Books | UNSW Press

The Best Australian Science Writing 2020

Edited by Sara Phillips, foreword by Peter C. Doherty

The annual collection – now in its tenth year – celebrating the finest voices in Australian science writing.

From the frozen wastes of Antarctica to the burning ruins of the Bali bombings, For Gallantry tells the stories of the 28 Australians awarded the nation's highest non-combat awards for bravery: the Imperial George Cross and its Australian Honours and Awards replacement, the Cross of Valour.

Sydney has always been the sexiest and brashest of our cities, but perhaps the most misunderstood. In this new edition of Sydney , Delia Falconer conjures up its sandstone, humidity and jacarandas, its fireworks, glitz and magic. But she discards lazy stereotypes to reveal a complex city: beautiful, violent, half-wild, and at times deeply spiritual.

Australian Universities

Gwilym Croucher, James Waghorne

Few of Australia's institutions are as significant or as complex as its universities. This first comprehensive history of Australia's university system explores how universities work and for whom, and how their relationship with each other, their staff and students and the public has evolved over a century.

Dr Amanda Laugesen

*Included in ABR's Books of the Year 2020* Bugger, rooted, bloody oath…

Australian Women Pilots

There's a lot of aeroplanes and aviators down in that water. Thank God I'm not one of them.

A strong sense of 'otherness' defines Canberra to a point where there is a smugness, bordering on arrogance, that the rest of Australia can hate – but they'll never know just how good it is to live here.

This is a book about the textures, colours, sounds and frontier stories of Darwin, Australia's smallest and least-known capital city.

Kerryn Goldsworthy

Any place you have experienced first-hand is a museum of memory, one whose exhibits conjure up, in widening ripples of association, a whole city: a red paddle-boat, a photograph of three children on a hot day, a marble Venus fetchingly half-naked in the shade.

Edited by Tanya Plibersek

COVID-19 has resulted in changes none of us could have imagined, but what happens next?

The Bible in Australia

WINNER of the Nonfiction Award 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature

Sophie Cunningham

Melbourne's a city you get to know from the inside out – you have to walk it to love it. My favourite time to do this is at night. That's when you capture glimpses of people – eating, laughing, talking, arguing, watching TV and reading – through half-open terrace house doors and windows … It is a city of inside places and conversation. Of intimacy.

MONA has done a lot more than just rescue a flagging tourism economy. It has changed the city's body language, teaching it to stand up straight and look others squarely in the eye, even putting a swagger in its step.

Brisbane reveals a city of wooden houses where mango trees abound, where the serpentine river seems to be of the city and yet somehow not, where ghostly memories of demolished landmarks like Cloudland and The Bellevue Hotel hover and where the chime of the City Hall clock echoes through time and place.

David Whish-Wilson

David Whish-Wilson's Perth is a place where deeper historical currents are never far beneath the surface. Like the Swan River that can flow in two directions at once, Perth strikes perfect harmony with the city's contradictions and eccentricities.

The Long Shadow

Living with the Anthropocene

Edited by Mr Cameron Muir, Kirsten Wehner, Jenny Newell

Personal and urgent, this is a literary anthology for our age, the age of humans.

The Ways of the Bushwalker

Whether you are inclined to put on your walking boots and pack your sleeping bag, or would rather stay in a luxury hut, this surefooted and witty book reveals how the ordinary act of walking can become extraordinary.

We've had a decade of distraction and inaction on climate change, but what made things go so very wrong in Australia? And what can the rest of the world learn from our mistakes – and opportunities?

How to Win an Election

How To Win An Election spells out the ten things a political leader and their party must excel at to maximise the chance of success, and against which they should be accountable between and during elections.

Katerina Bryant

In the tradition of Siri Hustvedt's The Shaking Woman , Bryant blends memoir with literary and historical analysis to explore women's medical treatment. Hysteria

An epic journey of discovery into the heart of a vast and contested Australian wilderness.

What does a full-blown Fire Age look like? We are about to find out, and Australia will feel the looking-glass transition from an ice world to a fire world more fully and suddenly than elsewhere.

Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, Joanna Atherfold Finn

'I'm going plastic free next month, who wants to join me?'

Sacha Molitorisz

Rigorous and engaging, this book examines the minutiae of our digital lives while drawing on a philosophy of ethical and legal frameworks based on the thinking of philosopher Immanuel Kant. With a firm eye on the cutting edge of digital developments, Sacha Molitorisz outlines a robust model of individual consent.

The Future of Us

Demography is far more important than destiny. By tracing connections between a population's past and present, demographers can foresee its future. The true wonder of demography, though, is not its ability to predict the future but to shape it. With energy and passion, demographer Liz Allen sets out the potential paths to make Australia better.

Dr Catherine Bond

During the Great War law was used in everyday life as a tool to discriminate, oppress, censor and deprive many Australians of property, liberty and basic human rights.

Law, Politics and Intelligence

Robert Marsden Hope (1919–99), a NSW Supreme Court judge, shaped the structures, operations and doctrines of Australia's intelligence agencies more than any other individual.

Michael Bennett

There are few Aboriginal icons in White Australia history.

British India, White Australia

Dr Kama Maclean

*Highly Commended — Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2021*

Slam Your Poetry

Miles Merrill, Narcisa Nozica

No props. No music. No costumes. Just you, your words and a mic-you've got two minutes to make the crowd scream your name.

Fighting For Our Lives

'An incredible testimony to the darkest hours of Australia's queer history – and the organisation that helped change everything. A story of devastation, resistance and, ultimately, survival, every Australian should know.' — Benjamin Law

Local Government Engineers' Association

This book celebrates the first 100 years of the Local Government Engineers' Association of NSW, a steadfast advocate for both its members and the broader community.

Melbourne Remember When

Remember dropping into the Coles Cafeteria on Bourke Street for a feast of rashers, sausages and mash, with gravy, from the bain marie

Botanical Revelation

David J. Mabberley

Acclaimed author David Mabberley provides a ground-breaking analysis of early European understanding of Australia's flora.

Trials and Transformations, 2001-2004

Edited by Tom Frame

Few periods in Australian political history have generated more controversy than 2001–2004.