Author aSense
ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam, by host of CBN’s The Watchman Erick Stakelbeck, unveils how the propaganda masters of Islamic State are determined to get the West’s attention. They’ve humiliated the Iraqi Army trained by America and seized territory in Iraq that had been secured at the cost of so much American blood and treasure. They’ve beheaded American journalists on camera in a direct challenge to the power and resolve of the United States. And now ISIS is calling for “city wolves” across the United States, Europe and Australia to act on their dedication to the Islamic State’s blood-drenched ideology and murder random Americans going about our daily business.
ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror is a revelatory look at the world’s most dangerous terrorist group. Initially dismissed by US President Barack Obama, along with other fledgling terrorist groups, as a “jayvee squad” compared to al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has shocked the world by conquering massive territories in both countries and promising to create a vast new Muslim caliphate that observes the strict dictates of Sharia law.
Bali 9: The Untold Story, written by two of Australia’s most respected journalists, tells a harrowing story. Earlier this year convicted Bali 9 drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran sang Amazing Grace as they faced a firing squad after being denied presidential pardons and having lost their final appeals in the notorious Indonesian justice system. Relations between Australia and Indonesia plummeted to new lows as a result of the murderous Widoto regimes embrace of the death sentence.
When Kate Grenville’s mother died she left behind many fragments of memoir. These were the starting point for One Life, the story of a woman whose life spanned a century of tumult. For many years, Nance recorded her memories in ordinary exercise books. The neatly handwritten stories start confidently, peter out after a few pages, and give way to Italian language exercises and other scribbled notes. One Life is an act of great imaginative sympathy, a daughter’s intimate account of the patterns in her mother’s life. It is a deeply moving homage by one of Australia’s finest writers.
Blackwater USA was the private army that the US government quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. Its contacts ran from miltiary and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House; it had a military base, a fleet of aircraft and 20,000 troops, but since September 2007 the firm has been hit by a series of scandals that, far from damaging the company, have led to an unprecedented period of expansion. This revised and updated edition includes Scahill’s continued investigative work into one of the greatest outrages of our time: the privatisation of war. While Barack Obama pledged to rein in mercenary forces when he was a senator, once he became president he continued to employ a massive shadow army of private contractors. Blackwater — despite numerous scandals, congressional investigations, FBI probes and documented killings of civilians in both Iraq and Afghanistan — remained a central part of the Obama administration’s global war machine throughout his first term in office.
From the mystique of the glamorous Kennedys to the tumult that surrounded Bill and Hillary Clinton during the president’s impeachment to the historic yet polarizing residency of Barack and Michelle Obama, each new administration brings a unique set of personalities to the White House; and a new set of challenges to the fiercely loyal and hardworking people who serve them: the White House residence staff. No one understands the president of the United States, and his family, like the men and women who make the White House run every day. Now, for the first time, their stories of fifty years, ten administrations, and countless crises, large and small, are told in The Residence. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with butlers, maids, chefs, florists, doormen, and other staffers–as well as former first ladies and first family members–Kate Andersen Brower offers a group portrait of the dedicated professionals who orchestrate lavish state dinners; stand ready during meetings with foreign dignitaries; care for the president and first lady’s young children; and cater to every need the first couple may have, however sublime or, on occasion, ridiculous.
From its birth in the late 1990s as the jihadist dream of terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Islamic State has grown into a massive enterprise, redrawing national borders across the Middle East and subjecting an area larger than the United Kingdom to its own vicious brand of Sharia law. This is not another terrorist network but a formidable enemy in tune with the new modernity of the current world disorder. One of the world’s leading experts on terror financing Loretta Napoleoni argues that Ignoring these facts is more than misleading and superficial, it is dangerous. ‘Know your enemy’ remains the most important adage in the fight against terrorism. Here is a book extract.
The Archipelago of Souls is a novel set on two islands. The experiences on one become an antidote for the dark experiences of the other. The exposed place is King Island, in Bass Strait, where Australian soldier Wesley Cress comes to live after World War II. Wesley grew up in the Western Districts of Victoria, joined the Australian army from Manly in NSW and ended up fighting a solo war on Crete after he managed to get left behind by his unit and thus became its only survivor. On Crete, the second island in the novel, Cress fought an idiosyncratic war both with himself and with a largely unseen enemy. Day’s account of Cress’ grinding struggle on Crete is remarkable in every way. It is based on exhaustive research into the combat on Crete, a less familiar chapter than some other battles, a theatre in which geography played no small part.
A Sense of Place Publishing is proud to announce the forthcoming book Terror in Australia: Workers’ Paradise Lost.
Prepubication drafts are now available for interested reviewers.
Please request a copy at: [email protected]
This book is a sidewinding missile into the heart of Australian hypocrisy.
Terror in Australia: Workers’ Paradise Lost, by veteran journalist John Stapleton, is a beautifully written snapshot of a pivotal turning point in the history of the so-called Lucky Country.
Will Hillary Clinton be the next US President? A showdown between her and Donald Trump could turn out to be one of the most colourful presidential campaigns in the nation’s history. Don’t you want to see a woman in the White House? Clinton asks. Well yes, but whether or not it is her, on that question Americans are deeply divided. Critics believe her election would be a disaster for the nation’s security and foreign policy. In an attempt to humanise herself, in Hard Choices: A Memoir the 67-year-old pitches herself as a mother and a grandmother as much as a politician and a diplomat.
Kerry Packer was instrumental in shaping Australia’s media landscape and culture. For 30 years he controlled television’s perennial ratings leader Channel Nine, and a large percentage of the nation’s most influential magazines. So much of what Australians watched, read and believed came through the prism of this larger-than-life man. Beneath all the billionaire clutter, Kerry Packer had plenty in common with the average Joe: a cheeky humour, a competitive drive, deep love for his kids, a passion for sports and movies. In business, Kerry Packer would fight to the last dollar in a deal. Yet the same man would take his private jet to Las Vegas and lose more than $20 million in a week – then leave a $1 million tip. In his Park Street, Sydney office, where the visitors’ chairs were clustered in front of his giant desk, Packer would verbally dissect a hapless executive, but no less often, the very same man would step in silently and invisibly when hardship or tragedy struck a loyal staffer or their family.
The Australian Moment: How We Were Made For These Times is the book on which the 2015 television series Making Australia Great is based. Journalist George Megalogenis won the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award and the 2012 Walkley Book Award for his bestselling political book. This newly published additions includes a new afterward and appendix. Megalogenis argues that there is no better place to be during economic turbulence than Australia: “Brilliant in a bust, we’ve learnt to use our brains in a boom. Despite a lingering inability to acknowledge our achievements at home, the rest of the world asks: how did we get it right?”
Rolling Stone dismissed the movie American Sniper as being “too dumb to comment”. Thankfully the public saw it differently; it was nominated for an Oscar and rapidly took its place as one of the most commercially successful films of all time. Clint Eastwood was born to direct this powerful movie, starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller. This special edition of the book on which it was based, the #1 New York Times bestseller American Sniper, the autobiography of Chris Kyle, is packed with brand new material to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.
Malcolm Fraser, Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister, has passed away, remembered as a “a giant of Australian politics” and a “great moral compass”. Malcolm Fraser: A Political Memoir, was written as part authorised biography, part personal testament with journalist Margaret Simons. It was published in 2010 and much praised by the reading public. Scion of a wealthy country family, educated at Oxford, he became one of the towering figures of Australian politics, championing multiculturalism, Aboriginal rights and a greater role for the country internationally.
Washington insider Michael O’Brien’s new book, America’s Destruction of Iraq, details the origins of the Islamic State’s rise to power now being witnessed on the world’s televisions.
Bound to be one of the most significant Australian political books of 2015, Paul Keating: The Biography by David Day is arguably the most substantial biography yet of one of the country’s most admired and derided of political figures. As time has passed Keating’s detractors have become more respectful as he has attained the aura of a grand old man of the left. He is increasingly looked back on as inspired and temperamental, as reflecting a time when Australian politics were full of excitement.
The city-state’s Prime Minister for 31 years, Lee Kuan Yew oversaw Singapore’s independence from Britain and separation from Malaysia. At the time of his passing in March, 2015, he had been in hospital for several weeks with pneumonia and was on life support. The BBC recorded: “He was widely respected as the architect of Singapore’s prosperity. But he was criticised for his iron grip on power. Under him freedom of speech was tightly restricted and political opponents were targeted by the courts. In March there was a state funeral after a week of mourning. Singapore came to a standstill. Thousands of Singaporeans braved heavy rains to farewell the country’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, whose funeral drew a long list of leaders and dignitaries from across the globe. From Third World To First: Singapore and the Asian Economic Boom tells in Lee Kuan Yew’s own words the story of the transformation of Singapore. He was revered as the creator of one of the greatest economic and social success stories of modern times.
Terry Pratchett was the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. His fortieth Discworld novel, Raising Steam, was published in 2013. It is a world peopled by incompetent wizards, upside-down mountains, slow-witted barbarians and a wry incarnation of Death which began as a cheerful parody of fantasy authors from JRR Tolkien to Ursula K Le Guin. His 70 plus novels are reported to have sold more than 75 million copies; he was one of the UK’s most beloved authors. There were so many visitors to his website after the news of his death earlier this year at the age of 66 his publisher’s website crashed.
The protagonist in the novella Attack at the Dolphin is caught between an enduring love for her husband and lust for a “toy boy”, a cadet at the newspaper where she works. Set against the backdrop of the high rolling heavy drinking Sydney of the 1990s, this delightful romp is written by former Sydney Morning Herald journalist and woman-about-town Bridget Wilson.
Attack at the Dolphin is a sometimes painful, always moving, often funny meditation on marriage and infidelity, love and lust, loyalty and treachery.
Australia’s best known Muslim community spokesman Keysar Trad has confounded friend and foe with his first serious book of poetry, Forays of the Heart. The book conflicts with the rabid reputation given to Keysar Trad by some talk back radio hosts and more extreme bloggers. Trad describes the book as a “broadcast of profound love”. The poems are peans of love directed at women other than his wife. The book records the distractions of love that came the author’s way during his toughest challenges. Humorous at times, the soul searching in these poems brings the reader to the universal experience of “love”. At a time when so-called marriage equality is the chant of the mainstream media, others are asking why these issues should be on the statute books at all, why a cultural institution like marriage belongs in the hands of the law makers, when, depending on your perspective, it belongs in the hands of the people themselves. Who are these people to tell other people how to live?
Last year was a “blood year” in the Middle East – massacres and beheadings, fallen cities, collapsed and collapsing states, the unravelling of a decade of Western strategy. We saw the rise of ISIS, the splintering of government in Iraq, and foreign fighters – many from Europe, Australia and Africa – flowing into Syria at a rate ten times that during the height of the Iraq War. What went wrong?
Thousands of hours of research by renowned theater and television writer Eric Bogosian’s has turned his new book Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged The Armenian Genoicide into a fluid, riveting.
2015 marks the Centenary of the largest ever massacre of Christians in history, in Armenia in 1915, when Muslim Turks turned the streets to blood. This is a masterful account of the assassins who hunted down the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.
An Indonesian court recently rejected the final appeals for clemency for a group of foreigners facing the death penalty for drug charges, attracting worldwide condemnation. The Indonesians didn’t care. The foreigners were perfect fodder for one of the largest and most expensively orchestrated jihad spectacles the world has ever seen. Snowing in Bali lays bare just how common drugs have been in Bali for decades, and how closely allied with the trade are the Indonesian elites. Indonesia’s President Wododo faced a storm of international criticism for refusing to grant clemency; and was entirely indifferent. In the world’s largest Muslim country, a religious grouping incensed worldwide by the conduct of Westerners in the Middle East, the killing of foreigners is not something that on the face of it caused any distress to the locals. Amongst others, Australian taxpayers contribute almost a billion dollars in foreign aid to Indonesia each year, but the President did not even bothered to take the Australian Prime Minister’s calls. The Indonesian justice system is notoriously corrupt; and has now been laid bare for the world to see. Those who sold the drugs to the foreigners were never charged. The police who took their usual bribes were never charged. And Indonesia got exactly the jihad spectacle it wanted.
Inside Australia’s Anti-terrorism Laws and Trials, by leading legal experts Andrew Lynch, Nicola McGarrity and George Williams, tracks developments since the nation’s first anti-terrorism laws were introduced in great haste and, as the authors observe, were stunning in scope and number. They claim latest laws introduced in 2014 were similarly extensive and controversial. Yet again, powers and sanctions once thought to lie outside the rules of a liberal democracy except during wartime have become part of Australian law.
With Australia’s terror alert at the highest level possible and following the recent detention of terrorists planning attacks on the Centenary celebrations of Anzac Day, security has been stepped up around Australia; and most notably at Gallipoli in Turkey, where both the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot and New Zealand Prime Minister Peter Key will attend. Both Prime Ministers, having taken their nation’s military back into Iraq in the fight against Islamic State, are prime targets. Peter Fitzsimons best selling book Gallipoli records how, on 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France.
The Story: A Reporter’s Journey is written by Judith Miller, star reporter for the New York Times, the world’s most powerful newspaper. She was the journalist most responsible for triggering the Iraq War with stories claiming the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. She got it wrong.
Anna Bligh made history when she became the first woman to lead a party to victory in a State election in Australia. Through the Wall: Reflections on Leadership, Love and Survival tells her story.
Big Time is the back-story of Mr Big from the TV series Sex and the City. It follows 10 years of Mr Big’s life from a carefree thirty-year-old banker to a married man, through his subsequent divorce, before he met Carrie in the first episode of the show. The story – from a man’s perspective – gives depth to a character many viewers of the television series were attracted to yet thought of as narcissistic. The intent in writing this story was for the reader to get to know and understand the man who was reluctant – or even unable – to commit to Carrie in the series.
Diabolically clever, massively entertaining, the announcement by Netflix that House of Cards is to go into a fourth season in 2016 has delighted millions of fans. If you’ve ever wondered how the phenomenon began, here’s your chance to buy the book which started it all. The new season coincides with the US election campaign. Both the series and the election will be fascinating to watch!!
Thailand: Deadly Destination exposes one of the worst scandals in the annals of modern tourism, the high rate of deaths and misadventures befalling foreigners in the so-called Land of Smiles.
The daily robbing, bashing, drugging, extortion and murder of foreign tourists on Thai soil, along with numerous scandals involving …
Thailand: Deadly Destination by veteran journalist John Stapleton exposes the worst scandal in the annals of modern tourism, the murder, robbery and assault of tourists in the land of smiles.