Seventeen-year-old Australian Cadet Under-Officer, Barbara Brassington, is on a desperate search to find her best friend, Fiona, who has gone missing. Barbara and her fellow Army Cadets track Fiona into the unforgiving North Queensland bush, where she has been kidnapped by a religious sect known only as ‘The Smiley People’. As they go deeper into the bush, Barbara finds herself torn between conflicting desires and difficult moral choices. Her leadership and character are tested to the limit, and her physical endurance stretched to breaking point. But in the jungle-covered mountains, Barbara must not only discover the whereabouts of her best friend, but also her true self.
A dynamic and inspiring exploration of the new science that is redrawing the future for people in their forties, fifties, and sixties for the better—and for good. There’s no such thing as an inevitable midlife crisis, Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes in this provocative, hopeful book. It’s a myth, an illusion. New scientific research explodes the fable that midlife is a time when things start to go downhill for everybody. In fact, midlife can be a great new adventure, when you can embrace fresh possibilities, purposes, and pleasures. In Life Reimagined, Hagerty explains that midlife is about renewal: It’s the time to renegotiate your purpose, refocus your relationships, and transform the way you think about the world and yourself. Drawing from emerging information in neurology, psychology, biology, genetics, and sociology—as well as her own story of midlife transformation—Hagerty redraws the map for people in midlife and plots a new course forward in understanding our health, our relationships, even our futures.
Australian Cadet Under-Officer, eighteen-year-old Barbara Brassington, is with her unit on bivouac near the tiny North Queensland town of Millaroo. But this is no ordinary bivouac. Not only must she deal with the usual challenges of poor leadership, misbehaviour, and cadet fraternisation, she must deal with the scandalous Chloe Cummings and her propensity for nudity and outrageous behaviour. But Barbara’s unit is drawn into a terrifying and deadly drama that will test her survival skills, leadership and courage to the limits.
Every weekday morning, as the sun rose above Sixth Avenue, a peerless crop of women-frames poised, behavior polished, networks connected, and bodies generally buffed to a high sheen-were herded by the cattle prod of their own ambition to one particular building. They're smart, stylish, and sophisticated, even the one found dead in her office. When stylish Hillary Whitney dies alone in a locked, windowless conference room at the offices of RAGE Fashion Book, her death is initially ruled an unfortunate side effect of the unrelenting pressure to be thin. But Hillary's best friend and fellow RAGE editor Catherine Ono knows her friend's dieting wasn't a capital P problem. If beauty could kill, it'd take more than that. When two months later, a cryptic note in Hillary's handwriting ends up in the office of the NYPD and the case is reopened, Det. Mark Hutton is led straight into the glamorous world of RAGE and into the life of hot-headed and fiercely fabulous Cat, who insists on joining the investigation. Surrounded by a supporting cast of party girls, Type A narcissists and half- dead socialites, Cat and her colleague Bess Bonner are determined to solve the case and achieve sartorial perfection. But their amateur detective work has disastrous results, and the two ingenues are caught in a web of drugs, sex, lies and moisturizer that changes their lives forever. Viciously funny, this sharp and satirical take on the politics of women's bodies and women's work is an addictive debut novel that dazzles with style and savoire faire.
"How do people who love animals translate that devotion into helping creatures who are not our pets? How do we express our care for animals when that means different things to omnivores and vegetarians-or, say, to hunters and non-hunters? Barbara J. King, a widely read expert on animal cognition and emotion, here guides readers through the difficult choices and deep rewards of turning empathy into action on behalf of animals. King discusses our relationship to animals in five different contexts: our homes, the wild, zoos, our food system, and research facilities such as biomedical laboratories. She offers a host of ways in which each of us can be better, and do better, for animals. Acting to improve animals' lives can, she shows, immeasurably enrich our own. True, there is also heartache and the risk of burnout from endlessness of animal rescue the dilemmas that attend it. But King's focus is on the joys. She describes the "happiness lift" that she herself has experienced joining with other activists on behalf of animals destined for slaughter or confined in sub-standard zoos-and in rescuing dozens of cats, some of whom we meet in this book. This is a book for anyone who cares for animals and wishes to do more for them, whether it's learning to live peaceably with spiders in the home or join with others to rescue our more dramatically endangered animal friends"--
Meet Kylie, an 11-year-old girl living in Cairns, North Queensland. She's got a new puppy called Skip and a best friend named Margaret. Life is good, but there's trouble brewing in paradise. The new neighbours have moved in next door, bringing with them a savage dog named Brute. And when dogs start disappearing from the neighbourhood, Kylie and Margaret begin to suspect that something sinister is going on. As the mystery deepens, Kylie and Margaret must summon all their courage to confront the evil lurking in their once peaceful community. They're up against ruthless predators of both the two- and four-legged variety, and their survival will depend on their wits, strength, and determination. Join them on a heart-pumping adventure as they face danger at every turn, leading up to a desperate struggle for life and death. Will Kylie and her friends make it out alive, or will evil triumph? Find out in this gripping tale of friendship, courage, and the fight for survival.
*NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB SUMMER 2021 NOMINEE* After nearly a year of social distancing and lockdown measures, it’s more clear than ever that our friendships and bonds are vital to our health and happiness. This refreshing, positive guide helps you take care of your people and form deep connections in the digital age. We are lonelier than ever. The average American hasn't made a new friend in the last five years. Research has shown that people with close friends are happier, healthier, and live longer than people who lack strong social bonds. But why—when we are seemingly more connected than ever before—can it feel so difficult to keep those bonds alive and well? Why do we spend only four percent of our time with friends? In this warm, inspiring guide, Adam "Smiley" Poswolsky proposes a new solution for the mounting pressures of modern life: focus on your friendships. Smiley offers practical habits and playful reminders on how to create meaningful connections, make new friends, and deepen relationships. He'll help you develop a healthier relationship with technology, but he'll also encourage you to prioritize real-world experiences, send snail mail, and engage in self-reflective exercises. Written in short, digestible, action-oriented sections, this book reminds us that nurturing old and new friendships is a ritual, a necessity, and one of the most worthwhile things we can do in life.
Australian Army Cadet Corporal, 15-year-old Roger Dunning, sets out with his friends, Peter, Stephen and Graham, on a five-day hike on the Atherton Tablelands to complete the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Their OC, Captain Conkey, has placed a set of clues to test their navigation along their 100-kilometre hike. However, almost immediately the four friends walk into trouble so unexpected and so deadly that it tests all their skills as cadets and their friendships. For Roger, it is the toughest test of endurance and character he has ever encountered. To survive, he must summon all his resources of determination and moral courage to see the thing through.
Graham Kirk has just turned 14 and his life is at a crisis point. A year before he had joined the Navy Cadets full of hope and ambition. But a medical exam scuppered his dreams of ever achieving his long-cherished ambition of being a naval officer. Compounding matters, everything in his life seems to be going wrong. He is in trouble at school with both the teachers and the bullies. To add to his woes, he is now feeling the full force of puberty and is driven by strong urges he is struggling to control. It seems his whole life is a miserable burden. But a chance meeting with a regular army soldier, Warrant Officer Howley, offers him the opportunity to get his life back on track—the Army Cadets. Temptations abound, and friends and false friends lead him into situations that could harm him and destroy his future. Graham is thrust into a series of events that will test his character, his morals, his conscience, his courage, and his faith.
Now in his 2nd year as Australian Army Cadet, trouble-maker Graham Kirk is faced with the biggest crisis of his cadetship. The annual field camp has begun and over nine gruelling days he will be forced to face challenges and temptations that test his integrity, courage and loyalty to the limit. Top of the list is Pigsy and his gang, soured by jealousy and resentment. And of course the girls. Will they stand in the way of his promotion to sergeant? Or will he rise to the challenge and become the leader nobody thinks he can be?
