Time to read up while we lock down! These six picks are $5 off for a limited time.

The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent by Gideon Haigh

H. V. ‘Doc’ Evatt has long been obscured by Menzies’s broad shadow, as the Labor Opposition Leader through the prosperous and complacent 1950s. In this book, one of our finest writers and sharpest minds shows Evatt in his true light: the most brilliant Australian of his day. Inspiring, cosmopolitan and humane, Evatt was the forerunner of Keating and Kirby, believing that Australia could be more than quiet and comfortable - it could be an example to the world of a compassionate, just, progressive society. The Brilliant Boy is a feat of remarkable historical perception, deep research and masterful storytelling.

Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud by Mehreen Faruqi

This is the story of a brown, migrant Muslim woman breaking into a white man’s world and striving to change it without being changed. It is an honest, no holds barred account of what happens when reality meets perception and when you shatter long held stereotypes and confront a system steeped in privileged hierarchies, racism and sexism. It is the tale of a political outsider fighting for her right and the rights of others like her to be let inside on their terms. From her beginnings in Pakistan and remaking in Australia, Mehreen recounts her struggle to navigate two vastly different, changing worlds without losing herself.

The Nordic Edge edited by Andrew Scott & Rod Campbell

The Nordic Edge explores policies adopted by Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland and the exciting possibilities they provide to overcome Australia’s seemingly intractable problems. Leading Australian and Nordic thinkers and policy practitioners, including Sweden’s recent Foreign Minister, outline proven approaches to help Australia become a fairer, happier, wealthier and more environmentally responsible country. Re-enter Australia’s policy debates with optimism, new ideas and a Nordic edge.

This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness – to stimulate, calm, or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine, and mescaline – and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation.

I Alone Can Fix It by Carol Leonnig & Philip Rucker

The true story of what took place in Donald Trump’s White House during a disastrous 2020 has never before been told in full. What was really going on around the president, as the government failed to contain the coronavirus and over half a million Americans perished? Who was influencing Trump after he refused to concede an election he had clearly lost and spread lies about election fraud? To answer these questions, Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig reveal a dysfunctional and bumbling presidency’s inner workings in unprecedented, stunning detail. Focused on Trump and the key players around him, Rucker and Leonnig provide a forensic account of the most devastating year in a presidency like no other.

Mother of Invention by Katrine Marcal

From the beginning of time, women have been pivotal to our society, offering ingenious solutions to some of our most vexing problems. And despite our current day successes, we still fail to find and fund the game-changing ideas that could alter the future of our planet, giving just 3% of venture capital to female founders. Instead, ingrained ideas about men and women continue to shape our economic decisions; favouring men and leading us to the same tired set of solutions. What would the world be like if we listened to women? Bestselling author Katrine Marcal reveals the shocking ways our deeply ingrained ideas about gender continue to hold us back.