Onward Australian consumer-soldiers who have found new confidence in online shopping, splurging $617 million in March alone. David Binning reports on why remote retail therapy is now catching on A matter of clicking your fingers
Actor Tom Cruise Opens Up about his Beliefs in the Church of Scientology. Imagine what would happen if I was producing Cold River and invited some Mormons or Jews or Christians or Muslims to pitch tents on the set and minister to the "sick and injured" on my crew Scientology on the Set
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Off the Wall: Pleasure and pain behind closed curtains
East Berliners used to risk their lives trying to escape to the west. Now the former communist stamping ground is fun and funky
During its 28-year lifespan from 1961 until 1989, the Wall came complete with barbed wire, bloodthirsty dogs and gun-toting guards. Then, in 1990, 100 artists were commissioned to paint their reactions to what became known as "die Wende" - the turning point - of November 1989. One famous painting was of a Trabant, the dodgy East German car that is now a collector's item, bursting through the bricks; another was of East German leader Erich Hönecker giving his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev, a lusty kiss on the lips.
• We are each the love of someone's life [Despite obvious lacks and omissions - no German Expressionists, no Russian Constructivists, no Italian Futurists and few Surrealists - it brought the modern movement with a bang to the doorstep of Australia as nothing else had. Degenerates and Perverts ; My old tropical stamping ground - Fraser Coast city of Maryborough So, will the real Mary Poppins please stand up ]
• · I never think about plot, Renee Manfredi said in a recent interview. I don't think about theme. I think about characters. And these characters became very real to me. I dreamed about them. I Rich Characterizations Propel Debut Novel to May Picks ; Hellfire: The Story of Australia, Japan and Prisoners of War by Cameron Forbes. Ross Fitzgerald on a powerful retelling of the horror story that was Changi and the Death Railway. Lives on the line ; The play is right in raising issues about our treatment of refugees. The Australian author and playwright, Hannie Rayson, has found it necessary to respond to a recent critical review, entitled Drowning in propaganda, of her new play, Two Brothers, by Tom Hyland The fiction and fact of Two Brothers ; It's risky and may just be too eccentric to work Playing with Water
• · · Reading the World: Independent Booksellers Unite to Promote Literature in Translation ;
• · · · Australian literature is currently more diverse and robust than it is sometimes given credit for; good novels are being published, even if they are not always the most visible Stephen King defends popular writers ; Australian Book Review May 2005 - Nowdays, we want the truth. Suddenly, it seems, we are no longer content to be sceptical and laconic and sophisticated, or to take the line that there are many kinds of truth and that it all depends on how you look at it, and on who is doing the looking. Politicians and journalists, for example, long assumed by a knowing public to belong to professions that not only display but positively require a flexible approach to the facts, now find themselves being scrutinised and investigated to establish whether or not they have been telling lies. The Politics and Aesthetics of Blogging ; No more lessons. No more books. No more teachers' dirty looks Where do the books come from, Mommy?
• · · · · Enough of the talk - now it's time for action Literary Blogs: Rise and Rise ; Myself at the Bookseller's by M. Kodak - I do not drink or gamble - I only dissipate with books
• · · · · · Here is a delicious story that says everything you need to know about politics. On Monday, February 14, Kim Beazley sat down to pen a letter. He had returned, unopposed, to Labor's federal leadership on Friday, January 28. The man he was writing to was Mark Latham, the leader his "colleagues" hounded into resignation on January 17, amid great internal bastardry, following Labor's October election loss Farewell proves there's still a sting in his tale ; Sheer frustration, point by agonising point Latham memoirs a hard sell ; Using his typical single-minded lone-wolf approach to politics, Latham held his cards close to his chest and never revealed the contents of his diary to his authorised biographer Bernard Lagan, whose book on Latham – The Loner; Inside A Labor Tragedy – is due out in July The write stuff from Latham - Sandra Lee