Archive for May, 2009
A Very Short History of the World by Geoffrey Blainey
Title: A Very Short History of the World
Author: Geoffrey Blainey
Price: $8
Condition: Brand New
Summary:
A Very Shirt History of the World traces the story of the world’s people during the last four million years, beginning before the human race moved out of Africa to explore and settle other continents. A consummate story teller, Professor Blainey makes the past come alive as he touches on the trivial and the grand: everything from changes in diet to profound discoveries and mighty empires.
Professor Blainey is one of Australia’s most significant and popular historians. He has written more than thirty books of history and held chairs in economic history and at the University of Melbourne for many years.
Book ID: 0003
Add comment May 8, 2009
Out of Eden by Stephen Oppenheimer
Title: Out of Eden – The Peopling of the World
Author: Stephen Oppenheimer
Price: $7
Condition: Excellent – book is unread but back cover has a light coffee mug stain
Summary:
Not only are we all descended from a common African ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’, but what’s more it can now be proved that all modern non-Africans sprang from a single exodus out of Africa, rather than peopling the earth in multiple waves of migration. In a brilliant synthesis of genetic, archaeological and climatic evidence, Stephen Oppenheimer reveals the story of how a group of no more than a few hundred souls crossed the mouth of the Red Sea some 80,000 years ago. The book follows their halting progress around the world – to the mammoth Steppe heartland of Asia and the now submerged continent of Beringia, and on to the last great unpeopled lands of the Americas. It is a revolutionary account that is both scholarly and entertaining, a remarkable picture of the kinship of all humans.
Stephen Oppenheimer is a world-recognized expert in the synthesis of DNA studies with archaeological and other evidence to track ancient migrations. He is a Research Associate at the Institute of Human Sciences, Oxford University.
Reviews:
‘The thrill of this book lies in the vast reaches of time and space that one is deftly guided through.’ – Emma Crichton-Miller, Sunday Telegraph
‘I can put my finger on a map and say that is where my people came from. Research by Oppenheimer and others has now given us all the right to say that.’ – Economist
Book ID: 0002
Add comment May 5, 2009
Trading Up by Candace Bushnell
Title: Trading Up
Author: Candace Bushnell
Price: $7
Condition: Good
Summary:
Modern-day heroine Janey Wilcox is a lingerie model whose reach often exceeds her grasp, and whose new-found success has gone to her head. As we follow Janey’s adventures, Bushnell draws us into a seemingly glamorous world of $100,000 cars, hunky polo players and media moguls, Fifth Avenue apartments, and relationships whose hidden agendas are detectable only by the socially astute.
But just as Janey enters this world of too much money and too few morals, unseen forces conspire to bring her down, forcing her to reconsider love and friendship – and how far she’s really willing to go for her dreams.
Reviews:
‘Candace is some sort of genius… and not just a genius either, but actually a shrewd and witty writer who makes her stories shine.’ – Evening Standard
‘Unputdownable… one of the sharpest practitioners of her art around, Bushnell is also a clever and subtle moralist.’ – Sunday Times
Book ID: 0001
Add comment May 5, 2009
