Brennan Book Program

Carl Rhodes, Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire

In 2025, the Brennan Program welcomed Carl Rhodes to talk to students about his new book categorising four myths of the good billionaire that rationalise their social class and portrays them as a ‘force for good’. Each of these myths enables billionaire wealth and power to set us back to old-style feudalism and plutocracy. Offering a trenchant critique, this incisive book testifies to the growing international political will to take concrete actions in supporting economic justice and democratic equality.

Joseph Stiglitz, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society

Despite its manifest failures, the narrative of neoliberalism retains its grip on the public mind and the policies of governments all over the world. By this narrative, less regulation and more ‘animal spirits’ capitalism produces not only greater prosperity, but more freedom for individuals in society - and is therefore morally better.

But, in The Road to Freedom Stiglitz asks, whose freedom are we – should we be – thinking about? What happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s? Should the freedoms of corporations be allowed to impinge upon those of individuals in the ways they now do?
 

Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources—the troll farms that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another—and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.

Hernan Diaz, Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth--all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Jason Segel & Kirsten Miller, Otherworld

New York Times bestselling authors Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller imagine a world in which you can leave your body behind and give in to your greatest desires without thinking about social consequences. Otherworld traps you. It introduces you to sensations you’d never be able to feel in real life. You discover what’s been missing—because it’s taboo or illegal or because you lack the guts to do it for real. And when you find out what’s missing, it’s almost impossible to let it go again. There are no screens. There are no controls. You don’t just see and hear it—you taste, smell, and touch it too. In this new reality, there are no laws to break or rules to obey. You can live your best life. Indulge every desire. This is Otherworld—a virtual reality game so addictive you’ll never want it to end. And Simon has just discovered that for some, it might not. The frightening future that Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller have imagined is not far away. Otherworld asks the question we’ll all soon be asking: if technology can deliver everything we want, how much are we willing to pay?

Feel free to write a reflection on our past books including: 

Evicted: Poverty And Profit In The American City' by Matthew Desmond, ‘The End of Policing’ by Alex S. Vitale, ‘Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison, See what you made me do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse’ by Jess Hill, ‘Eggshell Skull’ by Bri Lee, ‘What the Colonists Never Knew: A History of Aboriginal Sydney’ by Dennis Foley and Peter Read, ‘Truganini’ by Cassandra Pybus, ‘Treaty’ by George Williams and Harry Hobbs, ‘The Truth Hurts’ by Andrew Boe, ‘Forgotten War’ by Henry Reynolds, ‘Upturn: A better normal after COVID-19’ by Tanya Plibersek, ‘Woman and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons’ by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, A Stranger Truth: Lessons in Love, Leadership and Courage from India's Sex Workers by Ashok Alexander, ‘The Tyranny of Merit: What's become of the Common Good?’ by Michael Sandel, ‘Greed is Dead: Politics after Individualism’ by Paul Collier and John Kay, ‘Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present’ by Yanis Varoufakis, The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr, ‘The Yield’ by Tara June Winch, ‘The Nickel Boys’ by Colsen Whitehead, ‘My Dark Vanessa’ by Kate Elizabeth Russell, ‘How Much of These Hills Is Gold’ by C Pam Zhang,  ‘Saltwater’ by Cathy McLennan, ‘Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland’ by Patrick Radden Keefe, ‘There Are No Children Here’ by Alex Kotlowitz., ‘Too much lip’ by Melissa Lugashenko, ‘Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice’ by Bill Browder, ‘The Testaments’ by Margaret Atwood,  ‘Australia Day’ by Melanie Cheng, ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker, ‘East West Street” by Philippe Sands, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood, 'The Tall Man' by Chloe Hooper, 'This Changes Everything' by Naomi Klein, 'Talking To My Country', by Stan Grant, ‘Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?’ by Bruce Pascoe, The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan, ‘We are All Completely Beside Ourselves’ by Karen Joy Fowler, ‘This House of Grief’ by Helen Garner (here’s a few thought starters), ‘Exit West’ by Mohsin Hamid or ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro (here’s a few points for discussion), Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resistance  (Scribe 2021) - Veronica Gorrie, The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar (2021 UTS Law Alumni Award winner), Reasonable Doubt by Xanthé Mallett, Reasonable Doubt by Xanthé Mallett, Dead in the Water: A Very Angry Book about our greatest environmental catastrophe…the death of the Murray Darling Basin by Richard Beasley, Coming of Age in the War on Terror by Randa Abdel-Fattah, Why Weren't We Told? By Henry Reynolds, The Kabul Peace House by Mark Isaacs, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division - Elif shafak, Transgender History (Second Edition) : The Roots of Today's Revolution, Queer: A Graphic History by Meg John Barker, Breeder by Honni van Rijswijk, After Story by Larissa Behrendt (available on audible), The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (available on audible), Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen (available on audible), Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (available on audible), Steam Pigs by Melissa Lucashenko, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak (available on audible), Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (available on audible), Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (available on audible), Apeirogon by Colum McCann (available on audible), China Room by Sunjeev Sahota (available on audible), A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam (available on audible), The Promise by Damon Galgut (available on audible), The Fortune Men by Nadia Mohamed (available on audible).

2023

Still Alive, Safdar Ahmed (2021), The White Girl, T. Birch (2020) (available on audible), The Prophets, R. Jones Jr. (2022) (available on audible), The Keepers, A. Campbell (2022), Son of Sin, O. Sakr (2022) (available on audible), Red, F. McLean (2022) (available on audible), Pemulwuy, E. Willmot (2021), One Hundred Days, A. Pung (2021) (available on audible), Love & Virtue, D. Reid (2022) (available on audible), Jesustown, P. Daley (2022), In The Dream House: A Memoir, C. M. Machado (2020) (available on audible), Horse, G. Brooks (2022) (available on audible), Enclave, C. G. Coleman (2022), Cut, S. White (2022), Common People, T. Birch (2022), Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, A. Heiss (2022) (available on audible), All That’s Left Unsaid, T. Lien (2022) (available on audible), The Woman President: Leadership, law and legacy for Women Based on Experiences from South and Southeast Asia, R. Vijeyarasa (2022), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, R. Skloot (2017) (available on audible), The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape from North Korea, J. Park, S. Chai and S. Baldwin-Beneich (2022) (available on audible), Sister Girl: Reflections on Tiddaism, Identity and Reconciliation, J. Huggins (2022), Net Privacy: How We Can Be Free in an Age of Surveillance, S. Molitorisz (2020), Know My Name: The Survivor of the Stanford Sexual Assault Case Tells Her Story, C. Miller (2020) (available on audible), Justice and Love: A Philosophical Dialogue, M. Zournazi & R. Williams (2020), His Name is George Floyd: One man’s life and the struggle for racial justice, R. Samuels and T. Olorunnipa (2022) (available on audible), Don’t Look Away: A memoir of identity and acceptance, D. Laidley (2022) (available on audible), Dropbear, E. Aruluen (2021), Butterfly, Y. Mardini (2022) (available on audible), Australia Day, S. Grant (2021) (available on audible), Another Day in the Colony, C. Watego (2021) (available on audible).

2024

The Shape of Dust by Lamisse Hamouda, Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta, Tell Me Again by Amy Thunig, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown, Songs for the Dead and the Living by Sara M Saleh, Anam by André Dao, God Forgets About the Poor by Peter Polites, Storytellers: questions, answers and the craft of journalism by Leigh Sales, Borderland by Graham Akhurst.
 

2025

Safe Haven by Shankari Chandran; Prima Facie by Suzie Miller; Courting: An Intimate History of Love and the Law by Alecia Simmonds, Dirrayawadha: Rise Up by Anita Heiss, Mean Streak by Rick Morton, Naku Dharuk The Bark Petitions by Clare Wright, Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner.