Friendship Bread
by Darien Gee
Allen and Unwin

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Avalon is a small town in America where people are struggling with life’s everyday challenges. As Darien Gee introduces us to her characters it seems that many of the women of the town are bruised souls trying to come to terms with painful memories. When Julia and her five-year old daughter Gracie find a bag of Amish Friendship starter on their doorstep, it ends up having an impact on all the women in the small community. When a neighbouring town is flooded, baking the friendship bread brings the whole town together. This delicious book reminds us that everyone has a responsibility to make the world a better place. Treat yourself.

Gender Identities in a Globalised World
by Ana Gonzalez and Victor Seidler (eds)

Ten researchers from around the world met in Barcelona, Spain in 2006 to explore how the relationship between gender identity and globalisation has resulted in a massive de-institutionalisation of behaviour. As a result, this cross-disciplinary collection of essays looks at the impact of globalisation on gender identities and examines the potential for global masculinities and feminisms, as well as the implications that these might have at a local level. While the writers cannot cover all the issues involved in social change, they do look at specific tendencies such as fashion and also general trends such in human rights, world migration, cultural diversity, political economy, democracy and shifts in hegemonic male models.

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