Conservative Icons: The Lives and Legacies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher

As Ireland suffers under the sixth austerity budget, Without Power or Glory looks at the pivotal government that led Ireland into the financial crisis and the EU/IMF Bailout.

Written by the former chair of The Green Party, Dan Boyle, the book is an insider account of the 2007 election, the negotiations that led to the formation of the Green Party/Fianna Fail coalition and much, much more.

From horse trading over budgets to ensuring key Green Party policies were adopted, Boyle explores his and his party's role in the events that saw Ireland closed out of the world financial markets and forced to rely on loans from our neighbours and global financial organisations.

At once open and honest, this is a book that offers a keen insight into the explosive last few months of one of the most reviled, justly or unjustly, governments of the last few decades.

The essential work on Tony Abbott is now an expanded, updated short book and a crucial election-year companion.

Australians want to know: what kind of man is Tony Abbott, and how would he perform as prime minister?

In this dramatic portrait, David Marr shows that as a young Catholic warrior at university, Abbott was already a brutally effective politician. He later led the way in defeating the republic and, as the self-proclaimed 'political love child' of John Howard, rose rapidly in the Liberal Party.

Marr shows that Abbott thrives on chaos and conflict. Part fighter and part charmer, he is deeply religious and deeply political. What happens, then, when his values clash with his need to win? This is the great puzzle of his career, but the closer he is to taking power, the more guarded he has become.

Political Animal's release as a Quarterly Essay in 2012, with its revelations of 'the punch,' triggered intense scrutiny of Abbott's character, which culminated in Gillard's memorable speech accusing him of misogyny and, soon after, Abbott's worst ever public approval rating. This significantly expanded and updated short book gives the clearest picture yet of the man Abbott is and the prime minister he would be.

'Since witnessing the Hewson catastrophe at first hand, Abbott has worn a mask. He has grown and changed. Life and politics have taught him a great deal. But how this has shaped the fundamental Abbott is carefully obscured. What has been abandoned? What is merely hidden on the road to power? What makes people so uneasy about Abbott is the sense that he is biding his time, that there is a very hard operator somewhere behind that mask, waiting for power.' —David Marr, Political Animal

"It's a more fair-minded and more generous assessment than many people, perhaps myself included, had expected. We have very different perspectives on the world but, to his credit, to some extent David Marr was able to step outside the standard leftist critique and appreciate that here was a more nuanced and complex character than perhaps many of the standard left-leaning critics would concede. Having said all of that, I certainly don't think all of his judgments were fair and I don't think all of his interpretations were correct."—Tony Abbott

David Marr is the multi-award-winning author of Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott, Panic, Patrick White: A Life and The High Price of Heaven, and co-author with Marian Wilkinson of Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Monthly, been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TVs Media Watch. In 2010 he wrote the Quarterly Essay Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd.

Telling the story of Greek émigré Niki Savva, this emotional and humorous memoir provides an in-depth look into the lives of Australia’s journalists and politicians. Having survived the challenges of growing up in Melbourne’s working-class suburbs as a migrant woman, Savva becomes a successful political journalist at the Australian and a member of the Canberra Press Gallery, heading the bureaus for both the Age and the Melbourne Herald and working with major political players, including Treasurer Peter Costello and Prime Minister John Howard. From a media and political insider’s perspective, this fascinating account spans countries, cultures, careers, and, ultimately, political convictions.

The Presidents Club, established at Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, is a complicated place: its members are bound forever by the experience of the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history’s favor. Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The letter from Nixon that Bill Clinton rereads every year. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama.