Lola Bensky is a nineteen-year-old rock journalist who irons her hair straight and asks a lot of questions. A high-school dropout, she's not sure how she got the job — but she's been sent by her Australian newspaper right to the heart of the London music scene at the most exciting time in music history: 1967.Lola spends her days planning diets and interviewing rock stars. In London, Mick Jagger makes her a cup of tea, Jimi Hendrix (possibly) propositions her and Cher borrows her false eyelashes. At the Monterey International Pop Festival, Lola props up Brian Jones and talks to Janis Joplin about sex. In Los Angeles, she discusses being overweight with Mama Cass and tries to pluck up the courage to ask Cher to return those false eyelashes.Lola has an irrepressible curiosity, but she begins to wonder whether the questions she asks these extraordinary young musicians are really a substitute for questions about her parents' calamitous past that can't be asked or answered. As...

"Men have more straightforward relationships. They don't hang up phones in a huff with each other. They don't feud and not speak for months over insignificant issues. Men don't weep at something another man says. Or hate them for years because of it... "Ruth Rothwax likes women, but she wants them to like each other more, and not be so aggressive, so competitive with other females. She's even thinking of starting a women's group: a small group of smart women who'll care about each other and collectively gain more power for themselves and others. And Ruth practises what she preaches: every day she shows support for her close female friends. She's a good friend to have. If only all women were like her.Then her father's sixty-seven-year-old busty blonde girlfriend enters the scene, with a suitcase full of plans. So as Ruth's carefully calibrated life is turned upside down, all her sisterly solidarity, all her "we're here to support and nurture each other" ideals fly out the...

New York is a walker's city. You can walk for hours. The streets slip by. There is so much to look at, so much to take in. I walk a lot. Especially when I am not writing... Lily Brett's love affair with New York began as an outsider in her late teens when she was posted on assignment there as a young Australian rock journalist. In her early forties she returned, together with her soul mate and three children, to start a new life. She has since called New York home for three decades. This witty, candid and moving collection of short pieces celebrates the city that's now part of her heartbeat. A compulsive walker, Brett takes us to her favourite places and introduces us to the characters of the city that has nurtured, perplexed and inspired her. She brings to life the delights of Chinatown, the majesty of Grand Central Station, the lure of spandex and sequins, and the peculiarity of canine couture. And she muses on the miracle of love in the Lodz ghetto, the...

Ruth Rothwax, a successful woman with her own business, Rothwax Correspondence, can find order and meaning in writing words for other people -- condolence letters, thank-you letters, even you-were-great-in-bed letters. But as the daughter of Edek Rothwax, an Auschwitz survivor with a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to the English language, Ruth can find no words to understand the loss of her family experienced during World War II. Ruth is obsessed with the idea of returning to Poland with her father, but she doesn't quite understand why she feels this so intensely. To make sense of her family's past, yes. To visit the places where her beloved mother and father lived and almost died, certainly. But she knows there's more to this trip. By facing Poland, and the past, she can finally confront her own future.

Rediscover the lovable character Lola Bensky with this stylish reissue of Lily Brett's first work of fictionAfter surviving the Holocaust, Josl and Renia move to Melbourne with their daughter Lola Bensky to start a new life. This poignant yet bitingly funny collection of short stories follows Lola's struggles to come to terms with herself, her place in the local Jewish community and the horrific family history whose legacy is still felt by them all.Things Could Be Worse, Brett's debut work of fiction, was first published in 1990 to universal acclaim. It was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the Talking Book of the Year Award. With haunting illustrations by the renowned painter David Rankin, it introduced Lola Bensky to the world, the eponymous heroine of Lily Brett's 2012 award-winning international bestseller.