great and simple beauty, so good it made me jealous. And grateful.
Christos Tsiolkas
What Ironbark captures beautifully is the yearning one might feel while growing up unable to understand or express love and attraction freely; a yearning to kiss your best friend, a longing for an end to a loneliness, like cracked land waiting for rain. Ironbark is a still, quiet, compelling novel that reaches an ending both sad and peaceful.
Good Reading
The novel draws deeply on the love of nature that once inspired Carmichael to pursue botanical science … It is almost poetic in its descriptions of a slightly surreal landscape overcome by an oncoming storm that seems to mirror Markus’ silent struggles.
sbs.com.au
[A] subtle, impressionistic novel about adolescent alienation and masculinity in rural Australia … Carmichael paints an exquisitely tender portrait of doomed adolescent longing and love.
The Monthly
Ironbark is an elegant novel, one that reveals itself slowly. It is both a wonderful evocation of the listlessness of grief and a disturbing portrait of shame and self-doubt. In many ways the story is as familiar as the town, hot and dusty with drought, but it is also fresh and new, as it questions with an unexpected urgency what it means to be a man.
Adelaide Advertiser
The End of Plenty: The Race to Feed a Crowded World by Joel K. Bourne
Despite the lessons of climate change, water shortages and industrial-scale farming of single crops, “we are [still] literally farming ourselves out of food” … Bourne’s compelling book presents challenges that are immense but not insurmountable … we must also accept a shift in mentality — from a world of plenty to a world of enough.
The Saturday Paper
An engaging look at the challenges we are likely to face producing sufficient food in an ages of unprecedented global population, environmental impact and climate change.
Martin Ford, FT, Best Books of 2015
Much of this book is sad and scary — it’s going to be hard to feed a world that we’re relentlessly heating. But reading about the amazing advances being made by developing-world farmers with “organic” agriculture left me with a vision of the planet we could still create.
Bill McKibben, Author of Deep Economy
Joel K. Bourne Jr has written one of the most informative, engaging books on the world food prospect I have ever read.
Lester R. Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute – and Author of Full Planet, Empty Plates
The End of Plenty takes a thoroughly researched and exceptionally thoughtful and balanced look at the consequences of industrial farming. Joel Bourne’s courageous conclusion: to feed the world’s burgeoning population, agriculture must change and population increase must stop. His book should convince every reader of the compelling need to address world food problems through more skillful and sustainable agronomy, but also through education, especially of women, and universal family planning.
Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University – and Author of Food Politics
Fifty years ago, as many as one out of every three people lived in hunger. Today, the figure is about one in eight — the biggest, fastest increase in human well-being in history. Now, though, agricultural scientists and economists increasingly fear that this great accomplishment is at risk. Simply put, the world’s agricultural systems may not be able to provide enough food for the nine or ten billion people who will be alive in 2050. Joel Bourne, a farmer's son himself, traveled the world to explore what may be the greatest challenge facing the next generation. The result is calm, lucid — and fascinating.
Charles C. Mann, Author of 1491 and 1493
The End of Plenty is an urgent and at times terrifying dispatch from a distinguished reporter who has given heart and soul to his subject. Here is a wake-up call, and also a call to action. The stakes could not be higher: To stave off apocalypse, we must grow a whole lot smarter in a hurry — starting by heeding the cutting-edge wisdom contained in Joel Bourne’s richly researched and passionately argued report from the Malthusian margins.
Hampton Sides, Editor-At-Large for Outside Magazine, and Author of In the Kingdom of Ice
An agronomist-turned-journalist, Bourne is a lively guide to the history, science and economics of getting tucker on our plates. He digs into the causes of our current predicament, tours the world looking for the germ of the next revolution and suggests ways we can limit population growth. A compelling call for action. Food for thought.
Nicholas Butler, Weekend Press
Brings a deep and passionate understanding of agriculture … while finding hope in incipient signs of a sustainable farming revolution.
Fiona Capp, The Age
A finely balanced book, serious without being depressing, meticulously researched without sacrificing accessibility. It is full of stories as well as facts … If Bourne is right that feeding the world in the 21st century is “the biggest collective hurdle humanity has ever faced”, then we owe it to ourselves to get informed.
Make Wealth History
The Saturday Paper
An engaging look at the challenges we are likely to face producing sufficient food in an ages of unprecedented global population, environmental impact and climate change.
Martin Ford, FT, Best Books of 2015
Much of this book is sad and scary — it’s going to be hard to feed a world that we’re relentlessly heating. But reading about the amazing advances being made by developing-world farmers with “organic” agriculture left me with a vision of the planet we could still create.
Bill McKibben, Author of Deep Economy
Joel K. Bourne Jr has written one of the most informative, engaging books on the world food prospect I have ever read.
Lester R. Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute – and Author of Full Planet, Empty Plates
The End of Plenty takes a thoroughly researched and exceptionally thoughtful and balanced look at the consequences of industrial farming. Joel Bourne’s courageous conclusion: to feed the world’s burgeoning population, agriculture must change and population increase must stop. His book should convince every reader of the compelling need to address world food problems through more skillful and sustainable agronomy, but also through education, especially of women, and universal family planning.
Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University – and Author of Food Politics
Fifty years ago, as many as one out of every three people lived in hunger. Today, the figure is about one in eight — the biggest, fastest increase in human well-being in history. Now, though, agricultural scientists and economists increasingly fear that this great accomplishment is at risk. Simply put, the world’s agricultural systems may not be able to provide enough food for the nine or ten billion people who will be alive in 2050. Joel Bourne, a farmer's son himself, traveled the world to explore what may be the greatest challenge facing the next generation. The result is calm, lucid — and fascinating.
Charles C. Mann, Author of 1491 and 1493
The End of Plenty is an urgent and at times terrifying dispatch from a distinguished reporter who has given heart and soul to his subject. Here is a wake-up call, and also a call to action. The stakes could not be higher: To stave off apocalypse, we must grow a whole lot smarter in a hurry — starting by heeding the cutting-edge wisdom contained in Joel Bourne’s richly researched and passionately argued report from the Malthusian margins.
Hampton Sides, Editor-At-Large for Outside Magazine, and Author of In the Kingdom of Ice
An agronomist-turned-journalist, Bourne is a lively guide to the history, science and economics of getting tucker on our plates. He digs into the causes of our current predicament, tours the world looking for the germ of the next revolution and suggests ways we can limit population growth. A compelling call for action. Food for thought.
Nicholas Butler, Weekend Press
Brings a deep and passionate understanding of agriculture … while finding hope in incipient signs of a sustainable farming revolution.
Fiona Capp, The Age
A finely balanced book, serious without being depressing, meticulously researched without sacrificing accessibility. It is full of stories as well as facts … If Bourne is right that feeding the world in the 21st century is “the biggest collective hurdle humanity has ever faced”, then we owe it to ourselves to get informed.
Make Wealth History
Now Say This: The Right Words to Solve Every Parenting Dilemma by Julie Wright, Heather Turgeon
A brilliantly practical guide to a style of parenting that’s not only kinder but way more effective. The best way to teach children to listen is to listen to them — which is the start of the simple, powerful three-step process the authors reveal here.
Julian Treasure, Five-time TED Speaker and Author of How to be Heard
When I picked up the new book Now Say This, I felt as though the authors had been secretly observing our lives and wrote a book especially for us … I highly recommend this book to parents of young children. We all aim to be wonderful role models for our children, we want to teach them right from wrong and how to cope with their emotions. The hard part is that we don’t always have the right words or framework. Now Say This teaches you both of these things.
Kid Size Living
Julian Treasure, Five-time TED Speaker and Author of How to be Heard
When I picked up the new book Now Say This, I felt as though the authors had been secretly observing our lives and wrote a book especially for us … I highly recommend this book to parents of young children. We all aim to be wonderful role models for our children, we want to teach them right from wrong and how to cope with their emotions. The hard part is that we don’t always have the right words or framework. Now Say This teaches you both of these things.
Kid Size Living
Accidental Death? When things may not be as they seem by Robin Bowles
Meticulously researched and presented.
Courier Mail
Robin Bowles’s Accidental Death? is worth reading because it illuminates the gap between justice and the law, the shadowland between accident and culpability, and the restless ghost that sudden death becomes for everyone it touches.
The Australian
Courier Mail
Robin Bowles’s Accidental Death? is worth reading because it illuminates the gap between justice and the law, the shadowland between accident and culpability, and the restless ghost that sudden death becomes for everyone it touches.
The Australian
Felix Culpa by Jeremy Gavron
Felix Culpa is extraordinary: a wild, beautiful book which patchworks tiny scraps of other novels to create something haunting, resonant and absolutely original.
Olivia Laing, Author of The Lonely City
Beguilingly intriguing … has a strange poetry.
The Mail on Sunday
One of our more innovative, quietly inventive and exciting novelists.
Ali Smith, TLS
Gavron's singular approach nudges his narrative towards the universal.
Stoddard Martin, Jewish Chronicle
[Gavron merges] detective story, mythic romance and medieval quest into a short, affecting parable for modern times … It would be easy to become overly aware of the novel's self-conscious form, but Gavron is too subtle and skillful for that.
Financial Times
Felix Culpa does succeed as a diverting experiment, thanks to Gavron’s talent for coaxing a subtle, individual rhythm out of his affectionate patchwork.
The Big Issue
The way the disparate voices reflect the narrator’s question of identity is just as poetic as the language itself, and creates an immersive representation of the narrator’s experience. This is one for those avid readers who like a challenge, and who can’t get enough of the literary giants of modern history, only this time in a new, repurposed format.
Readings
Olivia Laing, Author of The Lonely City
Beguilingly intriguing … has a strange poetry.
The Mail on Sunday
One of our more innovative, quietly inventive and exciting novelists.
Ali Smith, TLS
Gavron's singular approach nudges his narrative towards the universal.
Stoddard Martin, Jewish Chronicle
[Gavron merges] detective story, mythic romance and medieval quest into a short, affecting parable for modern times … It would be easy to become overly aware of the novel's self-conscious form, but Gavron is too subtle and skillful for that.
Financial Times
Felix Culpa does succeed as a diverting experiment, thanks to Gavron’s talent for coaxing a subtle, individual rhythm out of his affectionate patchwork.
The Big Issue
The way the disparate voices reflect the narrator’s question of identity is just as poetic as the language itself, and creates an immersive representation of the narrator’s experience. This is one for those avid readers who like a challenge, and who can’t get enough of the literary giants of modern history, only this time in a new, repurposed format.
Readings
A Perfidious Distortion of History: The Versailles Peace Treaty and the Success of the Nazis by Jürgen Tampke
In this highly readable account Jurgen Tampke tackles the much-debated and perennially fascinating question of whether the Treaty of Versailles caused the Second World War. He comes down firmly on the No side and produces a wealth of evidence and careful analysis to back his arguments. Anyone who is interested in what remains one of modern history’s most important debates will want to read this.
Margaret Macmillan
Gamely confronts the now-prevailing orthodoxy … deserves to be read.
Roger Moorhouse, The Times
An intriguing and persuasive account by an experienced historian of the much-maligned Treaty of Versailles. This new book provides a fresh and often provocative account of a tangled story. It should help put to rest the persisting myth about the 1919 peace with Germany.
Emeritus Professor, David Walker Fassa, FAHA Board Member, Foundation of Australian Studies, China
A fascinating and well-crafted account of how the peace-treaty of 1919 led to the Second World War — and the reasons may not be the ones you expect.
Chris Vening
This is a fascinating and provocative re-assessment of one of the great conventional wisdoms of recent history, made all the more compelling by the Australian-based author's forceful and often witty delivery.
Eamon Delaney, Irish Independent
An interesting perspective on the rise of the Nazis and World War II … A fascinating read.
Irish Independent
This is an excellent book, which argues it case well. It should be widely read in the lead up to the centenary of the Armistice and peace settlement.
NZ International Review
Margaret Macmillan
Gamely confronts the now-prevailing orthodoxy … deserves to be read.
Roger Moorhouse, The Times
An intriguing and persuasive account by an experienced historian of the much-maligned Treaty of Versailles. This new book provides a fresh and often provocative account of a tangled story. It should help put to rest the persisting myth about the 1919 peace with Germany.
Emeritus Professor, David Walker Fassa, FAHA Board Member, Foundation of Australian Studies, China
A fascinating and well-crafted account of how the peace-treaty of 1919 led to the Second World War — and the reasons may not be the ones you expect.
Chris Vening
This is a fascinating and provocative re-assessment of one of the great conventional wisdoms of recent history, made all the more compelling by the Australian-based author's forceful and often witty delivery.
Eamon Delaney, Irish Independent
An interesting perspective on the rise of the Nazis and World War II … A fascinating read.
Irish Independent
This is an excellent book, which argues it case well. It should be widely read in the lead up to the centenary of the Armistice and peace settlement.
NZ International Review
Wren by Sophie Beer, Katrina Lehman
The illustrations by Sophie Beer for this warm-hearted family story are vivacious and vibrant, filled with life and love. They perfectly depict the chaos of a big family with so much colour and movement. This is a big-hearted story about families and siblings that is perfect to read to children aged 3+.
Readings
Wren is an exceptionally strong debut, with an emphasis on narrative that will appeal to fans of Julia Donaldson. Katrina Lehman’s fluid, rhythmic prose rolls off the tongue, and there are some great beats in the tale that make for a dynamic read-aloud session—including an affecting twist at the end. Illustrator Sophie Beer depicts family chaos at its most beautiful. Her style is gloriously colourful, bustling with lots of visual details to enrich the world of the story: squabbling children, wall scribbles, books strewn over the floor.
Books + Publishing, Five stars
If you have a new baby in your house and an unhappy sibling or two, then this is the perfect book for your family. The illustrations are bright and full of the most hilarious details that will resonate with all children who need a little more space to themselves.
Good Reading
The vibrant and engaging story make this a wonderful book for children aged 3-6, and a great choice for anyone bringing a new baby into their family.
My Child Magazine
Readings
Wren is an exceptionally strong debut, with an emphasis on narrative that will appeal to fans of Julia Donaldson. Katrina Lehman’s fluid, rhythmic prose rolls off the tongue, and there are some great beats in the tale that make for a dynamic read-aloud session—including an affecting twist at the end. Illustrator Sophie Beer depicts family chaos at its most beautiful. Her style is gloriously colourful, bustling with lots of visual details to enrich the world of the story: squabbling children, wall scribbles, books strewn over the floor.
Books + Publishing, Five stars
If you have a new baby in your house and an unhappy sibling or two, then this is the perfect book for your family. The illustrations are bright and full of the most hilarious details that will resonate with all children who need a little more space to themselves.
Good Reading
The vibrant and engaging story make this a wonderful book for children aged 3-6, and a great choice for anyone bringing a new baby into their family.
My Child Magazine
Trump/Russia: A Definitive History by Seth Hettena
Hettena is a first-rate reporter and wonderful story-teller, and the tale he tells here is mind-boggling.
Jane Mayer, author of New York Times bestseller Dark Money
Seth Hettena skillfully weaves many threads — most fresh or previously hidden — into a rich tapestry tying together decades of Donald Trump s deep involvement with Russia.
David Cay Johnston, author of New York Times bestseller The Making of Donald Trump
Reads like a page-turning mob thriller.
The Guardian
Trump/Russia presents a dossier of persuasive evidence for Trump’s collusion with Vlademir Putin and Russian organised crime … good, solid, investigative journalism.
Sunday Star Times
Jane Mayer, author of New York Times bestseller Dark Money
Seth Hettena skillfully weaves many threads — most fresh or previously hidden — into a rich tapestry tying together decades of Donald Trump s deep involvement with Russia.
David Cay Johnston, author of New York Times bestseller The Making of Donald Trump
Reads like a page-turning mob thriller.
The Guardian
Trump/Russia presents a dossier of persuasive evidence for Trump’s collusion with Vlademir Putin and Russian organised crime … good, solid, investigative journalism.
Sunday Star Times