Y’know, it's not within the spirit of the game.’ Steve Smith was not to know it at Cape Town on 24 March 2018, but he was addressing his last press conference as captain of the Australian cricket team. By the next day morning he would be swept from office by a tsunami of public indignation involving even the prime minister. In a unique admission, Smith confessed to condoning a policy of sandpapering the cricket ball in a Test against South Africa. He, the instigator David Warner and their agent Cameron Bancroft returned home to disgrace and to lengthy bans. The crisis plunged Australian cricket into a bout of unprecedented soul searching, with Cricket Australia yielding to demands for reviews of the cricket team and of itself to restore confidence in their ‘culture’. In Crossing the Line, Gideon Haigh conducts his own cultural review – ‘less official and far cheaper but genuinely independent’. Studying the cricket team across a decade of radical change, he finds an accident waiting to happen, and a system struggling to cope with self-created challenges, on the field and in the boardroom. And he wonders: is there even any longer a spirit of the game to be within? Crossing the Line is the first instalment in Slattery Media Group’s Sports Shorts collection, a new series of sports essays published as small-format books. Sports Shorts has been created as a home for ambitious, lively and engaging writing and journalism on sport—work of a scale and scope not suited to the confines of day-to-day journalism. Every instalment will illuminate or entertain, all the while fitting into your back pocket on the way to the game.

    Once hailed as The King, and widely acclaimed as one of the greatest footballers of his generation, Carey fell from the highest pinnacle of the game to the lowest of lows. From his brutal upbringing in Wagga Wagga to his early teen years where he discovered his love of, and talent for, football, Wayne's candid story of his early life reveals much about the man who has dominated headlines for more than a decade – first for his brilliance on the field, but more often for his troubled personal life.Covering the highs of his glory days at North Melbourne to his public downfall after his affair with his vice-captain's wife, Carey's memoir is extraordinarily honest. It is self-searching and searing in its examination of his own behaviour and its effects on those around him. His departure from North Melbourne marked the end of King Carey, and the beginning of a decline that was to see him bailed up in jail in both the US and Australia. His life became a train wreck, as he lurched from one disastrous incident to the next – from his serial infidelity to massive alcohol binges and a growing cocaine addiction – each played out on the front page of every newspaper in the country. This is the story of how a man can reach rock bottom, but begin to haul himself up again.The truth sets you free – but it can hurt. This is without doubt the most powerful sporting memoir ever published in Australia.

    When it did, the lives of everyone involved in its construction were utterly changed: some for the better, many for the worse.Helen Pitt tells the stories of the people behind the magnificent white sails of the Sydney Opera House. From the famous conductor and state premier who conceived the project; to the two architects whose lives were so tragically intertwined; to the workers and engineers; to the people of Sydney, who were alternately beguiled and horrified as the drama unfolded over two decades.With access to diaries, letters, and classified records, as well as her own interviews with people involved in the project, Helen Pitt reveals the intimate back story of the building that turned Sydney into an international city. It is a tale worthy of Shakespeare himself.'A drama-filled page turner' - Ita Buttrose AO OBE'Helen Pitt tells us so much about the building of the Sydney Opera House we've never heard before' - Bob Carr, former Premier of NSW'Australia in the seventies: mullets, platform shoes and, miraculously, the Opera House. At least we got one of them right. A great read.' - Amanda Keller, WSFM breakfast presenter

    In an overcrowded, underfunded medical system, she explores how more of us can be healthier, and how listening carefully to a patient’s experience can be as important as prescribing a pill. These dazzling essays show Hitchcock to be one of the most fearless and illuminating medical thinkers of our time – reasonable, insightful and deeply humane.

    Neale McShane The Birdsville police posting is one of the most remote in Australia. It can be extremely lonely and incredibly busy at the same time. Nothing might happen for weeks or months, then problems come crawling out of the woodwork.There aren't many who can handle the job for long - unless you're Senior Constable Neale McShane, who has single-handedly taken care of this beat the size of the UK for the past ten years. Recently retired from this 'hardship posting', Neale now has a stock of stories and adventures from his life and colourful times living with his family in Birdsville.In recounting these tales to his good friend and bestselling author Evan McHugh, Neale delights us with yarns that could only come from the furthest corner of our country. Here are stories of desert dangers, dead bodies, droughts and floods, drinkers and dreamers - and, of course the infamous Birdsville Races, when the town's population swells from 50 to 500.So if Birdsville has remained just a little too far off the beaten track for you, sit back and let Birdsville come to you.

    With seemingly nothing to lose, she makes the biggest decision of her life – to stay. But Emily's attempts to bridge a yawning loneliness spur a downward spiral of recklessness, as she hurtles from one sexual encounter to the next. It will take a truly terrifying experience for her to understand that sex is both a weapon and a wound in her battle for self-worth and empowerment.Delicately interweaving past and present, The Lotus Eaters is a sharply written story of self-redemption from an exciting young voice in Australian memoir that dissects the patterns of blame and shame women can form around their bodies and relationships.

    Having covered the war in Iraq and moved to Mexico City with two babies in nappies, he and his wife Diana thought they understood something about the subject.But when they arrived in Sydney so that Cave could establish The New York Times's Australia Bureau, life near the ocean confronted them with new ideas and questions, at odds with their American mindset that risk was a matter of individual choices. Surf-lifesaving and Nippers showed that perhaps it could be managed together, by communities. And instead of being either eliminated or romanticised, it might instead be respected and even embraced.And so Cave set out to understand how our current attitude to risk developed - and why it's not necessarily good for us.Into the Rip is partly the story of this New York family learning to live better by living with the sea and it is partly the story of how humans manage the idea of risk. Interviewing experts and everyday heroes, Cave asks critical questions like: Is safety overrated? Why do we miscalculate risk so often and how can we improve? Is it selfish to take risks or can more exposure make for stronger families, citizens and nations? And how do we factor in legitimate fears and major disasters like Cave has covered in his time here: the Black Summer fires; the Christchurch massacre; and, of course, Covid?The result is Grit meets Phosphorescence and Any Ordinary Day - a book that will change the way you and your family think about facing the world's hazards.

    

    This is the voice her readers have come to rely on - insistently honest, unflinching, self-mocking and always hilarious.In Mexico, she tries to write a novel, while the toilet explodes in the house, the gardener hoses her notes and the young maid questions her about plastic surgery. In Poland she retraces the steps of her much-loved character from Too Many Men, Ruth Rothwax, and finds herself surprised to hear Ruth's words coming out of her own mouth. In between she writes for the first time about the devastation of losing her New York home to fire and having to rebuild not only a life but a history. She also offers powerful insights into her adopted city New York, both before and after the tragic events of September 11.Brett's witty and audacious eye captures thos moments of humour, pain and love in life that move and haunt us all. Between Mexico and Poland is Lily Brett at her very best.

    The result is a memoir that is at once intellectually provocative and deeply honest; the book that readers of Poppy, The Orchard and Stravinsky's Lunch have been waiting for.

    It is a tale of ambition, of wealthy widows and marriage mistakes; of money and trade, espionage and mercenaries, hardship and illness. Beyond the facts of discovery and exploration, this book reveals the extraordinary idealism and the influence of the Enlightenment on the founding of Australia.Michael Pembroke provides a compelling portrait of Arthur Phillip. He carefully weaves together the little-known facts and projects us into life in Georgian England – a time when newly discovered territories were the road to untold wealth.‘At long last, a finely written biography of the astonishing egalitarian who became Australia’s founding father. There are gripping descriptions of his amazing sea voyages and moving accounts of the humanity he brought to the government of a penal colony that only he thought would ever become a nation. The book shows the moral vision of a man who gave history its best example of the possibility of the Reformation of the human spirit.’-Geoffrey Robertson QC‘A gripping life of a quite extraordinary man: the most important enlightenment life story that we’ve never had properly told before.’-Andrew Marr, BBC broadcaster and television host‘The colour and dash of Arthur Phillip’s extraordinary life, lived in amazing times in every corner of the world, is told just brilliantly in Michael Pembroke’s utterly absorbing book, destined to become a classic of Imperial literature.’-Simon Winchester, bestselling author and journalistMichael Pembroke is a writer, judge and naturalist. He spent much of his childhood travelling to many of the maritime ports of the colonial era. His first school was at Sandhurst in England in the grounds of a military academy and his last on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour. He completed his education at Cambridge and now lives and writes in Sydney and at the hamlet of Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains. In 2009 he wrote Trees of History & Romance, a paean to nature and poetry. He is a direct descendant of Nathanial Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne, who arrived in Botany Bay in January 1788.

    Deceived wives and widowers, men who've never been loved and don't know why, Russian crew forced to leave their children behind for years at a time … And then there are the married couples: how calm the old ones, how eager the new! – but isn't a couple the greatest mystery of all?Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice is the tale of a journey to Antarctica aboard the Professor Molchanov. With unmatched eloquence, Helen Garner spins a tale of ships, icebergs, tourism, time, photography and the many forms of desolation.

    Along the way you'll meet the 'Unsolved Squad' - the humble heroes and dedicated experts involved in collecting and connecting clues. Unsolved Australia is a chilling, thrilling and inspiring book full of drama, emotion... and hope.

    I made my way to the remotest islands, the hottest deserts and the coldest of climates. I was robbed, suffered injuries, got sick and depressed. I covered around 320,000 kilometres by plane, train, boat, bus and car and ran just over 2300 race kilometres. It proved to me that you can do whatever you want to – just find the starting line, believe in yourself, and Run Like Crazy!When Tristan Miller lost his job as a result of the global economic crisis, he set himself a huge personal challenge. He would spend a year seeing the world, each week running an official marathon in a different country. This is the story of an ordinary man who chased his dream, 42.2 kilometres at a time.

    It is a dance, a cosmic strip show: a flash of spine, and then a rib cage, clean as a fish. Who is laying these bones down, one by one? Is it me who is making you, or are you making yourself?'When Anna Goldsworthy, pianist and perfectionist, falls pregnant with her first child, her excitement is tempered by the daunting journey ahead. In Welcome to Your New Life, she shares the dizzying wonder and crippling anxiety that come with creating new life. Should she indulge her craving for sausage after sixteen years of not eating meat? Will her birth plan involve Enya or hypnosis, or neither? And just how worried should she be about her baby falling into a composting toilet?This captivating memoir combines warmth and humour to reveal the love that binds families together. Welcome to Your New Life evokes the shock of plunging into a life-changing adventure and the kicking required to return to the surface.'A keen-eyed, funny, tender, wonderful book.' - Chloe Hooper'This book does what great literature should: it tries to get a grip on life - the making of it, the living-and-loving it, the leaving it. Goldsworthy's writing is so beautiful, so laser-acute and funny and moving that you feel you are living more vividly. Welcome to Your New Life seems essential to me now. I laughed and I cried and I absolutely loved it.' - Anna Funder'warm, funny and candid' - Books+PublishingAuthorAnna Goldsworthy is the author of Welcome To Your New Life andPiano Lessons.Anna's writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, the Adelaide Review and Best Australian Essays. She has won numerous prizes and scholarships for piano performance. In 2004, she completed a world tour performing in festivals and concert halls in Australia, Asia, Europe and North and South America. Her solo CD, Come With Us, was released in early 2008. In that same year she collaborated with her father, Peter Goldsworthy, on a theatrical adaptation of his book Maestro, which drew inspiration from her early life.