Please Gamble Irresponsibly


Book Description

Australians lose more money gambling than any other country. But how did we get here? In his inimitable, hilarious style, sports historian Titus O’Reily charts the rise, fall and rise of sport gambling in Australia. We’ll gamble on anything, from two flies crawling up a wall to less important things like federal elections. And thanks to the internet, phones and gambling-tax loving governments, these days Australians can indulge their love of a punt no matter what they’re doing. Aussies could be at the birth of a child or performing open-heart surgery and still put a bet on. It wasn’t always this easy. Once, you could only gamble on sport illegally. Which, it turns out, was actually also pretty easy. But over the last thirty years gambling on sport has been legalised, first slowly and then very quickly. Now almost every ad on TV is about sport betting, and even some of the players are getting in on the wagering. Please, Gamble Irresponsibly traces the history of gambling in Australia from horseracing in the colonial era, through the rise of SP bookies and organised crime, to the commercialisation of the industry and its impact on communities and the integrity of sport. With billions of dollars involved, what are the odds of putting the genie back in the bottle?




Cheat


Book Description

Where there's sport, there's cheating. No sport is immune; athletics, swimming, rugby, American Football, cricket, baseball, badminton, motorsports, tennis and curling. Yes, even that sport on the ice with brooms. Almost as soon as humans started playing sport competitively, they started to cheat. They cheated to win, for the fame, for the money and sometimes for reasons that are hard to understand. From the fiendishly clever to the outright hare brained, the borderline to the blatant, Titus O'Reily takes us through the many and varied ways athletes and countries have tried to cheat over the years. There's the winner of the New York marathon who was driven in a car part of the way, the male basketballer whose drug test revealed he was pregnant, the Tour De France where many of the riders took the train, the Spanish Paralympic basketball team who faked being intellectually disabled to win gold at the 2000 Paralympics. As well as sharing an alarming amount of tales involving swapping bodily fluids, Titus takes you through doping, illegal equipment, bribes, playing dirty, faking injuries, wearing disguises, dodgy referees, ball tampering, eye gouging, itching powder, licking an opponent to distract them and sending a dwarf out to bat to shrink the strike zone. Just as sport has become more sophisticated, so has cheating in sport, from state backed doping programs to tiny motors in Tour De France bikes. What does this say about us, that we cheat with such regularity and creativity? Will technology help stop cheating or will it only make it worse?




Understanding Match-Fixing in Sport


Book Description

Bringing together leading match-fixing researchers from different fields, this book offers new theoretical and applied perspectives on this persistent problem in sport and wider society. The book explores the foundations of match-fixing from multiple viewpoints, from sociology and criminology to policy and governance, exploring topics such as the use of network governance theory, ethics and integrity, and management aspects that position match-fixing in sport’s commercial landscape. Featuring cases and data from all around the world, the book explains how match-fixing has become a prominent feature of contemporary sport, and considers the efficacy and practicability of interventions to solve these problems. This is fascinating and important reading for any advanced student, researcher, practitioner, or policymaker with an interest in sport management, sports business, sport policy, sport development, sport law, or criminology.




A Sporting Chance


Book Description

In sport, the term ‘good bloke’ doesn't mean what it says. Like ‘fun run’, it often actually means exactly the opposite. Titus O’Reily, the sports historian Australia neither needs nor deserves, examines why our nation’s sportspeople are so readily forgiven for doing terrible things. With ridiculous tales from Australia’s chequered sporting history, A Sporting Chance dissects the scandals big and small, the mistakes made in covering them up and the path athletes tread back to redemption. From the Essendon supplements saga and the sandpaper-loving Australian cricket team to whatever it is Nick Kyrgios has done now, Titus reveals the archetypes at the heart of our greatest sporting scandals. There’s the corrupt cop who gave us the race that stopped a nation and the boxing champion who refused to train. There’s the cashed-up businessmen who bankrupted clubs and the commentators who can’t get their foot out of their mouth. And of course there’s the good blokes, like Wayne Carey, Matthew Johns and Shane Warne, who it seems we’ll forgive for absolutely anything. In his rambling and at times incoherent style, Titus asks the question: are Australians really that forgiving of their sporting heroes? With the rise of social media, women’s sport and the drive towards greater equality, are the good blokes of Australia’s sporting landscape an endangered species?




The Glass Castle


Book Description

A triumphant tale of a young woman and her difficult childhood, The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience, redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully vibrant. Jeannette Walls was the second of four children raised by anti-institutional parents in a household of extremes.




The Psychology of Social Media


Book Description

Are we really being ourselves on social media? Can we benefit from connecting with people we barely know online? Why do some people overshare on social networking sites? The Psychology of Social Media explores how so much of our everyday lives is played out online, and how this can impact our identity, wellbeing and relationships. It looks at how our online profiles, connections, status updates and sharing of photographs can be a way to express ourselves and form connections, but also highlights the pitfalls of social media including privacy issues. From FOMO to fraping, and from subtweeting to selfies, The Psychology of Social Media shows how social media has developed a whole new world of communication, and for better or worse is likely to continue to be an essential part of how we understand our selves.




Design Mom


Book Description

New York Times best seller Ever since Gabrielle Stanley Blair became a parent, she’s believed that a thoughtfully designed home is one of the greatest gifts we can give our families, and that the objects and decor we choose to surround ourselves with tell our family’s story. In this, her first book, Blair offers a room-by-room guide to keeping things sane, organized, creative, and stylish. She provides advice on getting the most out of even the smallest spaces; simple fixes that make it easy for little ones to help out around the house; ingenious storage solutions for the never-ending stream of kid stuff; rainy-day DIY projects; and much, much more.




Cheat


Book Description

Mastering the not-so-subtle art of cheating in sport. Where there’s sport, there’s cheating. No sport is immune; athletics, swimming, rugby, American Football, cricket, baseball, badminton, motorsports, tennis and curling. Yes, even that sport on the ice with brooms. Almost as soon as humans started playing sport competitively, they started to cheat. They cheated to win, for the fame, for the money and sometimes for reasons that are hard to understand. From the fiendishly clever to the outright hare brained, the borderline to the blatant, Titus O’Reily takes us through the many and varied ways athletes and countries have tried to cheat over the years. There’s the winner of the New York marathon who was driven in a car part of the way, the male basketballer whose drug test revealed he was pregnant, the Tour De France where many of the riders took the train, the Spanish Paralympic basketball team who faked being intellectually disabled to win gold at the 2000 Paralympics. As well as sharing an alarming amount of tales involving swapping bodily fluids, Titus takes you through doping, illegal equipment, bribes, playing dirty, faking injuries, wearing disguises, dodgy referees, ball tampering, eye gouging, itching powder, licking an opponent to distract them and sending a dwarf out to bat to shrink the strike zone. Just as sport has become more sophisticated, so has cheating in sport, from state backed doping programs to tiny motors in Tour De France bikes. What does this say about us, that we cheat with such regularity and creativity? Will technology help stop cheating or will it only make it worse? Mastering the not-so-subtle art of cheating is a hilarious trip through the history of cheating in sport, and a handy how-to-guide for the professional athlete in your family.




Un-cook Yourself


Book Description

Nat’s What I Reckon was the tattooed lockdown saviour we didn’t know we needed, rescuing us from packet food, jar sauce and total boredom with his hilarious viral recipe videos that got us cooking at home like champions again. Now that we’ve cooked our way out of lockdown and are wondering what the hell to do next, our favourite ratbag is back – and he’s ready to teach us more about life in this thoroughly unhelpful (but maybe actually kinda helpful?) self-help guide. Nat’s already shown us that jar sauce can get f*cked. But what else is sh*t – and what’s actually not sh*t? Is it all as bad as we feel like it is most of the time? No part of our weird world and strange behaviour is spared as our long-haired guru tells us what he reckons about it all – and amps up the flavour with some eye-watering stories from his early years before a sweary video about pasta sauce shot him to global fame. With Nat’s nine no-nonsense rules, you’ll be on the road to being a better d*ckhead faster than you can say ‘get in the bin’ to jar sauce. And if you screw it up: it doesn’t bloody Parramatta! Features a small selection of Nat's favourite recipes illustrated by Sydney artists Bunkwaa, Glenno and Onnie O'Leary. 'The tastiest self-help book of this generation . . . Regardless of what you take away from Un-Cook Yourself, you’ll definitely be laughing.' Urban List




To Live


Book Description

Originally banned in China but later named one of that nation’s most influential books, a searing novel that portrays one man’s transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant. “A work of astounding emotional power.” —Dai Sijie, author of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress From the author of Brothers and China in Ten Words: this celebrated contemporary classic of Chinese literature was also adapted for film by Zhang Yimou. After squandering his family’s fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of gritty authenticity, buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.