Zeitgeist Media Group

books/reviews
	Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu Murong Xuecun Leave Me Alone, is a bitter take on love and life in modern China. It’s the story of three young men, Chen Zhong, Li Liang and Big Head Wang and their tragi-comic struggles to make their way in Chengdu, China’s fifth most populous city. Despite their aspirations in the newly capitalist China, the trio’s lives are beset by dead-end jobs, gambling debts, drinking, drugs, and whoring. Complicated relationships with women, whether pregnant mistresses, angry wives or passive lovers compound their misery. This is an unflinching and darkly funny look at the pressures of life in modern China, where riches and sex abound, but not for all. read more
	Socialism is Great! a worker’s memoir of the new China Lijia Zhang Lijia Zhang worked as a teenager in a factory producing missiles designed to reach North America, queuing every month to give evidence to the “period police” that she wasn’t pregnant. In the oppressive routine of guarded compound and political meetings, Zhang’s disillusionment with “The Glorious Cause” drove her to study English, which strengthened her intellectual independence – from wearing bright, western style clothes to organizing the largest demonstration by Nanjing workers in support of Tiananmen Square Protest in 1989. read more
	Lonely China: Recollections from a one child world Mina Choi China’s one-child policy is one of the most dramatic laws enacted in modern history. This controversial and life-altering decree has radically shaped the lives of the country’s 1.3 billion people since it was enacted thirty years ago. Lonely China: Recollections from a one child world is a rare, honest and emotional insight into how the law has affected Chinese life and families since it began in 1979. read more
	China Cuckoo: How I lost a fortune and found a life in China Mark Kitto China Cuckoo is the true story of a witty and eccentric Sinophile Englishman and his Chinese tree-change. It’s set in Moganshan a dilapidated, beautiful Chinese mountain village once favoured as a summer retreat by Shanghai’s saints and sinners. The author, Mark Kitto, a former commodities trader and magazine publisher, is the first westerner to return and live in the village fifty years on. read more
	Chinese Lessons five classmates and the story of the new China John Pomfret As one the first American students admitted to China after the communist revolution, John Pomfret was exposed to a country still emerging from the twin tragedies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Crammed into a dorm room with seven Chinese men, Pomfret contended with all manner of cultural differences, from too-short beds and roommates intent on glimpsing a white man naked, to the need for cloak-and-dagger efforts to conceal his relationships with Chinese women. Amidst all that, he immersed himself in the remarkable lives of his classmates. read more
	Capitalist Road Fritz Hoffman In 2009 China celebrated 60 years of Communism, but look through Fritz Hoffmann’s photographs, and one has to wonder what the authorities now mean by their catch-all term, “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. Hoffmann, an American, moved to Shanghai in 1995, when the city was on the brink of the biggest construction boom in history. read more
	Vote For Me! The Long Road to the White House John Barron In Vote For Me!, Australian journalist John Barron provides the insight only an outsider can give, with a fascinating, funny and at times frightening look at the way America picks its President. read more
	Chasing Bohemia living recklessly in Rio de Janeiro Carmen Michael Carmen Michael was a jaded young travel industry executive when she ditched her job and moved to the Rio de Janeiro looking for complete immersion in the seedy and sexed up city.A brush with a fiery Italian trust fund baby called Chiara inspires her to make risky solo mission to a rodeo in the outback of Brazil. When she returns, she moves into a crumbling yellow mansion with a flamboyant caftan clad queen called Gustavo, flirts with Brazilian high society, falls for a hustler, runs away from him to Buenos Aires and then runs back only to fall in love with a Brazilian samba musician. read more
	In the Steppes of the Nomads re-riding the trail of history’s first horsemen from Mongolia to Hungary Tim Cope In The Steppes of Nomads follows Tim Cope’s remarkable journey over 3 and a half years as he ‘re-rides’ history from Mongolia to Hungary on the trail of mounted nomads. read more
	Off the Rails Moscow to Beijing by bike Tim Cope and Chris Hatherly 10,000 kilometres in 14 months, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, China A unique adventure story of two 20-year old Australians on an epic 14-month journey through Russia, Mongolia, and across China to Beijing on recumbent bicycles. Tim and Chris are not just fearless adventurers but philosophers on wheels, sharing stories with Russian villagers, Mongolian herdsmen and the nomads of the Gobi desert. It’s also the story of their tumultuous relationship as two opposing wills battle it out in the midst of heat, snow and hunger. read more
	Jasper Jones Craig Silvey Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleepout. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. read more
	The Third Party Neil Greer 36-year old American Paul Stevens unwittingly finds himself the target of the Russian Security Police (the FSB) when his new Moscow apartment is seized as part of an investigation into an art forgery ring. read more
	The Clean Industrial Revolution: Growing Australian Prosperity in a Greenhouse Age Ben McNeil Climate scientist and economist Ben McNeil demonstrates the immense economic opportunities that will open up if Australia leads a new clean industrial revolution. He shows how investing in, commercialising and exporting the new fuels, materials and technologies for the twenty-first century will boost economic prosperity as well as securing environmental sustainability. read more
	Making Babies personal IVF stories Theresa Miller Around the world 15% of people who want to have a baby are unable to do so. And their struggles with infertility often lead them to try IVF. But only about a third of this number go home with a baby in their arms. Making Babies tells 14 personal stories of IVF, taking us inside the world of egg harvesting, blastocyst transferal, and hormone injections. From single mothers, to long-term heterosexual and gay couples, Making Babies tells real life stories ranging from the heartbreaking to the inspirational. read more
	Memento the gift of a lifetime Michael McQueen If you were to die today, would you be like 96% of people who leave earth never having told their story? If so, Memento is for someone like you. This beautifully crafted gift-book consists of 130 questions designed to help you record and pass on the stories, experiences and wisdom of your life to the next generation. Memento is not a book to simply buy and put on the shelf. It will require you to invest two of your most valuable assets: your time and your memories. I trust that you will see this as a worthwhile investment and that your children’s children will be glad you did too! read more
	The Child’s Book of Alphabet Treasures Marion Frith The Child’s Book of Alphabet Treasures is an alphabet book like no other. It’s a visually rich and evocative collection of eclectic and charming 3D objects arranged in alphabetical order. Each page is an artwork in itself, a collection of vintage, retro and contemporary “things” – porcelain, plastic, paper and silver – cleverly arranged and superbly photographed by one of the world’s leading style photographers. Set on backdrops using 1950s hues, the images excite a child to recognise and locate the familiar and not-so-familiar, letter by letter. read more