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Did you know that the Library has a huge range of free ebooks – 200,000 and counting! – which you can either read online or download for up to seven days?
To get started, browse our latest selection of ebooks and watch this space for new additions. You can also scan the list of past Ebookshelf titles or browse for even more free ebooks !
For tips and advice, read our Get started guide or watch our video on using ebooks.
To access ebooks from home, you need to be a State Library member with a Victorian home address. (Terms and conditions of use apply.)
The Politics of Official Apologies The Politics of Official Apologies Melissa Nobles
Cambridge University Press, 2008
Intense interest in past injustice lies at the centre of contemporary world politics. Most scholarly and public attention has focused on truth commissions, trials, lustration, and other related decisions, following political transitions. This book examines the political uses of official apologies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. It explores why minority groups demand such apologies and why governments do or do not offer them. Nobles argues that apologies can help to alter the terms and meanings of national membership.
Minority groups demand apologies in order to focus attention on historical injustices. Similarly, state actors support apologies for ideological and moral reasons, driven by their support of group rights, responsiveness to group demands, and belief that acknowledgment is due. Apologies, as employed by political actors, play an important, if underappreciated, role in bringing certain views about history and moral obligation to bear in public life.
Yoga Sparks: 108 Easy Practices for Stress Relief in a Minute or Less Yoga Sparks: 108 Easy Practices for Stress Relief in a Minute or Less Carol Krucoff
New Harbinger Publications, 2013
Yoga Sparks offers 108 quick, practical, and accessible yoga exercises that you can practice anytime, anywhere. In this book, you will learn how yoga in bite-size pieces can become a healthy habit that can relieve emotional stress, increase your physical strength and flexibility, and help you to lead a happier, healthier life.
Homegrown: Illustrated Bites from Your Garden to Your Table Homegrown: Illustrated Bites from Your Garden to Your Table Heather Hardison
ABRAMS (Ignition), 2015
Homegrown is the ultimate guide to growing your own food and eating it, too! With clear and uncomplicated illustrations, author Heather Hardison guides readers through the process of planting, growing, harvesting, and preparing more than 25 of the tastiest, easy-to-grow vegetables and small fruits - such as spinach, kale, artichokes, and pears - and cooking them into seasonal, clean, and delicious offerings. Using Homegrown's tips for stocking your own unprocessed pantry, growing your own herbs, and pickling and canning the last of your bounty, anyone can learn to eat from the ground up. Part cookbook, part gardening guide, Homegrown is the perfect excuse to start a small container garden, cook a few seasonal dishes, and see where it takes you!
The Little Book of Hygge Jonny Jackson
Summersdale Publishers Ltd, 2017
‘Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; … hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.’ Scandinavian proverb Hygge – the now familiar Danish word for warmth, cosiness, peace and harmony – is something we all aspire to. This charming little book, filled with comforting quotes and simple tips, will help you kindle this cosiness in your own life. Light a candle, snuggle up and celebrate the things that make life good.
La Dolce Vita University: An Unconventional Guide to Italian Culture from A to Z La Dolce Vita University: An Unconventional Guide to Italian Culture from A to Z Carla Gambescia
Travelers' Tales, 2021
La Dolce Vita University is the perfect sampler for anyone curious about (or already in amore with) Italy and its remarkably rich cultural gifts, both past and present. True to its light-hearted name, La Dolce Vita 'U' is all about pleasurable learning, or what we prefer to call 'edu-tainment.' Its dozens of entertaining yet authoritative mini-essays on a wide assortment of intriguing topics encourage random dipping at the reader’s pleasure. Even the most erudite Italophile will discover fun new facts and fascinating new insights in the pages of La Dolce Vita U .
Spinifex & Sunflowers Avan Judd Stallard
Fremantle Press, 2018
Nick Harris has been drifting for years – until the day he finds himself amid red dirt and razor wire, a refugee-prison guard in a detention centre. Nick is no crusader and no bleeding-heart. He's just a man in debt who needs a job.
Time passes slowly behind the wire, no matter who you are. To distract themselves, the asylum seekers tell Nick about their lives and cultures, and the families they have left behind. They steal from him with good humour and swear at him with bad. Nick breaks all the rules: slacking off when he guards the cordial machine, swimming with crocodiles, brawling with locals, romancing workmates. And then there is the cardinal sin – becoming friends with the detainees.
This novel is a realistic window into the hidden world of immigration detention centres, drawn from the experience of a former guard. It is one man's vision, looking through the wire at the people locked inside our desert prisons, and looking out at the people who put them there.
I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
Harvard Business Review Press, 2023
Psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic tackles one of the biggest questions facing our species: Will we use artificial intelligence to improve the way we work and live, or will we allow it to alienate us? It's no secret that AI is changing the way we live, work, love, and entertain ourselves. Dating apps are using AI to pick our potential partners. Retailers are using AI to predict our behaviour and desires. Rogue actors are using AI to persuade us with bots and misinformation. Companies are using AI to hire us—or not. I, Human takes readers on an enthralling and eye-opening journey across the AI landscape.
William B. Gill: From the Goldfields to Broadway William B. Gill: From the Goldfields to Broadway Kurt Gᾄnzl
Taylor and Francis, 2014
A colourful, historically accurate biography of William B. Gill, a famous musical-comedy playwright and comedy performer of the late-19th-century who is now mostly forgotten, but who changed the course of American musical theatre. Gill began his career as a comedic actor in the goldfields of Australia, then performed in India and England, before finally coming to the U.S.
Achieving fame as one of the most popular playwrights of his days, Gill's works appeared for years on Broadway and in the repertories of touring troupes. For years, theatre historians have wondered about the facts behind his life; now master theatre maven Kurt Gänzl has uncovered a wealth of new information about this influential and colourful character. A must-read for all fans of the musical theatre.
