Book Swaps Sydney

Odyssey (books 13-end) - Homer

"I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque." - Bugs Bunny, channeling the spirit of Homer. We've all had our horror stories struggling to get home after a long days' work, but has it ever taken you 10 years? Whereas The Epic of Gilgamesh was forgotten, its clay tablets buried beneath the earth, for over two thousand years, the Odyssey has been a popular story since Homer first told it,(if he ever did,) and remains in the DNA of classic and popular literature, film, art and every other form of media today. But do you really know the story? Odysseus, king of Ithaca, wanders for 10 years trying to get home after the Trojan War. He is distracted in his journey by vengeful gods, terrifying monsters and powerful women. While he struggles to return home, his wife Penelope has to deal with with the unwelcome advances of 108 suitors (a bit like Tinder), while Odysseus's son Telemachus entreats the help of bright-eyed Athena to reunite his parents and save his family and his home. Odysseus has survived the horrors of Scylla and Charybdis, two separate islands featuring man-eating giants, and the advances of Circe and Calypso who so obnoxiously insist on having sex with him. But now he has to face his greatest challenge yet... his wife Penelope. And her 108 would-be boyfriends hanging out in the garden. Some men just never know to take a hint! It's been ten years. Will Odysseus reunite lovingly with his family? Or will the gods withdraw their favour and allow him to become a pincushion to the suitors' spears and arrows? They do have a habit of being a bit contrary, those gods. We'll be discussing the book as a whole, so no worries if you missed the first meeting, and Jack will also be making one too many references to James Joyce's Ulysses, so consider yourself warned. Any translation you can find is perfectly fine - I'll be comparing the Robert Fagles Penguin Classics translation with the contemporary Emily Wilson translation. Any other translation, in poetry or prose, is welcome. If you need soft copies of one of the above translations, please feel free to email me at jack.malone67@gmail.com As my Meetup membership only allows me to create events with up to 10 people, please mark your status as 'Not Going' if you're not able to make it so that I have a good idea of what numbers to book the table for. If you're on the waitlist, please send me a message if you're interested in coming! The more the merrier. We usually discuss the book together for about an hour and then move on to more general discussion for as long as we'd like.

MAY BOOK –'The Hate Race' by Maxine Beneba Clarke

Global Book Crawl x Ms Cattea

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." So said author CS Lewis of the strong link between books and tea. For the [Global Book Crawl](https://www.globalbookcrawl.org/cities-sydney) (20-26 April 2026), I'm pairing some book browsing sessions with tea meetups. Come join me? **Noon**: Potts Point Bookshop, 14 Macleay Street, Elizabeth Bay **12.30pm**: Ms Cattea, 17/1-21 Darlinghurst Rd, Potts Point *Browsing books is free, tea at your own expense.*

'Amongst Women' by John McGahern

An afternoon of stimulating discussion on a classic book.

May Book Club on Collapse: Goliath's Curse

Welcome to Meet the Moment Book Club, where we read books that meet the moment and make sense of it all together. Please see our [group page](https://www.meetup.com/meet-the-moment-book-club/) for a list of upcoming books! After a lively inaugural event discussing Iran, our second book club will dive into collapse -- societal collapse, of states and empires -- Goliaths. It's especially interesting after [April's book "All the Shah's Men,"](https://www.meetup.com/meet-the-moment-book-club/events/313809187/) which gave insight into how a Goliath operates; now we can explore how and why one collapses, and ask ourselves, are we living through it now? "Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now face a choice - we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last." https://www.abbeys.com.au/book/goliaths-curse-a-deep-history-of-societal-collapse-and-what-it-means-for-our-future-9780241741245.do The author, Luke Kemp, is coming to speak at Sydney Writer's Festival on May 22 & 23 also! https://www.swf.org.au/program/festival-2026/luke-kemp-goliaths-curse https://www.swf.org.au/program/festival-2026/big-histories We will be meeting at the Erko Hotel, in the open area in the back. It's okay if you haven't finished the book by the time of the event, but the more the merrier! There's no fee, but please purchase your own food/drinks from the venue. If the RSVP list is full, please join the waiting list as there will likely be fluctuations closer to the date. If you RSVP'ed and can't make it, please edit your RSVP so that others can attend. No-shows will be noted and barred from the book club. Please try to be on time as we start and end on time. Look forward to seeing you there!

Why War Rather Than a Deal? How Bargaining Can Break Down

As the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran unfolds in real time, it raises one of the oldest question in politics: why do wars start? The familiar answers are tempting — greed, power, hatred, the darker instincts of human nature. But they are often too simple. War is ruinously expensive for both sides, and almost any deal is better than destruction. The costliness of war is precisely why it remains the exception rather than the rule — rivals usually prefer to loathe one another in peace rather than fight. The book we will be looking at in May takes that observation seriously. Instead of asking why humans are warlike in general, it asks a sharper question: if peace is usually the better choice, why do deals collapse and wars break out anyway? By mapping the specific strategic breakdowns — miscalculations, hidden uncertainties, promises that can't be kept — that derail even willing parties, it offers a diagnostic framework for understanding why conflicts erupt despite overwhelming incentives to avoid them, and how those same insights can be used to chart a path to peace. Come along and let's dig in. **Primary Reading:** ***[Why We Fight Summary](https://1drv.ms/b/c/adb4f7488b2eef0a/IQCksASUdxdGRogAVU6VPwJjAeOtxA7Gdo9LgvTDTezGwjs?e=jwHnwr)*** (A 38-page guide prepared for this meetup) **The Book:** ***Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace* (2022) by Christopher Blattman.** Christopher Blattman is a professor at the University of Chicago who has spent decades doing something rare in conflict studies: actually going to war zones and high-violence communities to run rigorous field experiments and test his theories against reality. Drawing on political science, economics, and psychology, he builds a framework that applies equally to international wars, civil conflicts, drug cartel turf wars, and street gangs — the same underlying logic, he argues, explains them all. His central claim is that war is almost never inevitable — peace and compromise are almost always available, and almost always better for both sides. When wars do break out, it is because one of five specific mechanisms has caused the logic of peace to collapse: **(1) Unchecked interests** — leaders pursuing personal gains at their people's expense; **(2) Intangible incentives** — goals like honour, ideology, or religious duty that no material deal can satisfy; **(3) Uncertainty** — where private information and the temptation to bluff make it rational to call an adversary's hand; **(4) Commitment problems** — when a rising power cannot credibly promise not to exploit its future advantage, making conflict feel safer than a deal that won't hold; and **(5) Misperceptions** — when leaders systematically misjudge their enemy's strength, intentions, or resolve. The guide we prepared should give you a solid grounding in all of these ideas, but I hope it leaves you wanting more and that you will track down the book. It is easily available as an ebook and audiobook, and likely in libraries. If you want to buy a physical copy, you may need to order one, so don't leave it too late. One honest caveat: although Blattman writes for a general audience — enlivened by his firsthand accounts of fieldwork in war zones and gang-controlled neighbourhoods — this is a substantial book that requires some effort. One request, though: only arrive having done some reading. The summary guide is there precisely for this — it won't take long and it will make the evening far more rewarding. We've all sat through discussions that devolve into "well, Netanyahu is just..." or "the Ayatollahs are simply..." and while those conversations have their place, they're not what the Big Ideas Book Club is for. Blattman's whole project is to get beyond personality and prejudice to the structural forces that drive conflict. Come ready to think at that level, and the discussion will be genuinely illuminating. Join us for a drink (and optional meal) at 6:30pm on Monday, 4th May, on the 2nd floor of the Keg & Brew Hotel in Surrey Hills (i.e. up two flights of stairs). The venue is conveniently located near Central Station and the Light Rail. Do the reading and bring along your favourite war to discuss, and maybe we can also help deescalate the parking-spot war you are currently waging with your neighbours. 😊 Hope to see you there! P.S. Please adjust your RSVP if you have indicated that you will come but are no longer able to do so. This is courteous to other people if there is a waitlist. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- These are just some optional links to consider to supplement the main reading. But please do the reading! Feel free to pass on other useful links in the discussion section. **Video & Audio** * Talks and Podcasts with Blattman: [Blattman Presentation on the Book (1 hr)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d57pqL-9cg&t=1096s) [Vox’s Weeds podcast with Blattman on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6tC2NJ1WaMO4MlYi3zdEuX) [Interview at the U.S. Institute of Peace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_vyJj-l3nY&t=182s) (Now the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace!) **Written** * Blattman's writing on the book: [5 Key Insights -- The Next Big Idea Club](https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/fight-roots-war-paths-peace-bookbite/34151/) [The Roots of War - Boston Review](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-roots-of-war/) [Five Reasons War Happen](https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-five-reasons-wars-happen/) [Blattman on the prospects of war with China](https://chrisblattman.com/blog/2022/10/26/the-prospects-for-war-with-china-why-i-see-a-serious-chance-of-world-war-iii-in-the-next-decade/) * Summary of the book: [Tosummarise book summary](https://www.tosummarise.com/book-summary-why-we-fight-by-chris-blattman/) * Other books. If you are interested in how historians rather than political scientists approach the causes of war, two books worth knowing about are listed below. Geoffrey Blainey — one of Australia's most eminent historians — argues in his 1973 classic work (now updated to 2025) that wars typically begin when nations hold conflicting beliefs about their own relative power, a thesis that maps onto Blattman's uncertainty and misperceptions mechanisms. Richard Overy's recent book takes a broader and darker view, surveying the deep biological, psychological, and cultural foundations that make humans a persistently warlike species — essentially the kind of sweeping "why are humans aggressive?" question that Blattman deliberately sets aside in favour of his sharper diagnostic approach. \- Blainey \(2025\) The Causes of War \- Overy \(2024\) Why War?

Bonfire of the Humanities by Victor Davis Hanson et. al.

Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on April 30, we will be discussing a series of essays found in the book, The Bonfire of the Humanities, by Victor Davis Hanson et. al. Victor Davis Hanson and his fellow authors argue that modern academia have undermined the foundations of Western civilization, forcing individuals into book clubs and the like (outside of the university) in order to discuss great works of literature and the broader humanities. Universities, or at least Faculties of the Arts and Humanities, they argue, are no longer great places of learning, but have increasingly become factories of social engineering and indoctrination. The authors argue that by neglecting the Classics and the objective study of the past in favor of postmodern theories and woke political correctness, scholars have traded eternal wisdom for a trendy temporary relevance. The authors outline a stark choice between civilisation and a type of barbarism, and suggest how the latter can be avoided. Cheaper hard copies of this book can be found on ebay rather than amazon. It is not readily available from local libraries. Available from our usual friend Anna, or a pdf from me - write to me at dalemills@cantab.net Note: this book is by Victor Davis Hanson et. al. It is NOT the same as the book with the same title, authored by David Marc. The format of the meeting is that we talk about the book for about 50 mins. Contrary opinions are welcome and given a lot of space. Then the meetings formally ends and almost everyone stays back to talk more about the book or anything else. The Shakespeare Hotel is a 10 min walk from Central train station, or almost opposite Surry Hills light rail. Local parking is reasonable.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Global Book Crawl x Teahouses of Sydney: Inner West

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." So said author CS Lewis of the strong link between books and tea. For the [Global Book Crawl](https://www.globalbookcrawl.org/cities-sydney) (20-26 April 2026), I'm pairing some book browsing sessions with tea meetups. Come join me? **Rough timeline** **8am**: Honey & Walnut, 540 Marrickville Road, Dulwich Hill **9am**: Gleebooks, 536 Marrickville Road, Dulwich Hill (Bus 428 to Enmore) **10.10am**: Mamuki, 147 Enmore Rd, Enmore (Walk to Better Read Than Dead) **11am**: Better Read than Dead, 265 King Street, Newtown (Bus or walk to Glebe) **12.30pm**: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe *Browsing books is free, tea at your own expense.*

Global Book Crawl x Teahouses of Sydney: CBD

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." So said author CS Lewis of the strong link between books and tea. For the [Global Book Crawl](https://www.globalbookcrawl.org/cities-sydney) (20-26 April 2026), I'm pairing some book browsing sessions with tea meetups. Come join me? **10am:** Abbey's/Galaxy Bookshop, 131 York Street, Sydney **11am**: The Palace Tea Room, QVB **Noon**: Kinokuniya, The Galeries (+ Dulcet Cafe) *Browsing books is free, tea at your own expense.*

RAPTURE-by Emily Maguire

Global Book Crawl x Teahouses of Sydney

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." So said author CS Lewis of the strong link between books and tea. For the [Global Book Crawl](https://www.globalbookcrawl.org/cities-sydney) (20-26 April 2026), I'm pairing some book browsing sessions with tea meetups. Come join me? **10am:** Abbey's/Galaxy Bookshop, 131 York Street, Sydney **11am**: The Palace Tea Room, QVB **Noon**: Kinokuniya, The Galeries (+ Dulcet Cafe) *Browsing books is free, tea at your own expense.*