Download or read book Romulus My Father written by Raimond Gaita and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 1999-09-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 1998 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, Romulus, My Father is an iconic and deeply loved book. Romulus Gaita fled his home in his native Yugoslavia at the age of thirteen, and came to Australia with his young wife Christina and their infant son Raimond soon after the end of World War II. Tragic events were to overtake the boy's life, but Raimond Gaita has an extraordinary story to tell about growing up with his father amid the stony paddocks and flowing grasses of country Australia. Written simply and movingly, Romulus, My Father is about how a compassionate and honest man taught his son the meaning of living a decent life. It is about passion, betrayal and madness, about friendship and the joy and dignity of work, about character and fate, affliction and spirituality. No one will read this wonderful book without an enhanced sense of the possibilities of being alive. 'I know of no other book where the love between father and son has been more beautifully expressed.' Robert Manne

Download or read book After Romulus written by Raimond Gaita and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-29 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'People have often asked me how I survived my childhood reasonably sane. They think it was because my father and Hora loved me deeply and that I never doubted it. But as much as, perhaps more than that, it was the fact that I came to see the world in the light that my father’s goodness cast upon it.' Raimond Gaita In 1998, Raimond Gaita’s Romulus, My Father was first published—the story of his father who came to Australia from Europe with his young wife Christine and their four-year-old son after the end of the Second World War. In the isolated landscape of country Victoria, Christine succumbed to mental illness, and a series of tragedies befell the family. Described as ‘a profound meditation on love and death, madness and truth, judgment and compassion’, Romulus, My Father became an instant classic. Now, thirteen years later, and four years after the release of the film, Raimond Gaita has put together this collection in which he reflects on the writing of the book, the making of the film, his relationship to the desolate beauty of the central Victorian landscape, the philosophies that underpinned his father’s relationship to the world and, most movingly, the presence and absence of his mother and his unassuaged longing for her.

Download or read book Romulus written by Marc Hyden and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting biography of the legendary founder and first king of Rome. According to legend, Romulus was born to a Vestal Virgin and left for dead as an infant near the Tiber River. His life nearly ended as quickly as it began, but fate had other plans. A humble shepherd rescued the child and helped raise him into manhood. As Romulus grew older, he fearlessly engaged in a series of perilous adventures that ultimately culminated in Rome’s founding, and he became its fabled first king. Establishing a new city had its price, and Romulus was forced to defend the nascent community. As he tirelessly safeguarded Rome, Romulus proved that he was a competent leader and talented general. Yet, he also harbored a dark side, which reared its head in many ways and tainted his legacy, but despite all of his misdeeds, redemption and subsequent triumphs were usually within his grasp. Indeed, he is an example of how greatness is sometimes born of disgrace. Regardless of his foreboding flaws, Rome allegedly existed because of him and became massively successful. As the centuries passed, the Romans never forgot their celebrated founder. This is the story that many ancient Romans believed. Praise for Romulus “Hyden leans into a tone reminiscent of a bard regaling those around a campfire with stories of a hero’s great exploits . . . [He tells] a fascinating origin story.” —Booklist “As inherently fascinating a read as it is an impressive work of meticulous scholarship . . . a truly extraordinary, expressly informative, and highly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Roman History & Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies reading lists.” —Midwest Book Review

Download or read book The Philosopher s Dog written by Raimond Gaita and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this beautifully written book Raimond Gaita tells inspirational, poignant, sometimes funny but never sentimental stories of the dogs, cats and cockatoos that lived and died within his own family. He asks fascinating questions about animals: Is it wrong to attribute the concepts of love, devotion, loyalty, grief or friendship to them? Why do we care so much for some creatures but not for others? Why are we so concerned with proving that animals have minds? Reflecting on these questions, and drawing on the ideas of Descartes, Wittgenstein and J.M. Coetzee, Gaita pleads that we ask ourselves what it means to be creatures of ‘flesh and blood.’ He discusses mortality and sexuality, the relations between storytelling, philosophy and science and the spiritual love of mountains. An arresting and profound book, The Philosopher’s Dog is a triumph of both storytelling and philosophy. This Routledge Classics edition includes a substantial new introduction and afterword by the author.

Download or read book This Is Not My Memoir written by André Gregory and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography-of-sorts of André Gregory, an iconic figure in American theater and the star of My Dinner with André This is Not My Memoir tells the life story of André Gregory, iconic theatre director, writer, and actor. For the first time, Gregory shares memories from a life lived for art, including stories from the making of My Dinner with André. Taking on the dizzying, wondrous nature of a fever dream, This is Not My Memoir includes fantastic and fantastical stories that take the reader from wartime Paris to golden-age Hollywood, from avant-garde theaters to monasteries in India. Along the way we meet Jerzy Grotowski, Helene Weigel, Gregory Peck, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Wallace Shawn, and many other larger-than-life personalities. This is Not My Memoir is a collaboration between Gregory and Todd London who create a portrait of an artist confronting his later years. Here, too, are the reflections of a man who only recently learned how to love. What does it mean to create art in a world that often places little value on the process of creating it? And what does it mean to confront the process of aging when your greatest work of art may well be your own life?

Download or read book 52 Reasons to Hate My Father written by Jessica Brody and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being America's favorite heiress is a dirty job...but someone's gotta do it. Lexington Larrabee has never had to work a day in her life. After all, she's the heiress to the multi-billion-dollar Larrabee Media empire. And heiresses are not supposed to work. But then again, they're not supposed to crash brand-new Mercedes convertibles into convenience stores on Sunset Boulevard either. Which is why, on Lexi's eighteenth birthday, her ever-absent, tycoon father decides to take a more proactive approach to her wayward life. Every week for the next year, she will have to take on a different low-wage job if she ever wants to receive her beloved trust fund. But if there's anything worse than working as a maid, a dishwasher, and a fast-food restaurant employee, it's dealing with Luke, the arrogant, albeit moderately attractive, college intern her father has assigned to keep tabs on her. In Jessica Brody's hilarious "comedy of heiress" about family, forgiveness, good intentions, and best of all, second chances, Lexi learns that love can be unconditional, money can be immaterial, and regardless of age, everyone needs a little saving. And although she might have fifty-two reasons to hate her father, she only needs one reason to love him.

Download or read book A Common Humanity written by Raimond Gaita and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This profound and arresting book draws on a wealth of examples to paint a provocative new picture of our common humanity.

Download or read book Good Muslim Boy written by Osamah Sami and published by Hardie Grant Books. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good Muslim Boy tells the story of Osamah Sami’s journey from Iran during the Iraq war to the suburbs of Australia and his quest to fit into his new life whilst trying to stay a good Muslim boy. In turns comic and tragic, Osamah’s story explores the universal truths of growing up, falling in love, marriage, family and following one's dream; whilst also telling the immigrant’s story of straddling two cultures and the difficult expectations of family and faith versus fitting in. Osamah begins by recounting his youth under Islamic rule in Iran: the mischievous antics that he and his friends would get up to, and the lengths they would go to for a little contact with girls – resulting in hilarious reprimands from the ‘Piety Police’. But the inescapable impacts of war are never far away and Osmah details the trauma his family suffered from the violence in Iran and their desperation to reach safer shores in Australia. Cut to Australia years later where Osamah is pretending to attend university after lying to his family about his final high school results, afraid of the shame it will it cause to learn that their son didn’t make it into medical school. While embroiled in his lie, Osamah meets the girl of his dreams – but as neither of their parents would approve of their relationship, they must carry out their affair in secret... What ensues must be read to be believed, an arranged marriage is escaped; true love is embraced; and an acting career evolves, as Osamah goes on the road staging a show entitled ‘Saddam The Musical’. With a distinct authorial voice, Osamah Sami’s A Good Muslim Boy unfolds and enchants us; both funny and entertaining, we are enlightened, shocked, saddened, made to laugh, and ultimately uplifted in a tale that couldn’t come at a more prescient time.

Download or read book The History of Rome written by Livy and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Special Exits written by Joyce Farmer and published by Fantagraphics Books. This book was released on 2014-08-03 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joyce Farmer's memoir chronicles the decline of the author's parents' health, their relationship with one another and with their daughter, and how they cope with the day-to-day emotional fragility of the most taxing time of their lives. Joyce Farmer, best known for co-creating the Tits 'n Clits comics anthology in the 1970s, a feminist response to the rampant misogyny in underground comix, spent 11 years crafting Special Exits, a graphic memoir in the vein of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home or Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Frank Stack's Our Cancer Year, about caring for her dying father and stepmother.

Download or read book Australian Patriography written by Stephen Mansfield and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2013-05-15 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Son’s Book of the Father, as Richard Freadman termed it, is a rich field of relational autobiography, offering a unique set of tensions and insights into modes of masculinity, notions of identity and the ethics of representing another’s life in writing one’s own. This study of modern Australian life writing by sons who focus on fathers places an emerging sub-genre within its literary ancestry and its contemporary milieu. Providing compelling readings of Raimond Gaita’s ‘Romulus, My Father’, Peter Rose’s ‘Rose Boys’ and many others, this is the first study of its kind within Australian literature.

Download or read book Essays on Muslims Multiculturalism written by Raimond Gaita and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: September 11 2001 marked a change inAustralian attitudes towards immigrants. The spotlight was on Muslims. This collection of thought-provoking essays looks at multiculturalism's successes and failures in providing a secure, well-integrated, free and fair Australia. Philosopher and writer Raimond Gaita has gathered some of Australia's leading writers in the field to examine an issue that goes to the heart of Australia's identity. Author and lawyer Waleed Aly examines the role that the media has played in anti-Islamic myth-making in popular Western culture. Writer and researcher Shakira Hussein looks at how Australia's immigration policy has changed the cultural landscape. Geoffrey Brahm Levey writes on multiculturalism and terror and Raimond Gaita on 'the war on terror'.

Download or read book Reckoning written by Magda Szubanski and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-23 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Book of the Year and Biography of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards, 2016 Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia's most beloved performers, tells her story. In this extraordinary memoir, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father's espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on. Honest, poignant, utterly captivating, Reckoning announces the arrival of a fearless writer and natural storyteller. It will touch the lives of its readers. Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s best known and most loved performers. She began her career in university revues, then appeared in a number of sketch comedy shows before creating the iconic character of Sharon Strzelecki in ABC-TV’s Kath and Kim. She has also acted in films (Babe, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, The Golden Compass) and stage shows. Reckoning is her first book. ‘A brave and tender book about everything that matters most in life.’ Cate Blanchett ‘This is a remarkable memoir, that weaves the tragedy of twentieth century history into a personal narrative of coming to terms with family and self, and manages to honour both stories. The writing is assured and controlled, the storytelling expert and thoughtful, the language eloquent and moving. The writing, the story, the voice—all of it is beautiful.’ Christos Tsiolkas ‘A memoir that will dazzle every kind of reader...Reckoning is a riveting, overwhelmingly poignant autobiography by a woman of genius. It is a book about how someone might live with the idea of killing the thing they love. It is a story of love and death and redemption and a daughter’s love for her father. It is an extraordinary hymn to the tragic heroism at the heart of ordinary life and the soaring moral scrutiny of womankind. Every library should have it, every school should teach it.’ Weekend Australian ‘Unlike most autobiographies by famous people, Reckoning has substance beyond the writer’s fame...Szubanski’s fine memoir, written with great style, adds another layer to our history.’ Crikey ‘This is documentary writing of the highest order and Szubanski has given life to an incredible war story...This tale of war and suburbia, sexuality and comedy, is likely to be the most popular Australian book of the year.’ Age/Sydney Morning Herald ‘This is an inspiring memoir of a woman who faced her demons, sought treatment for depression and overcame disappointments.’ Good Reading ‘A page-turner...[Szubanski] is articulate and likeable as she tries to reconcile herself with the many difficult aspects of her past.’ New Zealand Herald 'Reckoning is a beautiful and moving story of a serious, thoughtful and complex person.' Paul Barclay, ABC Radio National Books and Arts, Best Books 2015 ‘Magda Szubanski’s brave, compassionate—and hilarious—Reckoning may be some sort of masterpiece of the form.’ Australian, Best Books 2015 ‘A deeply personal read—sometimes uncomfortable so—but Magda is an honest, forthright guide, and her love for her parents (and her siblings, especially older sister Barbara) shine through. This is not a sentimental read, nor is it a self-pitying one, but it’s a warm, intelligent, brave and occasionally eye-opening one. I found it utterly captivating and came away from it feeling as if Magda had somehow exonerated the ghosts of her family’s past—or at least come to terms with them.’ Reading Matters ‘This was an interesting read that I would highly recommend to both those who have heard of Magda and for those who haven’t. I am definitely going to be checking out more of her work. 4/5’ Debra’s Book Cafe ‘Hard hitting and superbly told...If there’s one memoir you should read this year regardless of whether or not you know the author, it’s this one.’ Worm Hole ‘This memoir uncovers long-held secrets with disarming candour. Not a celebrity exposé as much as a family history, Reckoning is moving and compassionate. That Szubanski can act is a given fact; that she can also write is revelatory.’ Best Books of 2016, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Magda Szubanski’s memoir, Reckoning, appealed to the genre-loving reader in me. It felt as if I was watching hundreds of movies; wartime espionage, the migrant’s journey, the coming-of-age school saga, the uni student’s journey at the height of 1970s feminism, and more. It was epic, but so uniquely Australian and despite our different upbringings, it felt personal. As if it was written specifically for that younger me who took forever to feel comfortable in her own skin, so she could take on the world.’ Melina Marchetta, Best Books of 2016, Guardian ‘Magda Szubanski lays bare her remarkable family history in the beautifully written, powerful and at time harrowing Reckoning...One of the finest memoirs of the year, through all of the dark places, Reckoning never loses sight of her remarkable wit.’ SBS ‘Honest, poignant, utterly captivating, Reckoning announces the arrival of a fearless writer and natural storyteller. It will touch the lives of its readers.’ Starts at 60 p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none}

Download or read book A Wolf at the Table written by Augusten Burroughs and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we'd ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes...I wasn't altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?" When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl. Something dark and secretive that could not be named. Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten's childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn't exist for him. This father was distant, aloof, uninterested... And then the "games" began. With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, A Wolf at the Table will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It's a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.

Download or read book A Common Humanity written by Raimond Gaita and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This profound and arresting book draws on a wealth of examples to paint a provocative new picture of our common humanity.

Download or read book Oh Lucky Country written by Rosa Cappiello and published by Sydney University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oh Lucky Country (Paese fortunato) uses first-person point of view to inflate migrant oppression to such absurdist proportions that its swirling narrative boils over into a maelstrom, washing away all migrant clichés. It is a witty, tragi-comic view of Australian society, culture and prejudice. This new edition of Oh Lucky Country, with introductions by Nicole Moore and Gaetano Rando, is a part of the Australian Classics Library series intended to make classic texts of Australian literature more widely available for the secondary school and undergraduate university classroom, and to the general reader. The series is co-edited by Emeritus Professor Bruce Bennett of the University of New South Wales and Professor Robert Dixon, Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, in conjunction with SETIS, Sydney University Press, AustLit and the Copyright Agency Limited. Each text is accompanied by a fresh scholarly introduction and a basic editorial apparatus drawn from the resources of AustLit. Rosa Cappiello was born in Naples, Italy, in 1942. She migrated to Australia in 1971 with no knowledge of English and no skills and worked in various manual occupations. She published her first novel, I semi negri (The Black Seeds) in 1977 in Italy. In 1982, she was writer-in-residence at the University of Wollongong. She died in 2008 in Italy.

Download or read book The Last Thread written by Michael Sala and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michaelis is four when they first move to Australia, leaving behind the cold and the snow and the mud, the flat grey landscape, his father, his mother’s family, and everything he has ever known. He is seven when they pack up again and go home, nine when they return to Australia. When you are used to it, leaving is the easiest thing in the world—and where the sea is warm and the days linger, it is easier to forget. But his stepfather is a bully, and the absence of his real father masks a painful truth. Before long, Michaelis learns that no matter how far you go, your past always follows you, trailing questions in its wake. Beginning with memory’s first fragments, The Last Thread traces a boy’s journey into adulthood against a backdrop of family secrets, betrayals and unhealed wounds. Michael Sala was born in the Netherlands in 1975 to a Greek father and a Dutch mother, and first came to Australia in the 1980s. He lives in Newcastle. His critically acclaimed debut, The Last Thread, won the 2013 NSW Premier's Award for New Writing and was the regional winner (Pacific) of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize. ‘Michael Sala has a rare gift: in prose that takes your breath away, he tells a story of heart-rending sorrow without a trace of sentimentality.’ Raimond Gaita ‘A confronting and compelling story of a family. Sala captures perfectly the puzzled silence of the uncomprehending child in a narrative swollen with unspoken secrets.’ Debra Adelaide ‘A gutsy, moving, beautifully wrought and utterly compelling work.’ Readings Monthly ‘There is so much to praise about this book. Michael Sala’s prose is clear and unadorned, the setting exquisitely rendered, but it is his characters—all of them flawed and complex and deeply, deeply human—who will stay with me for a very long time. I would defy anyone to read this story and remain unmoved. The Restorer is an incredibly powerful novel and, I believe, an important one.’ Hannah Kent on The Restorer