Greg Barns - Rise Of The Right

Greg Barns is Julian Assange's lawyer and barrister noted for his pieces in the Mercury. At the heart of a deceitful government is the oppression of truth-tellers. Journalists and writers whose job is to keep the public up-to-date with the truth. Oppression of the truth-tellers is in fact anti-democratic. A good society has intellectual individuals who share stories and give people different view on things, rather than what they are told by the propaganda machines. It is bizarre that the truth and writing especially has been policed in such a way like a criminal act when people have been writing since the dawn of man, communicating and drawing with different mediums.

Ann Oakley - The Men's Room

One has to acknowledge the role of good journalism in a tightly restricted authoritarian style government and the first is monitoring what is published and cracking down on dissent with the police force. Once the police have been engaged, the money is sapped from the news outlet, until it withers away. Remember the greatest writer possibly ever, Franz Kafka kept all his work unpublished during his lifetime and never made any money from his works. Writing is frequently attacked by authoritarian governments to stop people from gaining a different view of things.

Hanif Kureishi - The Buddha Of Suburbia

It is fascinating what you can find in a book grocer. There is certainly fabulous finds, and I also think the fact that living in a university city adds to the factors of the type of books you pick up in second-hand stores and the like. I stumbled on Kureishi's Midnight All Day and was rightfully impressed. Tales of urban frustration and a tendency to look at the subversive themes with an astute grasp of storytelling.

Jennifer Egan - A Visit From The Goon Squad

An eclectic collection of stories and a myriad of characters awaits. Egan writes with tremendous conviction with an astounding grasp of pop culture and intertextuality. There is no morose melancholy but hard-hitting journalism in the manner of the great American storytellers like Kerouac and Burroughs. There is a range of characters, each with their own stories and what is unearthed is a great plethora of a cast. With the tenacity of teenage rebellion not since the days of Irvine Welsh at his peak, Egan confronts the challenging subject matter of the rock and roll lifestyle with a fresh approach, devoid of the boring.

Unknown - Lebor Gabala Erenn (The Book Of The Taking Of Ireland)

The Scots, the great migraters. They went in search of a new home, and they fought for it, for they are children of war. Then once they settled in a new home, they were dislodged by the sheer evil that pervaded them, for the English would want every bit of land for themselves, the whole world would be seemingly for the taking of the English, but the Scots resisted. They lay their arms across their chest to fight for their people. They were flung to the far corners of the world, without knowing their language and their songs of old, and their descendants would live their lives knowing they were different from the others, but not knowing their story, and it is in the words written here that these people will learn about the sufferings of their ancestors.

Peter Singer - Animal Liberation

The divides between rich and poor, between the haves and the, have nots, is a political construction. Racism is not real, because we are closer to each other than suspected. It is an instrument of politicians to cause division, and it is very successful. Instead of welcoming outsiders into our country, with the potential of booming employment and diversity, we are turning them away, and if there was any great deed of unification, it should be reflected on how we as states treat the less fortunate. Because how we treat the less fortunate is how we would be treated if we were in the same situation. We are all vulnerable, we are people.

Richard Flanagan - Gould's Book Of Fish

One thing that people need to realise in the West, is that they have great resources at their disposal, ones that many others do not have. They need to take the time to consider how lucky they are, and once they glimpse into the furnace of such desperation, they have to come to the conclusion that there is no afterlife, so whilst one goes through turmoil at the demise of their kin, it is onwards and upwards, as to live is to be lucky, so they should make the most out of it. Because life only comes around once, you need not all the resources in the world, only but some chores, and then your life will be complete.