![Alexander Batthyny explores terminal lucidity in Threshold. Picture supplied Alexander Batthyny explores terminal lucidity in Threshold. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/7896a6fe-8323-4fd5-a973-caade1570f08.png/r0_0_4914_2763_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Threshold: terminal lucidity and the border between life and death
Alexander Batthyny. Scribe. $32.99.
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Terminal lucidity is a relatively common but poorly understood phenomenon. Near the end of life, many people experience what seems like a miraculous return. They regain their clarity and energy, are able to talk with families and caregivers, recall their lives, and often appear to be aware of their nearing death. Batthyny a cognitive scientist and director of the Viktor Frankl Institute, offers the first major account of terminal lucidity, utilising hundreds of case studies and his research in the related field of near-death studies to explore the mind, the body, the nature of consciousness, and what the living can learn from the dying.
![Gordon Conochie's A Tiger Rules the Mountain. Picture supplied Gordon Conochie's A Tiger Rules the Mountain. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/a6a1a2e2-091e-4ef2-94e1-2936972250c0.png/r0_0_4914_2763_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A Tiger Rules the Mountain: Cambodia's Pursuit of Democracy
Gordon Conochie. Monash University Press. $36.99.
Cambodia's Hun Sen is the world's longest-serving prime minister, in power since 1985. In 2013, Sen's rule came under threat when the exiled opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, unexpectedly returned just before a national election. On election day, millions voted for change. This narrative non-fiction account tells the dramatic story of that election and the subsequent multi-year wrestle for power. Conochie lived and worked in the country and interviewed many involved in the events, including government officials, journalists, young human-rights activists and opposition politicians.
![Lucinda Holdforth delves into 21st-century values. Picture supplied Lucinda Holdforth delves into 21st-century values. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/f4dcdc5a-aa22-4e4d-9d9f-7fd298d0e90d.png/r0_0_3675_2066_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
21st-Century Virtues: How They Are Failing Our Democracy
Lucinda Holdforth. Monash University Publishing. $19.95.
Holdforth questions the new orthodoxy that espouses virtues such as "authenticity", "humility" and "transparency". She suggests that these virtues are not only unhelpfully subjective but also, in the absence of broader civic values, fail to serve our democracy. Vulnerability may be a facet of the human condition but that is surely no reason to make it an aspiration. Well-meaning people may talk about the power of "my" truth, but this risks a dissolution of agreed facts and shared reality, breaking down the decision-making processes essential to effective democracy. This book is part of the series, In the National Interest.
![Deborah Fitzgerald profiles poet Dorothea Mackellar. Picture supplied Deborah Fitzgerald profiles poet Dorothea Mackellar. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/1fadc060-d580-4505-851f-f9a6d1977f35.jpg/r0_0_1400_2140_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Her Sunburnt Country: The Extraordinary Literary Life of Dorothea Mackellar
Deborah Fitzgerald. Simon & Schuster. $55.
Though many Australians know lines from Dorothea Mackellar's classic poem My Country by heart, very little has been written about the poet's extraordinary life. From her childhood and youth in Sydney's Point Piper and Pittwater, to discovering her love for the Australian landscape on her brother's farm in Gunnedah, she embarked on a decades-long literary career that saw her linked to some of the leading lights of her day here and internationally, socialising with Joseph Conrad, Charles Bean and the Fairfax family. She left an indelible mark on the Australian imagination.
![But the Girl, by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu. Picture supplied But the Girl, by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu. Picture supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/c1b81d2f-542a-4ca6-83e4-ddf505a8e5cf.png/r0_0_4914_2763_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
But the Girl
Jessica Zhan Mei Yu. Penguin. $32.99.
This debut novel is a coming-of-age story about belonging, alienation, and the exquisite pleasure and pain of girlhood. Girl is spending the spring at an artist's residency in Scotland, far from her home in Australia and her tight-knit Malaysian family. She is meant to be writing a post-colonial novel and working on a PhD on the poetry of Sylvia Plath. But she can't stop thinking about her upbringing and the stories of her parents and grandmother who raised her. How can she reconcile their dreams for her with her lived reality? And what if the story of becoming yourself is not about carving out a new identity but learning to understand the people who shaped you?
![One Day We're All Going to Die, by Elise Esther Hearst. One Day We're All Going to Die, by Elise Esther Hearst.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/f5d0ab0e-2382-4575-817a-abe1d002acc3.png/r0_0_1152_648_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
One Day We're All Going to Die
Elise Esther Hearst. HarperCollins. $32.99.
This first novel by playwright Hearst (The Sea Project) delves into the questions that surround culture, identity politics and generational trauma. At 27, Naomi works at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and finds herself going on bad blind dates and having cringe-worthy sex. She bears the weight of the unspoken grief of Cookie, her Holocaust-survivor grandmother, and fears disappointing others (men, friends, her parents, humanity). She also finds herself being attracted to all the wrong people. How can she figure out what she wants rather than trying to please everyone around her?
![Everyone and Everything, by Nadine J. Cohen. Everyone and Everything, by Nadine J. Cohen.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/35f7d6d1-84b2-441f-a775-6120cfe19231.png/r0_0_9042_5084_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Everyone and Everything
Nadine J. Cohen. Pantera Press. $32.99.
Writer and refugee advocate Cohen's debut novel is about friendship, grief and the deep, frustrating bond between sisters. When Yael Silver's world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons - and some truly terrible erotic literature. The book asks what makes us who we are and is an exploration of one woman's journey to the brink and back.
![A Woman of Courage, by Tania Blanchard. A Woman of Courage, by Tania Blanchard.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/MxhEgQKUJhZgHxwVaKiqcq/3f62ae40-7985-4dcb-a5be-03146f8961f1.png/r0_0_1152_648_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A Woman of Courage
Tania Blanchard. HarperCollins. $32.99.
This story of love, tenacity and the right to be heard was inspired by a true story. In northern England in 1890, Hannah Todd, fresh from her teaching studies, joins her parents in a rural village, brimming with newly found passion and the groundswell towards women's suffrage unfolding in London. Working tirelessly to help women and children in the county, Hannah is determined to make the fight for the vote her life's work, adding her voice to the rising chorus across the nation and hopes of a new world and a new way of thinking. But soon she must fight a new, unexpected battle - that of the yearning of her own heart - and discovers that when power is threatened, darkness, brutality and closely guarded secrets are never too far from the surface.
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