Book Drives Sydney

The Four Agreements Book Club Discussion

Join us as we explore The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Meet in person for an evening of reflection, conversation and connection in a warm, intentionally held space. Specific location TBC. • Explore the book's content • Gain fresh insights from the collective wisdom of the group • Connect through meaningful conversation Whether you've finished the book or are just getting started, you're warmly welcome. Come with curiosity, an open mind and a willingness to connect.

Books and Bevvies

Welcome to **Books & Bevvies** — a casual book swap and drinks social in the Sydney CBD. This is not a book club with homework. It’s a simple, low-key way to meet people, chat about what you’ve been reading, and walk out with something new. **HOW IT WORKS** Bring a book you’re happy to part with. Pop it on the swap table when you arrive. Mingle, chat, and swap recommendations. When the swap opens, take a book that catches your eye. Stay for a drink and a conversation after. **WHAT TO BRING** One book, any genre and any reading level. **GOOD TO KNOW** The venue relies on accurate numbers for staffing, so if you can’t make it, please change your RSVP to “not going”. Repeated no-shows may result in removal from the group. The venue is kindly not enforcing a minimum spend, but please support them by buying a drink, soft drink, or some lunch during the swap if you can. There is no mandatory entry fee, but voluntary contributions are **very much** appreciated. The group costs around **$65 a month to keep running**, so if you enjoy the swap and are in a position to chip in, even $5 or $10 makes a real difference. I’ll have a jar near the sign-in list on the day. Please feel free to contribute at any stage through the swap. **WHERE WE’LL BE** We’ll be in the Market Street Garden Bar, with a table full of books and bevvies.

Western Classics Book Club social

A social for those who come along to the Western Classics Book Club. There is no set book to discuss. People are encouraged to bring their literary heads along for uplifting discussion and witty repartee. Also, do bring along a book to swap! Although meeting at the usual place (The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills) we will be meeting in one of the smaller rooms on the same floor. Look for the sign! Contact dalemills@cantab.net for more info.

September Book Club: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

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 examining the economic system, we now understand how economic growth fuels many of the crises in our world today, including historical and ongoing colonialism. This leads us to one of the most salient examples of our time: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I've long known I needed to understand more about Palestine, and how the horrors there are interlocked with the current crises we face. Civil rights leaders have long spoken of collective liberation, that "none of us are free until we are all free." But what does that really mean? Of all the issues today, why must we care about this one that is so far away? Recently I came across this interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUyIjQLh9J0), then read his book *The Message*, and feel like I am on my way to the very beginnings of understanding. *The Hundred Years' War on Palestine*, long recommended to me, feels like the natural next step in my learning journey. If you'd like to join me on this quest to understand more about Palestine, please join me in reading -- the author, Rashid Khalidi, is not only a renowned historian and Columbia professor, but his family's history is interwoven with Palestine's -- his great-great-great uncle was the mayor of Jerusalem in the 1800s and was the first Palestinian leader on record to write to the Zionist founder Theodor Herzl when the Zionist movement was still nascent. Khalidi weaves his own and his family's history into this history of the conflict in this acclaimed international bestseller. \*\*\* "A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history." https://www.amazon.com.au/HUNDRED-YEARS-WAR-PALESTINE-Colonialism/dp/1627798552# "Rigorous and lucid . . . Rashid Khalidi, the intellectual heir to Edward Said, has written one of the great books on the Israeli-Palestinian question." --Financial Times "Rashid Khalidi makes clear that the Zionists could not have created modern day Israel without abundant help from Britain and the United States. A must read for the growing number of people who are interested in understanding the real roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." --John J. Mearsheimer, coauthor of The Israel Lobby \*\*\* We will be meeting at The Erko Hotel, at the big square raised table next to the bar. We will start and end on time. There's no fee, but please purchase your own food/drinks from the venue. \*\*\* If you have trouble getting the book, message me. On reading a book: I encourage people to read books over just interviews or summaries, because nothing beats the slow digesting of the beauty and nuances in a book. Especially for the books in this book club that challenge our worldviews and help us see the world as it truly is, these books need to be really grappled with, to be fully engaged with, to receive the full benefits. For reference, I use book clubs to motivate me to finish the books I want to read, so the date of the book club becomes a deadline to finish the book by. I calculate the number of pages in a book and the number of days I can realistically read, and work out how many pages on average I need to read each day. That's how I've finished many books. Invariably, they're worth reading to the end. Of course, life happens and we're all busy. If you really can't finish a book or can only watch videos this time, that's okay. Come by with an attitude of listening, open to being inspired, and take in what others have to say; perhaps you'll want to read/finish the book afterwards. Just know that books are like most things in life: what you put in is what you get out of it. A podcast or ChatGPT can give you the high-level points, sure, perhaps to BS your way to a decent grade in class; but we're not in school anymore, and we read these books because they better our lives and help us see more clearly. But they can only do so if we read them, because reading is what makes all the new concepts come to life enough to maybe change yours. For the full magic, you just gotta read. Alright, thanks for reading my ode to reading. \*\*\* 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. Look forward to seeing you there!

Gayby Baby (2015)

September's documentary film is: Gayby Baby (2015) Gayby Baby is a 2015 Australian documentary film directed by Maya Newell that follows four children, Gus, Ebony, Matt and Graham, raised by queer parents and explores the ways in which growing up as a "gayby" has affected them. PG CC Run time: 1h 25m *You need to be a library member to attend this event, if you haven't joined yet, we value your membership and would love you to join. Discover everything the library has to offer including free e-books, audiobooks, e-magazines, movie streaming and so much more. Access our e-library 24/7. Join our library [here](https://library.waverley.nsw.gov.au/libero/WebOpac.cls?VERSION=2&ACTION=SIGNUPAGREE&RSN=&DATA=DWL&TOKEN=75KA1hXWhx6590&Z=1&NewBreadCrumb=1)*

Book Club - 'Black Bag' by Luke Kennard and 'Whistler' by Anne Patchett

The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin

Meeting at the usual place, upstairs at The Shakespeare Hotel, Surry Hills, Sydney, we will be discussing The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin. The book is a psychological novel about a successful radio storyteller who develops a close relationship over the phone with a gravely ill teenage boy named Pete, only to become increasingly uncertain whether Pete and his story are real. Inspired in part by a real-life literary hoax, the novel explores loneliness, trust, and the unreliability of memory. The novel is relatively short and has been described as one of Maupin's most accessible standalone novels. It was later adapted into the moderately faithful 2006 film *The Night Listener*, starring Robin Williams. Available from the usual places including Amazon and Ebay (about $30) and for free from our friend Anna. Otherwise, contact me for a free pdf at dalemills@cantab.net Trove says that there are about 5 copies available from local libraries through an inter-library loan (City of Sydney charges $3.50 for this service). We meet upstairs in a semi private room conducive to group discussion. There will be about 10 of us there. Look for the sign or ask at the bar.

Queer Reads

Reading list for 2026: * Feb: Queer Heroes of Myth and Legend by Dan Jones * Mar: Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin * Apr: Invisible Boys by Holden Sheppard * May: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado * Jun: Just by Looking at Him by Ryan O'Connell * Jul: Pageboy by Elliot Page * Aug: Milk Fed by Melissa Broder * Sep: Jack Charles: Born-again Blakfella by Jack Charles * Oct: We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby * Nov: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar * Dec: Carol by Patricia Highsmith

The Death of Death: Should We Choose To Live Forever?

What if ageing were optional? A small, extraordinarily wealthy group of people — Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel among them — are betting billions that it could become so within our lifetimes. They are funding gene therapies, plasma clinics, AI drug discovery programmes, and private city-states designed to sit beyond the reach of ordinary regulation, all pointed at a single goal: the abolition of death. Some of this is serious science. Some of it is alchemy with a better press team. But before the science catches up with the ambition — if it ever does — the personal, social, and political questions are already here. Would you choose five centuries of life, or even to live indefinitely — more time to love, to learn, to taste everything the world has to offer? Or would you find, on reflection, that something essential about a human life depends on it being finite? What happens to marriage when it lasts for centuries? To democracy when the same people hold power for hundreds of years? To inheritance (that might never arrive!), to ambition ('I can always do it later'), to the feeling that today is precious rather than just one more day in an endless supply? So join us as we pull apart this fascinating and unsettling territory, where Silicon Valley hubris meets some of the oldest questions in philosophy. **Book: *The Immortalists: The Death of Death and the Race for Eternal Life* (2025) by Aleks Krotoski** **Companion reading:** ***[A Guide to the Personal, Social, and Political Questions of Radical Life Extension](https://1drv.ms/b/c/adb4f7488b2eef0a/IQDyh0ZXuhOXSY1hShIPivrVAb994lzRy8NuznN6KIb52lM?e=heHTTk)***[ ](https://1drv.ms/b/c/adb4f7488b2eef0a/IQDyh0ZXuhOXSY1hShIPivrVAb994lzRy8NuznN6KIb52lM?e=heHTTk) (prepared for this meetup) *The Immortalists* is a sharp investigation into the people, science, money, and politics behind Silicon Valley’s war on death. Krotoski — a psychologist, BBC broadcaster, and veteran technology reporter — takes us from immortality cults in the Arizona desert and biohacking clinics in Los Angeles to the corridors of Washington and a private city in Honduras where unapproved gene therapies are on the menu. Along the way, she meets the geroscientists doing genuinely important work on the biology of ageing, the billionaire investors pouring huge sums into longevity start-ups, the lobbyists rewriting FDA regulations in their own interests, and the true believers who have concluded that death is not a fact of life but a failure of engineering. The result is gripping reported journalism, a sober account of what the science has actually established, and a serious political warning about what happens when the people trying to live forever start writing the rules for everyone else. In addition, we’ve prepared a 35-page companion document that draws out the personal, social, and political questions raised by radical life extension. The Krotoski book spends considerable time on the science and on the people pursuing it, but our discussion is likely to centre on the human consequences: whether we would actually want vastly longer lives; what they would do to relationships, work, inequality, democracy, and meaning; and who would benefit if the technology ever became real. The companion document is intended to give us a shared map of these issues, so the conversation can move beyond the biology and into the questions most likely to matter around the table. As always, we strongly encourage you to do the reading before you attend; it will enrich both your own experience and the discussion as a whole. We’ve also included some further resources below for anyone who wants to go deeper. We’ll meet for a drink — and an optional meal — at 6:30pm on Monday, 7 September, on the second floor of the Keg & Brew Hotel in Surry Hills. The venue is close to Central Station and the light rail. We look forward to seeing you there! P.S. If you RSVP yes and later find you can’t make it, please update your RSVP so someone else can take the spot if there’s a waitlist. \-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\-\- These are just optional links to consider to supplement the reading of the book and document. Feel free to pass on other useful links in the discussion section. **Videos** * Interviews and Podcasts with Aleks Krotoski: [Intelligence Squared – Could Billionaires Cure Ageing (1 hr)](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DgTxyg8YezFkX391FNOmX) [BBC Radio 4 World at One (18 mins)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTQ-tZfRFW8) * A collection of 15 min BBC Podcasts by Aleks Krotoski: [The Immortals Podcast](https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/p0hl8knd) * Science documentary: *[Longevity Hackers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PV0X5U4smY)*[ (2024)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PV0X5U4smY) This is an interesting documentary covering a wide range of current research areas into potential routes to significant longevity improvements. * Venki Ramakrishnan on the biology of death and aging and why the immortalists' timeline is wildly optimistic: [Sean Carroll's Mindscape with Venki Ramakrishnan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNqwamgxNiU) * Four Corners (ABC iview) *The Race to Reverse Ageing* (July 2026) * Netflix documentary: *Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever* (2025). A documentary on the daily routines, family plasma exchange, and the "Don't Die" philosophy of tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who appears prominently in the book. * An explainer video on the science and ethics of radical life extension: [Billionaires Trying to Live Forever - Honest Truth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5kMFzndPiM) **Written** * Articles on radical life extension: [The Ethics of Radical Life Extension](https://www.scu.edu/ethics/all-about-ethics/radical-life-extension/) [Three arguments against extending the human lifespan](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2652797/) * Reviews of *The Immortalists*: [The Guardian - The Immortalists](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/23/the-immortalists-by-aleks-krotoski-review-the-downsides-of-cheating-death) * An article version on the ABC Four Corners episode on biohacking and anti-aging science: [ABC - The Race to Reverse Ageing](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-19/biohacking-anti-aging-science-promise-to-extend-human-lifespan/106923024) * A couple of recent articles on biohacker Bryan Johnson (from Netflix doco above) including a very recent ABC article (and link to Triple J podcast) with Johnson and his Australian partner, and an article on his unfortunate setback on his health: [Bryan Johnson on his critics on his quest for immortality ](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-30/biohacker-bryan-johnson-kate-tolo-living-forever/107089326) [A recent health update on Bryan Johnson](https://futurism.com/health-medicine/bryan-johnson-autoimmune-disease) * Three other relevant books for those wanting to dig deeper into this topic: *\- Going On and On: Why Our Longevity Threatens the Future* (2026) by Lucinda Holdforth. I wish I had known about this Australian book earlier - it asks a question very relevant to our book club discussion: what if living much longer is creating new problems that our society is unprepared to face? Drawing on Australia's ageing population, medical advances, economics and her own experiences caring for elderly parents, she argues that longer lives are one of humanity's greatest achievements—but also that they bring difficult trade-offs for younger generations, families, healthcare and politics. It's worth looking up some of her recent podcasts and interviews on the book. *\- Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science* (2026) by Saul Newman. To be released in September, the author uses dark humour and rigorous evidence to expose the systemic data errors and corporate grifting behind popular anti-aging trends like "Blue Zones" and youth-blood transfusions. *\- Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality* (2024) by Venki Ramakrishnan. This book provides a lucid and authoritative look at the biological mechanisms of cellular degeneration, balancing the realistic limits of our current biotechnology against the hyped promises of the immortality movement.

Monkey King - Wu Cheng'en (c. 16th century) trans. Julia Lovell

The third in our **Journey to the East** reading series exploring texts from the Middle East, India, China and Japan. *Join the Really Old Books Whatsapp to see the full schedule - the Meetup site only allows me to advertise one event at a time:* [https://chat.whatsapp.com/IzXLwdM1Fa33dNe4suamLV](https://chat.whatsapp.com/IzXLwdM1Fa33dNe4suamLV) \-\-\- In 16th century Europe, a grumpy German man was about to begin an incredibly long and tedious argument with the Pope. Henry VIII was living in domestic bliss. The Spanish and the Portuguese had inexplicably decided they owned half of the world. Everything's pretty hectic. In China, among other things, a novel was written: Journey to the West, which dared to ask 'what if a pig and a monkey were friends? And fought crime?' I don't think I could make this book sound crazier than it really is if I tried. Monkey King is a must-read for fantasy nerds, Jackie Chan fans and book lovers of any merit. We'll be reading a 300 page abridgement of the much longer Journey to the West, specifically Julia Lovell's translation. Earlier English abridgements exist such as the one by Arthur Waley, but I'd like us to stick to the same text so we can cover the same material, and perhaps discuss a little more what it means to 'modernise' something 500 years old. This will be our most 'accessible' book yet (of course, I think all the books we do are accessible in a humanist sense). No prior knowledge is required and you don't even need to know where China is on the map. (East of India, hence the title.) Be ready for a rollicking, wacky kung fu adventure where you just might learn a little along the way.

The Many-Colored Land by Julian May | Sun 6 Sep 2026

The Many-Colored Land by Julian May | Sat 12 Sep 2026