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Price: AUSTRALIA

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AU$25.00 + P&P AU$4.50

Price: EUROPE, USA, AFRICA

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US$20 + US$11

The poetry in parkrun

parkrun, the world’s largest running movement

Barcode Tattoo celebrates the extraordinary phenomenon of parkrun like no other book.

Founded in 2004 by Zimbabwe-born runner and visionary, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, parkrun has become a running institution.

The concept is deceptively simple: a weekly, measured and timed five kilometre run, jog, or walk. Now consider this: parkruns take place in thousands of locations every Saturday around the world. They’re open to anyone who cares to turn up, which they do in their millions. They’re organised entirely by unpaid volunteers. And they’re free. Forever.

Barcode Tattoo takes its title and theme from the one element common to all parkruns: the printed barcode as the key to all participants’ unique experience with a global running movement that has swept the world.

With more than 6,300,000 registered members in 22 countries so far, parkrun has captured the imagination of athletes and couch potatoes alike.

In Barcode Tattoo, poet, writer, and runner, Roger G McDonald, takes readers on a lilting, musical, amusing, and sometimes poignant journey of the imagination.

Ten percent of sales of this book go direct to parkrun to allow it to support its central principle: free for everyone forever. Proceeds from sales also go to the children’s charity, CreateCare Global www.createcareglobal.org and Zimbabwe A National Emergency (www.zaneaustralia.com.au).

Price: AUSTRALIA

AU$25.00 + P&P AU$4.50

Price: EUROPE, USA, AFRICA

US$24 + US$11

The microbe that stopped the earth

From toilet paper wars to lockdowns to global politics The Covid Chronicles gives you a commentary on the Covid-19 pandemic like none other.

Written mostly over Australia’s March to June 2020 lockdown, the work reflects on the novel coronavirus that shut down the planet. The chronicles examine the origins and impacts of the contagion from its first outbreak in Wuhan, China, through the European crises, to the disaster in the US and a potentially permanent jolt to its reputation on the world stage.

Few aspects of the phenomenon escape their attention. Yet, for all the enormity of the deaths and casualties, the language is musical; hardly surprising when you consider the book consists of 100 Shakespearian sonnets.

Fear not if you think you’re about to face a tsunami of Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Though the format takes advantage of an enduring classical structure, these are contemporary sound-bites. The metre skips along and the language is poignant, probing, and movingly funny in parts as it records our responses to the global event of a lifetime.

Cally Lotz’s luminous and evocative paintings complement the poetry to perfection. They pick out apparently simple motifs and invest them with an emotional intensity and symbolism rarely associated with everyday objects.

The Covid Chronicles won’t supply you a comprehensive history of a far-reaching event that affected most of humanity. But it will give you an enjoyable, easy-to-read, and touching reminder in the years ahead of life with Covid-19.