The Sydney Institute,

Plimer argues that there has been no critical due diligence of the science of climate change, dogma dominates, sceptics are pilloried and 17th Century thinking promotes prophets of doom, guilt and penance. Plimer at University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor at University Melbourne.

Enid Lyons by Anne Henderson

Columnist, broadcaster, author and member of the ABC Board and mother of 12 children, Enid Lyons was the wife of Joe Lyons who was the Labor premier of Tasmania, 1923-27, and Prime Minister of Australia, 1932-39. In 1943 she became the first woman to take a seat in the House of Representatives and in 1949 became to the first woman to sit in a federal cabinet.

"Who would have imagined that a woman born in 1897, married and seventeen and the mother of 12 children, would be an achiever ahead of her time? In so many areas of her life, Enid Lyons was just that. She never set out deliberately to take the paths she eventually took; but challenges came her way in out-of-the-ordinary circumstances and she rose to meet them. Her mother had done this on a smaller scale, and she taught her daughter never to run away. So often, young women today are told they cannot have it all, that parenting and a public life are too difficult to manage at one time. Yet Enid did this, with a large number of children and, after 1939, while a single parent. Clearly it took an exceptional person to manage it all. But then, most successful leaders in the public sphere are exceptional. What Enid Lyons demonstrated was that women could do it too."

Flashback

The Sydney Institute features a popular book from a former speaker

Mao by Jung Chang & Jon Halliday

Jung Chang's Wild Swans was an extraordinary bestseller throughout the world, selling more than 10 million copies and reaching a wider readership than any other book about China. Now she and her husband Jon Halliday have written a groundbreaking biography of Mao Tse-tung. Based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before - and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him - this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China and he schemed, poisoned and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. Combining meticulous history with the story-telling style of Wild Swans, this biography makes immediate Mao's roller-coaster life, as he intrigued and fought every step of the way to force through his unpopular decisions. The reader enters the shadowy chambers of Mao's court, and eavesdrops on the drama in its hidden recesses. Mao's character and the enormity of his behaviour towards his wives, mistresses and children are unveiled for the first time. This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach. It will astonish historians and the general reader alike.

Gift Ideas

Suggestions of good reads for informed and discerning readers.

Stanley and Sophie by Kate Jennings

A wise, wry book about two border terriers - by the keenly intelligent, prize-winning writer who lost her heart to them. 'I fell in love with a prideful, tense bundle of muscle and sinew that stood seventeen inches high. You would see a small brown dog I saw perfection.' So begins the story of Kate Jennings's unexpected love affair with two border terriers, first Stanley, then a few years later Sophie. A fiercely intelligent writer, an astute observer of people and her surroundings, a recent widow not ready to face her grief, an irascible Australian with no time for indulgent New Yorkers and their pampered pets, Jennings falls hard. Swept off her feet and surprised by the depth of her love, Jennings's life is suddenly overtaken by Stanley and when she is seduced into getting him a companion, by the pair of them. First and foremost, STANLEY AND SOPHIE is a book about animals, but it is also about grief and grieving - for Jennings's husband, for the city after 9/11, for the world. And it is a book about the way two rivalrous, demanding, idiosyncratic, exhilarating dogs gave Jennings daily purpose and showed her the way to her own heart.

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