Join us for the launch of Jenny Valentish’s Everything Harder than Everyone Else: Why Some of Us Push Our Bodies to Extremes.

In her latest book, Valentish meets porn stars, bare-knuckle boxers, performance artists and BDSM lifers, revealing what their endeavours in endurance can teach us about the human condition.

Jenny will be joined by Australian wrestling legend KrackerJak who has faced everyone from former WWE Superstars to feared indie legends since starting out in 1999, and takes ill-advised sojourns into deathmatch wrestling, wielding wild home-cobbled weapons and being struck by more of the same.

The Q&A is led by Scarlett Harris, an Australian culture critic, with a focus on professional wrestling and television. Her book A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler is out now.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

Please book here.

August salon and launch of Muddy People with the QUT Literary Salon

We are thrilled to announce that our annual Talkfest will take place on Tuesday 11th August at 7:30pm at Northcote High School Hall. This year’s theme is Writing Resilience, join Ruth Clare author of Enemy and NHS parent, who will speak with an exceptional panel of authors; Alice Pung, Evelyn Araluen and Sarah Krasnostein.

Alice Pung is one of Australia’s most beloved writers, known for her bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, as well as the anthology Growing Up Asian in Australia. Her young adult novel, Laurinda, won the Ethel Turner Prize at the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.

Now, Pung is back with a brand new and equally compelling story. Her new novel, One Hundred Days, examines a complex mother-daughter relationship. When sixteen-year-old Karuna discovers she is pregnant, her overprotective mother confines her to their fourteenth-storey housing-commission flat. Brimming with honesty, fearlessness and heart, One Hundred Days asks: what separates love from control?

Join Pung over lunch at Montalto as she discusses this fractured fairytale with host Melanie Cheng. Please arrive at 12pm for a 12.30pm start.

We are thrilled to have Fiona Patten MP launch Barbara Minchinton’s The Women of Little Lon.

This book is a vivid account of a remarkable but little-known chapter in Melbourne’s history. Sex workers in nineteenth-century Melbourne were judged morally corrupt by the respectable world around them. But theirs was a thriving trade, with links to the police and political leaders of the day, and the leading brothels were usually managed by women. While today a popular bar and a city lane are famously named after Madame Brussels, the identities of the other ‘flash madams’, the ‘dressed girls’ who worked for them and the hundreds of women who solicited on the streets of the Little Lon district of Melbourne are not remembered. Drawing on the findings of recent archaeological excavations, rare archival material and family records, historian Barbara Minchinton brings the fascinating world of Little Lon to life.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

The Melbourne Business Network has brought together a special panel to create an incredible in-person event to help all of us Recharge, Reset and move on through to Recovery.

Moderated by "That Optimism Guy" Victor Perton, he will lead the discussion with special guest Andrew Wear, who is launching his 2nd book Recovery. Andrew will share his insights on past recoveries, what went well, what we should do differently and what the lessons might be for the recovery ahead of us. Joining Andrew on the panel is MBN President Wendi Dawson.

Sara El Sayed will be discussing her debut memoir Muddy People at Avid Reader.

Andrew Wear joins us to launch his new book, Recovery.

In times of crisis lies opportunity. Recovery shows us how we can build back better after COVID-19.

Matilda Bookshop and Burnside Library are pleased to co-host ex-Australian Intelligence Officer, Rod Barton.

He was no James Bond with a licence to kill, but during his career he worked with the British Intelligence Services and with, and for, the CIA. He had guns pointed at him, death threats issued and a price placed on his head. This promises to be an exciting event as Rod elaborates on his extraordinary experiences throughout an incredible career. It will be illustrated with photos.

So many facets of our current financial system are unsound - it's time to imagine something new. Yanis Varoufakis, former Finance Minister of Greece, shares theories and hopes for a new world.

From the GFC to global warming to the global pandemic, the world economy and environment has suffered some major knocks. Governments around the world are reluctant to make the sorts of major reforms that many are calling for. In the meantime, corporate tax evasion is rampant, public health and education are being stripped of resources, environmental targets are being ignored or not met, our reliance on cheap labour is exploiting our most vulnerable, and societies are becoming more unequal.

So what do we do about it? What radical new ideas can turn us towards a better future? Watch these two great minds grapple with the problems that will make or break our future.

In times of crisis lies opportunity. Recovery shows us how we can build back better after COVID-19.

With governments prepared to lead, listen to experts and involve communities in decision-making, not only is a successful recovery possible – we can also choose to re-evaluate many of the things we thought were fixed. We have an opportunity to build back better.

Andrew will be in conversation with Warwick Smith, Co-founder and economist at Castlemaine Institute.

Mark McKenna has come to be regarded as one of Australia’s most esteemed historians. His new book, Return to Uluru, unravels the story of an incident which occurred at Uluru in 1934, the killing of an Aboriginal man by a white policeman, a story that Mark came to see as a mirror for race relations during those early years of exploration of the centre.

Please note the change of date for this event.

Andrew Wear (author of the highly acclaimed Solved) discusses his latest book, Recovery - How We Can Create A Better, Brighter Future After A Crisis.