At the age of six, Phillip Adams stopped believing in God. A lonesome traveler for decades, he has found that atheism is suddenly fashionable and the ranks of disbelievers are swelling. Picking up where Adams vs. God left off, Adams has collected his best essays on God and godlessness in this irreverent, Bible-thumping book. Guided by a sceptic's curiosity, he has travelled the highways of Catholicism, Islam and creationism and delved into a cosmos of multiple big bangs and religious quackery. In all, he's found little to recommend in either the missionary position or in a globalised God. Adams vs. God: The Rematch is a book for our times. From George W Bush to Kevin Rudd, from the deep north of Queensland to the deep south of the USA, Phillip Adams exposes the links between religion and politics and the fanaticism of ideologies as causes of conflict in the world.
Most media people come and go quickly but Phillip Adams is a survivor. John Howard tried to get rid of him and failed. He has a weekly radio audience of about 350,000, plus his Weekend Australian Magazine readers. In this book, he describes his relationship with eight Australian prime ministers, including Bob Hawke, who told the author Adams is often a pain in the arse, and Paul Keating, who said Adams 'paints in pre-cooked synonyms'. Adams hypnotises women (especially) with his intellect, and he is an enigma. This book reveals many hilarious anecdotes and examples of his brilliant mind. Few Australian journalists have been as prolific as Adams. He has written about three million words in books, newspapers and magazines; and he's spoken many more words than that as host of Late Night Live, four nights a week for twenty years. But these words don't describe his personal regrets or indicate his weaknesses. They hint at his joys but don't provide the details. In spite of this background, he has never published an autobiography. More surprising, for a man whose hallmark is the conversation interviews, is his reluctance to speak prospective biographers. Despite leaving school at fifteen, Adams is comfortable conversing with academics, authors and other experts on subjects ranging from wombats to nuclear science. Along the way, Phillip Adams has crossed paths and occasionally come to blows with some of Australia's most prominent people: politicians, ad-men, film directors, business leaders, broadcasters and media tycoons. The list reads like a who's who of Australia -- and includes former prime ministers Paul Keating and Bob Hawke, current and past state premiers Mike Rann, Anna Bligh, Carmen Lawrence, John Cain and Bob Carr, psychologist Hugh Mackay; Cartoonist Bruce Petty; ex-Age publisher Ranald McDonald; film and television director Peter Faiman; actor Barry Humphries. Composer Peter Best; media tycoons Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch and many, many more -- an extraordinarily diverse list, reflecting the life of this unique Australian.
Phillip Adams, the occasionally controversial but undeniably prolific writer and broadcaster, has collected his favourite insights and reflections from previous columns and speeches in this generous volume spanning 2003 to the present day. Adams social commentary has been a part of the Australian cultural landscape for decades, and here he dives into wide-ranging topics from the dying art of the circus to the threat of global warming. This volume includes thoughts on: The notorious Melbourne underworld figure Billy The Texan Longley, The War in Iraq, The power of the human brain, World leaders including Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnball, The Queen and the Republic, The 2016 Census, and many more.
Phillip Adams shares the secrets of his radio days from when he was looked upon as a commercial upstart to when Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens, Kevin Rudd and so many others have lined up to be interviewed by him.
Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time examines the field of archi-choreographic experiments—unique interdisciplinary encounters and performed events generated through collaborations between architects and choreographers. Forty case studies spanning four decades give evidence of the range of motivations for embarking on these creative endeavors and diverse conceptual underpinnings, generative methods, objects of inquiry, and outcomes. Architecture and Choreography builds histories and theories through which to examine these works, the contexts within, and processes through which the works emerged, and the critical questions they raise about ways to work together, sites and citations, ethics and equity, control and agency. Three themes frame pairs of chapters. The first addresses disciplinarity through works that critically reflect upon their discipline’s tools, techniques, and conventions juxtaposed against projects that cite or use other art forms and cultural phenomena as source material. The second interrogates space and the role of spatial dispositifs, institutions, and sites, and their hidden and not-so-hidden conditions, as conceptual drivers and structures to subvert, trouble, unsettle, remember. The third asks who and what dances, finding a spectrum from mobilized architectural bodies to more-than-human cybarcorps. Modes of collaboration and the temporalities and life cycles of projects inform bookending chapters. Architecture and Choreography offers vital lessons not only for architects and choreographers but also for students and practitioners across design and performance fields.
In this moving, funny and sometimes chilling book, leading Australians open their ASIO files and read what the state's security apparatus said about them. Writers from across the political spectrum including Mark Aarons, Phillip Adams, Nadia Wheatley, Michael Kirby, Peter Cundall, Gary Foley and Anne Summers confront – and in some cases reclaim – their pasts. Reflecting on the interpretations, observations and proclamations that anonymous officials make about your personal life is not easy. Yet we see outrage mixed with humour, not least as ASIO officers got basic information wrong a lot of the time, though many writers have to contend with personal betrayal. Some reflect on the way their political views have – or haven’t – changed. Meredith Burgmann and all those who were spied on have produced an extraordinary book where those being watched look right back.
For readers of Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom, Esme Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias, and Melissa Febos’s Girlhood, a powerful and deeply personal memoir in essays that sheds light on the silent epidemic of head trauma. Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. In Sex with a Brain Injury, she writes about what it means to be one of the “walking wounded,” facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships. Forced to reckon with her own queer mother’s battle with addiction, Liontas finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community. She uncovers the surprising legacy of brain injury, examining its role in culture, the criminal justice system, and through historical figures like Henry VIII and Harriet Tubman. Encountering Liontas’s sharp, affecting prose, the reader can imagine this kind of pain, and having to claw one’s way back to a new normal. The hidden gift of injury, Liontas writes, is the ability to connect with others. For the millions of people who have suffered from concussions and for those who have endeavored to support loved ones through the painful and often baffling experience of head trauma, this astonishing and compassionate narrative offers insight and hope in equal measure.
Twenty-five years in the ER could become a résumé for despair, but for bestselling author Dr. Robert D. Lesslie, it's a foundation for inspiring stories of everyday "angels"—friends, nurses, doctors, patients, and even strangers who offer love, help, and support in the midst of trouble. "The ER is a difficult and challenging place to be. Yet the same pressures and stresses that make this place so challenging also provide an opportunity to experience some of life's greatest wonders and mysteries." Dr. Lesslie illuminates messages of hope while sharing fast-paced, captivating stories about discovering lessons from the ER frontline watching everyday miracles unfold holding on to faith during tragedy and triumph embracing the healing balm of hope For anyone who enjoys true stories of the wonders of the human spirit, this immensely popular book is a reminder that hope can turn emergencies into opportunities and trials into demonstrations of God's grace.
