The articles in this collection represent a decade of writing by Aboriginal historian and activist Jackie Huggins. Sister Girl examines many topics, including community action, political commitment, the tradition and the value of oral history, and government intervention in Aboriginal lives. It challenges accepted notions of the appropriateness of mainstream feminism in Aboriginal society and of white historians writing Indigenous history. Closer to home, there are accounts of personal achievement and family experience as she revisits the writing of Auntie Rita with her mother Rita Huggins - the inspiration for her lifework.

The Negro of the Old South, written by a Mrs. Nicholas Ware Eppes, and published in 1925, is a book whose only relevance lies in its bias. The author explains her authority on the subject of slavery by stating that she is, "one of the lauded, much abused, much despised, and much ridiculed classes -- one of the blue-booded children of the Old South, surrounded for many years by the slaves who were as truly ours as anything else we owned and served by them in many ways, 'sence freedom drapped'." Such is the tone throughout the whole of this favorable recollection. Cooks are referred to as 'pets, ' the Klu Klux Klan is described as 'the great third kingdom, ' and the crime of lynching was never known by the African American in the south "until these apostles of negro equality (carpet-baggers) put it in the minds of the newly made citizens." The only historical analysis of slavery is given to suggest that the climate, the 'mother country' (Britain), the "New Englanders who sought a market for their wares," and others had forced the institution of slavery upon the South. -- Melissa Wilks and Alexander Wray-Kerr (Monticello High School Scholars Program, Spring 2003)

Effervescent Adventures with Britannia is the latest addition to Wm Roger Louis's stimulating and acclaimed series, Adventures with Britannia. It draws upon a distinguished array of writers and scholars - historians, political scientists, journalists, novelists, biographers and English literature specialists - to guide the reader through a fascinating labyrinth of British culture, history and politics. Together, they provide a unique insight into the pivotal themes - political, literary and cultural - which have shaped British state and society. The subjects covered include a new analysis of Jack the Ripper by Richard Davenport-Hines, a new appraisal of Harold Nicholson and Royal Biography by Jane Ridley and a new account of Evelyn Waugh in North America by Martin Stannard. In literature, Patrick French writes on V.S. Naipul; in history Andrew Lownie offers new perspectives on Guy Burgess and in politics Kenneth O. Morgan considers what will become of Britain after Brexit. Collectively, the chapters combine a rich mix of original ideas, historical and literary allusion, personality and anecdote, to provide an intellectual adventure into the mainsprings of modern British and international society.

With the startling emotional immediacy of a fractured family photo album, Jennifer Lauck's incandescent memoir is the story of an ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable, Blackbird will carry your heart away. The house on Mary Street was home to Jennifer; her older brother B.J.; their hardworking father, who smelled like aftershave and read her Snow White; and their mother, who called her little daughter Sunshine and embraced Jackie Kennedy's sense of style. Through a child's eyes, the skies of Carson City were forever blue, and life was perfect -- a world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles. Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with hairspray, powder, and a kiss on the cheek....But soon, everything Jennifer has come to love and rely on begins to crumble, sending her on a roller coaster of loss and loneliness. In a world unhinged by tragedy, where beautiful mothers die and families are warped by more than they can bear, a young girl must transcend a landscape of pain and mistreatment to discover her richest resource: her own unshakable will to survive.