The Lot: In Words - Softcover

There are few aspects of existence to which Michael Leunig has not turned his renaissance mind, as a bemused and committed member of the human plight. From his cartoonist's sensibilities comes a peculiar journalism made of parable, memoir and soliloquy, on subjects ranging from the sublime to the subhuman. From the fragile ecosystem of the spirit to the brutalisation of the modern world. From the joy of primal epiphanies to the wretchedness of the violence we unwittingly commit against each other and our deeper selves each day. To hypocrisy and despair in the political order. Military madness and the media. To violins, artists and newborn facials. The value of the mundane. Emotional mysteries and the night sky. Light and darkness in the national character. The wisdom of the innocent. The sadness of the brain-ridden. Humanity's redeeming pathos and our exquisite inseparability from the natural world. . . The lot. Even in the smallest, simplest things, Leunig finds the eternal key. And no matter how confronting the topic, he awakens and upholds the funny side. The uplifting side. The side you'd forgotten about - or didn't realise was there.

Michael Leunig has been drawing and writing for Australian newspapers since 1965. He was born in Melbourne and now lives on a farm in north-eastern Victoria. His work has been widely published overseas, and has been adapted in Australia for television, theatre and radio. His many titles include The Penguin Leunig, The Travelling Leunig, Ramming the Shears, Everyday Devils and Angels, You and Me, Short Notes from the Long History of Happiness, Why Dogs Sniff Each Other's Tails, Goatperson and Other Tales, The Curly Pyjama Letters, The Stick, Poems, Strange Creature and The Lot.