In his first book, Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster takes readers on an idiosyncratic journey through the past and present of popular music: from Bob Dylan to Cat Power, from AC/DC to Nana Mouskouri, from The Saints to Franz Ferdinand.With 30 years experience as a recording artist and performer and an undimmed love of popular music, Forster’s observations about his fellow artists balance the enthusiasm of a fan with an insider’s authority. He is that rar...

‘A comic odyssey, a crime thriller and a nuts-and-bolts account of making art. Not bad for one book!’ PAUL KELLY‘Completely marvellous! Couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. You’ll swear he wrote it just for you. Ain’t no world in which Robert effing Forster missed his calling, but, damn, the bloke was born to write books.’ TRENT DALTONIt’s 1991, and Australian singer-songwriters Mick Woods and Drew Lovelock – 'tall and skinny, rock-star-wre...

Originally published in 1980. A social historian of modern France, Robert Forster discovered a series of father-to-son letters that presented an unusual opportunity to trace in human terms the impact of institutions and cultural norms on eighteenth-century French society. From these letters and other family papers, Forster reconstructed a family biography of the Deponts of La Rochelle over four generations. Their story affords new insights into the workings of institutions—economic, religi...

Originally published in 1971. In The House of Saulx-Tavanes: Versailles and Burgundy, 1700–1830, Professor Robert Forster examines the noble family of Saulx-Tavanes from the reign of Louis XIV to the Restoration. He provides readers with an account of a single aristocratic family's relationship to the changing political culture of the eighteenth century. Forster explores how an old aristocratic family promoted itself in the royal court, how the Saulx-Tavanes managed their estate r...

Originally published in 1960. This is a regional study of the nobility of Toulouse in the eighteenth century. The complex notion of class and the peculiarities of each region in France during the Ancien Régime make it difficult for historians to render a general portrait of the provincial French aristocracy. This study describes the economic interests and investments of noblemen in Toulouse. Some of their activities follow the classic pattern of "seigniorial reaction" and thus illustrate i...

'A comic odyssey, a crime thriller and a nuts-and-bolts account of making art. Not bad for one book!' PAUL KELLYIt's 1991, and Australian singer-songwriters Mick Woods and Drew Lovelock - 'tall and skinny, rock-star-wrecked handsome' - haven't yet managed to crack the big-time. But that's soon to be the least of their problems.On tour in Central Queensland, what seems like a minor marijuana bust turns ugly, and they're incarcerated in a low-security institu...

Healthy Running Step by Step will help runners of all ages and abilities understand why running injuries occur, how to prevent them, and how to speed up recovery. Injuries plague the majority of runners, wrecking training plans and cutting running careers short by decades, but they are not inevitable. Authors Robert Forster, P.T., and Roy M. Wallack explain that nearly all running injuries can be rehabilitated quicker and even avoided altogether with the right training, strengthen...

Police Chief Jesse Stone has a problem—actually, several problems: dead bodies keep turning up. A man takes his dog out for a run on the beach, only to be discovered later with two holes in his chest. A woman drives to the mall to purchase groceries and her body is soon found crumpled in a heap behind her loaded shopping cart. A commuter takes a shortcut home from the train but never makes it back alive.Investigating a serial killer in an affluent suburban town is difficult, and wi...

The Paradise Men's Softball League has wrapped up another game, and Chief of Police Jesse Stone is lingering in the parking lot with his teammates, drinking beer, swapping stories of double plays and beautiful women in the late-summer twilight. But then someone makes a horrifying discovery at a nearby lake: At the water's edge, facedown, is something that used to be a girl.The local cops haven't seen anything like this, but Jesse's L.A. past has made him all too familiar with float...

In 1947, Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball's color barrier—and changes the world. The event also changes the life of Joseph Burke, veteran of World War II and Robinson's bodyguard—because under the media spotlight, hard truths are easier than ever to see, and harder to escape. And some can prove fatal.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable th...

The original teleplay that became the classic Star Trek episode, with an expanded introductory essay by Harlan Ellison, The City on the Edge of Forever has been surrounded by controversy since the airing of an “eviscerated” version—which subsequently has been voted the most beloved episode in the series’ history. In its original form, The City on the Edge of Forever won the 1966–67 Writers Guild of America Award for Best Teleplay. As aired, it won the 1967 Hugo A...