The Little Book of Anxiety is for anyone who has experienced anxiety - which is pretty much everyone. It is a funny book about a serious subject - the ways in which anxiety can impact on your life, and the lives of those around you.

From relationship anxiety to professional anxiety, claustrophobia to travelling phobia, pregnancy fears, panic attacks to nail biting and more. Oh, and so much more.

Kerri Sackville relates episodes in which anxiety has got the better of her as only she can, some tragically humorous, and some just utterly absurd.

Desperate struggles with insomnia, trying meditation to learn how to fall asleep, and drinking hideous herbal potions (which were completely ineffective, and yes very expensive).

Kerri talks about panic attacks, and what they actually feel like. What anxiety does to us at a subconscious level. Kerri discusses therapy and the various techniques she has used to try to manage her anxiety. And the ways in which her fears affect all those around her (particularly her long suffering husband - who has, however, been known to make things worse).

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is the most powerful media organisation in the world. Murdoch's commercial success is obvious, but less well understood is his successful pursuit of political goals, using News Corp as his vehicle.David McKnight uncovers Murdoch's crusade for his unique brand of conservatism over three decades.

Drawing on extensive original research, McKnight tracks NewsCorp's pursuit of conservative ideas, from Reagan and Thatcher to the Tea Party and its war on Barack Obama. He shows how Murdoch's political connections underpinned the scandal of phone hacking in Britain and thwarted investigation. He examines the secretive corporate culture of News Corporation: its private political seminars for editors, its sponsorship of think tanks and its recurring editorial campaigns around the world. Its success is reflected in the fact that the campaigns are familiar to us all: small government and market deregulation, skepticism on climate change, support for neo-conservative adventures such as Iraq and relentless criticism of all things 'liberal'.

For all its power and influence, News Corporation is now in a profound crisis. The mobile phone hacking scandal has irreparably tarnished its reputation. Its ability to use its news media to bully politicians may be fatally weakened.

In the longer term its confident free market ideology is no longer the orthodoxy since the arrival of Obama and the global financial crisis. His unwavering support for the invasion of Iraq has backfired and his flip-flopping on climate change has discredited him. News Corporation faces an uncertain future as digital technology eats into his newspaper empire which has been the basis of Murdoch's political power.

For two hundred years after Shakespeare's death, no one thought to argue that somebody else had written his plays. Since then dozens of rival candidates - including Sir Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford - have been proposed as their true author.

Contested Will unravels the mystery of when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote the plays (among them such leading writers and artists as Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, and Sir Derek Jacobi).

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro's fascinating search for the source of this controversy retraces a path strewn with fabricated documents, calls for trials, false claimants, concealed identity, bald-faced deception and a failure to grasp what could not be imagined.

If Contested Will does not end the authorship question once and for all, it will nonetheless irrevocably change the nature of the debate by confronting what's really contested: are the plays and poems of Shakespeare autobiographical, and if so, do they hold the key to the question of who wrote them?

Mad Men is one of the hottest shows on television, and its fans are dying to know how accurate it is: did people really have that much sex in the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally yes.

And her book, based on her own experiences and those of her peers, gives the full stories behind the scenes, from the junior account man whose wife nearly left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he’d used to find 'entertainment' for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather agency’s legendary annual sex-and-booze filled Boat Ride, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact.

Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles the tougher issues of the era, such as equal pay, rampant jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.

'In the Mad Men TV show, the males are depicted as shtupping their secretaries as they drink and smoke themselves to death, with nary a female copywriter in sight. In this damn funny book, the talented Jane Maas, who lived through those days of struggle and sometimes humiliation, tells it like it really was.’ George Lois, legendary NY ad man

This is the story of the crime that rocked Melbourne – in January 2009 a law-abiding, church-going father of two from Melbourne's leafy eastern suburbs didn't come home after a business trip, and his burnt remains were found in a northern suburb, the wrong side of town, a week later.

A police investigation uncovered the truth – Rockefeller had met with an alcoholic single mum and her older boyfriend for sex, and the liaison went horribly wrong. Was Rockefeller leading a double life as a swinger? How did a successful businessman worth $400 million find himself in the home of two down-and-outers?

While Rockefeller has taken some answers to his grave, Hilary Bonney pulls us right inside the world of the killers in this classic true crime, drawing on past cases to uncover the motivations of the multi-millionaire who fell from grace.

Ed Cowan, opening left-hand batsman for Tasmania, has always been a bit of a scribbler. It started with to-do lists and notes to self, but then he started keeping a cricket diary a batting bible with thoughts on the game, other players, motivational philosophies and records of performances. The diary has become so much a part of his routine that he admits to being a little upset if he cant see it in his cricket bag. Other cricketers have found the habit a little odd. But for Cowan its been a way of keeping an uncluttered head and making sense of the game. In the Firing Line, based on the diary Cowan kept while playing his second season for Tasmania over the summer of 2010-11, reveals with intelligence and a touch of humour the excruciatingly shaky position of the domestic cricket player. Its far from the glamour of playing for Australia and uncomfortably close to the long drop to amateurism, yet every match is rife with the possibility of being discovered and propelled into international stardom in the baggy green.                                  

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, "and" The Romanovs "returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history. <br>Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones. <br>Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the "benevolent despot" idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as "the Messalina of the north." <br>Catherine's family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies--all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her "favorites"--the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement. <br>The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to "Nicholas and Alexandra" and "Peter the Great" are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives. <br>History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

PRAISE FOR CATHERINE THE GREAT :


"Massie once again delivers a masterful, intimate, and tantalizing portrait of a majestic monarch."--Publishers Weekly starred review 

"[A] rich, nuanced examination of Russia's lone female leader...--The Daily Beast  

"What "Catherine the Great" offers is a great story in the hands of a master storyteller." -The Wall Street Journal

The first book by a Coca-Cola CEO tells the remarkable story of the company's revival. 

A great book about becoming an artist, Woolgathering tells of a youngster finding herself as she learns the noble vocation of woolgathering, a worthy calling that seemed a good job for me. She discovers often at night, often in nature the pleasures of rescuing a fleeting thought. Deeply moving, Wool- gathering calls up our own memories, as the child glimpses and gleans, piecing together a crazy quilt of truths. Smith introduces us to her tribe, a race of cloud dwellers, and to the fierce, vital pleasures of cloud watching and stargazing and wandering.A radiant new autobiographical piece, Two Worlds (which was not in the original 1992 Hanuman edition of Woolgathering), and the author s photographs and illustrations are also included. Woolgathering celebrates the sacred nature of creation with Smith s beautiful style, acclaimed as glorious (NPR), spellbinding (Booklist), rare and ferocious (Salon), and shockingly beautiful (New York Magazine).                                  

In William's first book A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY he wrote about family life in the 1960s with humour, affection and honesty. WORSE THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA does the same for family life in 2000s; written by William and Sarah in a way that many Australians can relate to and enjoy. This book celebrates the wonderful, messy, haphazard things in life - bringing home babies from hospital, being a friend, a parent, son or daughter, and dog obedience classes. It's about living for twenty years in the family home, raising children there, chasing angry rabbits around the backyard, renovations that never end. It is also about understanding that sometimes you have to say goodbye; that is part of life too. Illustrated throughout with Sarah Watt's photographs of family life and beautiful but everyday objects.

Review: There is considerable interest in Sarah and William within the media and the Australian public. National review coverage across metropolitan and regional newspapers and commuter magazines. Several interviews with William McInnes and Sarah Watts in weekend newspaper supplements/magazines, such as Good Weekend, Sunday magazine, Sun-Herald or Sunday Telegraph. Review coverage acr

Author Biography: William McInnes is established in his ability both as a columnist and author in writing pieces that celebrate life whilst encompassing the wide emotions and situations being human can bring. His bestselling titles are 'A Man's Got To Have A Hobby', 'Cricket Kings', That'd Be Right', and 'The Making of Modern Australia'. Sarah Watt investigates the same themes in her films and writing. She studied fine art at the Phillip Institute, Melbourne, and is an AFI award-winning filmmaker who has been working as a writer, director and producer for over twenty years. Her films have won major international awards, including at the Venice, and Toronto film festivals. Her work is represented in the permanent collection at MOMA, New York. She has recently also completed the children s picture book, 'Clem Always Could'. William and Sarah collaborated on the acclaimed film Look Both Ways. They live in Melbourne with their two children.