E Penguin imprint: 558 books

Troy Bramston is a former principal speechwriter for Kevin Rudd and an adviser to the Rudd government. He spent 10 years working as an adviser to federal Labor politicians in government and in opposition. He has been a party member for nearly 20 years and has held many positions in the party at a local and state level, including President of NSW Young Labor.

No Australian prime minister has had to face such a difficult and challenging political environment as did Julia Gillard. Her impressive legislative record was overshadowed by pitched battles with jealous rivals and a remarkably hostile media, as well as her own struggles to communicate effectively...

In May 2013, China's main state-run broadcaster aired a documentary about a little known virtual currency called Bitcoin. Over the next six months, the value of Bitcoin rocketed as Chinese money poured in. Unfortunately for many latecomers, the rapid rise in Bitcoin's price and popularity also attracted...

A short shot of the unique genius of Shaun Micallef. Feel that War and Peace went on a bit? Wish there were more laughs in Catcher in the Rye? Then A Selection of Smithereens is for you. These pieces from one of Australia's funniest men (no, not John Clarke) feature the Borgias, Winston Churchill...

Xu Xi's body of work witnesses her turbulent love affair with her home-city of Hong Kong. In this probing memoir, she unravels her recently finalised decision to leave the city for good. She critiques a Hong Kong that has, in her eyes, lost its way. And yet, it is only out of the city's enduring presence...

Beneath its peaceful exterior, the city of Adelaide and its surrounding areas have a dark history. From the disappearance of the Beaumont children to the Snowtown killings in the 1990s, it has been home to a long series of brutal and baffling killings and abductions. In The Element of Need, acclaimed...

At the time of the First World War, the Chinese republic was in its infancy. It had joined a number of international organizations and ratified the Hague Conventions, but found its diplomatic efforts hampered by its young, inexperienced leadership, its factional and regional divisions and the foreign-held...

Saturday, August 14, 1937 - that summer Shanghai was expecting to be hit by a typhoon of 'violent intensity'. The typhoon passed, but what did strike Shanghai was a man-made typhoon of bombs and shrapnel that brought aerial death and destruction such as no city had ever seen before. The clock outside...

What do Pope Francis and Xi Jinping have in common? More than you think. Approaching the red Rubik's Cube from a new angle, Jeffrey Wasserstrom challenges conventional commentary on China through eight experimental analogies, finding fresh and surprising ways to look at the Asian superpower. 'Wasserstrom's...

The events of 1976 convulsed China: Mao died, the Gang of Four fell, hundreds of thousands perished in the Tangshan earthquake. Ragnar Baldursson, an idealistic true believer in the Chinese socialist experiment, was one of the few foreigners present to witness these events. Forty years on, living...

In Salad Days, Ronnie Scott interrogates our current obsession with food - and asks whether it's actually such a bad thing. Salad Days takes us via the world's best restaurants in Noma and elBulli, and more humble yet no less delicious restaurants and cafés in Melbourne, while also interrogating...

When Jill Meagher went missing and was then found murdered in 2012, the city of Melbourne was shaken to the core. Emotional responses ranged from grief to guilt to rage to defensiveness, but no one was left untouched. The media coverage was unrelenting and overwhelming, constantly updating readers...

Of all animals, horses are believed to have the greatest ability to mirror human emotions, and their natural empathy can be a powerful antidote to human stress. In horses that have been rescued, the ability to connect and give back to those who saved them is heightened. In Horse Rescue we meet Sue...

From the turbulent 1960s until today, Hong Kong has been a city shaped by civil disobedience. The latest wave of protests in Hong Kong's long history of public dissent culminated in the Occupy Central movement of 2014. What emerges from these grassroots movements is a unique Hong Kong identity, one...