Only that she has lost something very precious.As the little boy waits in the orphanage, he hopes his mother will return.But then he finds himself on board a ship bound for Australia, the promise of a golden life ahead, and wonders: how will she find him in a land across the oceans?In Perth, a lonely wife takes in the orphaned child. But then she discovers the secret of his past. Should she keep quiet? Or tell the truth and risk losing the boy who has become her life?

    He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things.Most of all it’s about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world.

    His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind.August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather’s death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land – a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river.Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.

    Two years later, Rosie returns to the house and living there is Martha, whom Seb Gennaro married less than a year after the death of Rosie’s mother. Martha is struggling to fulfil Seb’s dream, while Rosie is coming to terms with new responsibilities. And so begins a stand-off between two women who refuse to move out of the home they both lay claim to.As the battle lines are drawn, Jimmy Hailler re-enters Rosie’s life. Having always watched other families from the perimeters, he’s now grappling, heartbreakingly, with forming one of his own . . .An unforgettable story about losing love and finding love; about the interconnectedness of lives and the true nature of belonging, from one of our most acclaimed writers.

    After her daughter disappeared and left her with her granddaughter Sissy to raise on her own, Odette has managed to stay under the radar of the welfare authorities who are removing fair-skinned Aboriginal children from their families. When a new policeman arrives in town, determined to enforce the law, Odette must risk everything to save Sissy and protect everything she loves.In The White Girl, Miles-Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch shines a spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating government policy of taking Indigenous children from their families.

    I felt I owed them no explanation.’‘All I heard from the pulpit were grim hints.’‘I became acutely aware of the parts of myself that were unpalatable to queers who grew up in the city.’‘My queerness was born in a hot dry land that was never ceded.’‘Even now, I sometimes think that I don’t know my own desire.’Compiled by celebrated author and journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia assembles voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. Spanning diverse places, eras, ethnicities and experiences, these are the stories of growing up queer in Australia. ‘For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up.’ With contributions from David Marr, Fiona Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Steve Dow, Holly Throsby, Sally Rugg, Tony Ayres, Nic Holas, Rebecca Shaw and many more.

    On January 26, no Australian can really look away.'Since publishing his critically acclaimed, Walkley Award-winning, bestselling memoir Talking to My Country in early 2016, Stan Grant has been crossing the country, talking to huge crowds everywhere about how racism is at the heart of our history and the Australian dream. But Stan knows this is not where the story ends.In this book, Australia Day, his long-awaited follow up to Talking to My Country, Stan talks about our country, about who we are as a nation, about the indigenous struggle for belonging and identity in Australia, and what it means to be Australian. A sad, wise, beautiful, reflective and troubled book, Australia Day asks the questions that have to be asked, that no else seems to be asking. Who are we? What is our country? How do we move forward from here?

    Alice has always been a trailblazer as a scientist, activist and mother. She knew her choices would involve sacrifices, but now, on the eve of her eightieth birthday, she's beginning to wonder if she's sacrificed too much.Alice's daughter, Sappho, rebelled against her unconventional upbringing, choosing to marry young and embrace life as a homemaker, but her status as a domestic goddess has recently taken a surprising turn.Ged has always been the peacemaker between her grandmother and mother. A tenacious journalist, she knows what she wants in life and love, yet when everything in her world starts falling apart, she begins to question whether she really knows anyone at all.At a crossroads in each of their lives, Alice, Sappho and Ged embark on a celebratory trip together, but instead of bringing them closer, the holiday sparks life-changing consequences and lifts the lid on a fifty-year-old secret.Can Ged rescue her family if their story is built on a betrayal?From bestselling, ABIA award-winning author Rachael Johns comes an engrossing and wise novel about ambition, choices and what it means to be a woman.

     Kate returns home to the sleepy hamlet of Cabarita Beach and the run-down Waratah Inn for her grandmother's funeral. She spent many happy childhood years at the inn, but all she wants to do now is sell the dilapidated boutique inn and head back to the city and her busy, professional life. But she and her two estranged sisters discover they've inherited the inn together. To sell, they need all three sisters to agree to the sale. Soon, her carefully constructed life begins to unravel and Kate decides to stay in Cabarita Beach to renovate the elegant, old building. Despite her misgivings about reviving the crumbling structure, she quickly becomes consumed with crown moulding, history and an attractive horse wrangler she can't seem to ignore. When she discovers a clue to a mystery from the past in her grandmother's things, she'll be drawn down a path that raises more questions than answers. Piece-by-piece she and her sisters will uncover the secret former life of their beloved grandmother. A life of love, intrigue, and loss. A life they never knew she had. An opportunity to sell the Inn pushes them to make a choice: commit to the Waratah Inn and family, or walk away from the Inn and each other, back to their separate and isolated lives. For fans of Debbie Macomber, Carolyn Brown, Danielle Steele, Grace Greene, and Pamela Kelley. NB. Includes recipes and a discussion guide.

    When a lethal bushfire tore through Myrtle, nestled in Victoria's breathtaking Otway Ranges, the town's buildings - and the lives of its residents - were left as smouldering ash. For three women in particular, the fire fractured their lives and their relationships.Eighteen months later, with the flurry of national attention long past, Myrtle stands restored, shiny and new. But is the outside polish just a veneer? Community stalwart Julie thinks tourism could bring back some financial stability to their little corner of the world and soon prods Claire, Bec and Sophie into joining her group. But the scar tissue of trauma runs deep, and as each woman exposes her secrets and faces the damage that day wrought, a shocking truth will emerge that will shake the town to its newly rebuilt foundations...With her sharp eye for human foibles, bestselling author Fiona Lowe writes an evocative tale of everyday people fighting for themselves, their families and their town - as only this distinctively Australian storyteller can.

    For spinster Flora Thomas, however, nothing much has changed. Tending her dull office job and beloved brother and father, as well as knitting socks for the troops, leaves her relatively content. Then one day a stranger gives her brother a white feather and Flora's anger propels her out of her safe life and into the vineyards of the idyllic Mildura countryside, a member of the Australian Women's Land Army.There she meets Betty, a 17-year-old former shopgirl keen to do her bit for the war effort and support her beloved, and the unlikely Lilian, a well-to-do Adelaide girl fleeing her overbearing family and theworld's expectations for her. As the Land Girls embrace their new world of close-knit community and backbreaking work, they begin to find pride in their roles. More than that, they start to find a kind of liberation. For Flora, new friendships and the singular joy derived from working the land offer new meaning to her life, and even the possibility of love.But as the clouds of war darken the horizon, and their fears for loved ones - brothers, husbands, lovers - fighting at the front grow, the Land Girls' hold on their world and their new-found freedoms is fragile. Even if they make it through unscathed, they will not come through unchanged...

    Faced with destitution after the death of her father, she becomes a highwaywoman to support her impoverished family. One fatal mistake leads to her arrest, and the king’s justice demands her death. But rather than beg for mercy, Jenny condemns the system that would make her choose between obeying the law and dying, and breaking it for the chance to survive. Her ferocity convinces the judge to spare her life, and he sentences her and dozens of other convicts to transport across the seas to England's penal colony in Australia.   After a grueling passage on a filthy ship where she must sell her body for protection, Jenny learns that her struggles have only just begun. The landscape of Sydney Cove is harsh and unwelcoming to the new settlers, with its arid climate and precious little fresh water. Despite the lack of shackles or bars, she and the others are still prisoners under the strict watch of Governor Edward Lockharty, and no amount of cunning can earn his favor. Jenny refuses to submit to the governor or to the barren land unable to support the growing population. Determined to find a better life for herself and her children, she braves the sea, and a journey of over three thousand miles in a small rowboat, for a chance at a future worth fighting for.   Based on the true story of Mary Bryant, an iconic figure in the foundation lore of Australia, Fled is a sweeping, heart-wrenching account of one woman's life-long search for freedom.

    She plans to keep to herself - but when she uncovers a hidden box of wartime love letters, she realises she's not thefirst person living in this cottage to hide secrets and pain.FOUNDIvy's quiet life in Rosella Cove is tainted by the events of World War II, with ramifications felt for many years to come. But one night a drifter appears and changes everything. Perhaps his is the soul she's meant to save.FORGOTTENCharlie is too afraid of his past to form any lasting ties in the cove. He knows he must make amends for his tragic deeds long ago, but he can't do it alone. Maybe the new tenant in the cottage will help him fulfil a promise and find the redemption he isn't sure he deserves.Welcome to the cottage at Rosella Cove, where three damaged souls meet and have the chance to rewrite their futures.

     We are one of a handful of countries in the world that enforce this rule at election time, and the only English-speaking country that makes its citizens vote. Not only that, we embrace it. We celebrate compulsory voting with barbeques and cake stalls at polling stations, and election parties that spill over into Sunday morning. But how did this come to be: when and why was voting in Australia made compulsory? How has this affected our politics? And how else is the way we vote different from other democracies? Lively and inspiring, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage is a landmark account of the character of Australian democracy by the celebrated historian Judith Brett, the prize-winning biographer of Alfred Deakin.

    “Dhaqan” means culture and “Celis” means return.’Learning to kick a football in a suburban schoolyard. Finding your feet as a young black dancer. Discovering your grandfather’s poetry. Meeting Nelson Mandela at your local church. Facing racism from those who should protect you. Dreading a visit to the hairdresser. House- hopping across the suburbs. Being too black. Not being black enough. Singing to find your soul, and then losing yourself again.Welcome to African Australia.Compiled by award-winning author Maxine Beneba Clarke, with curatorial assistance from writers Ahmed Yussuf and Magan Magan, this anthology brings together voices from the regions of Africa and the African diaspora, including the Caribbean and the Americas. Told with passion, power and poise, these are the stories of African-diaspora Australians.Contributors include Faustina Agolley, Santilla Chingaipe, Carly Findlay, Khalid Warsame, Nyadol Nyuon, Tariro Mavondo and many, many more.

     To forge a new life she must first deal with her past... 1871. Adelaide Greaves and her young son have found sanctuary in the Australian town of Maiden's Creek, where she works as a postmistress. The rough Victorian goldmining settlement is a hard place for a woman - especially as the other women in town don't know what to make of her - but through force of will and sheer necessity, Adelaide carves out a role. But her past is coming to find her, and the embittered and scarred Confederate soldier Caleb Hunt, in town in search of gold and not without a dark past of his own, might be the only one who can help. Can Adelaide trust him? Can she trust anyone?When death and danger threaten - some from her past, some borne of the Australian bush - she must swallow her pride and turn to Caleb to join her in the fight, a fight she is determined to win...

    Join Goldie Bloom, a thirty something, high flying real estate agent sent out into the wilds of quiet seaside Australia by the boss who broke her heart. She's not expecting to move in with a room mate named Persnickle, discover she is descended from an ancient coven of sea witches, or find herself in the middle of a town with no coffee, but that’s precisely what happens.

    He was born without a conscience and remorse is an alien concept. Will he ever find out the truth about the past that shaped who he really is?Cassie refuses to live up to the expectations of her family, instead choosing to have fun with her flat mates and go home with various deviant men.Her best friend, Lisette, on the other hand, just wants a quiet predictable life with her steady boyfriend Jarred. But can Lisette find a way to fix their mediocre love life?Police Sergeant Lynn Gough knows exactly what she wants – and that’s her childhood crush Pete. The only thing getting in the way is his fiancée, Tamika. Lynn knows about Tamika’s dirty secrets however, and will stop at nothing to get rid of her.Rita wants children, but her husband Lewis is not so sure. Rita’s traumatic childhood continues to impact her relationships as an adult. While she battles with her inner demons, Lewis finds other ways of occupying his time. Will Rita learn to address the past to save her future?Explore how sex, lies and love impact our complex web of relationships, and discover how deeply our choices can impact others.

    His sociopathic tendencies coupled with his political views make him a very dangerous man indeed. Farzad wants the world to sit up and take notice of him and randomly selects six bystanders to hold hostage at a city restaurant.JACOB BROWN is a fitness fanatic who finds himself at the centre of a bizarre situation when he arrives at his favourite restaurant to pick up a takeaway for dinner.JAGRITI GOSHAL is a young unassuming Indian waitress working at Alessandro’s Cucina.REGINA TERRY is a fearless Afro-American woman in Australia on a business visa who unexpectedly finds herself embroiled in a crazy siege with a madman.LEVI HAINES and BILL WALKER are colleagues having a business dinner at the restaurant. Bill is Levi’s sleazy boss with unethical intentions and Levi is dining with him against her will.PAUL TOWNSEND is a local electrician who happens to drop off a quote at Alessandro’s Cucina at the same time Farzad descends on the restaurant to begin taking hostages.Follow the roller coaster ride of emotions as these strangers find themselves embroiled in a terrifying siege orchestrated by a madman. The authorities scramble to put together a definitive plan of action to contain the situation quickly. But not everyone will come out alive ...

    An egalitarian at heart, Macquarie saw boundless potential in Britain's refuse, and under his rule many former convicts went on to become successful administrators, land owners and business people.However, the governor's ambitions for the colony (which he lobbied to have renamed 'Australia') brought him into conflict with the continent's original landowners, and he was responsible for the deaths of Aboriginal men, women and children, brutally killed in a military operation intended to create terror among local Indigenous people.So, was Macquarie the man who sowed the seeds of a great nation, or a tyrant who destroyed Aboriginal resistance?In this, the most comprehensive biography yet of this fascinating colonial governor, acclaimed biographer Grantlee Kieza draws on Macquarie's rich and detailed journals. He chronicles the life and times of a poor Scottish farm boy who joined the British army to make his fortune, saw wars on five continents and clawed his way to the top. Ultimately, Macquarie laid the foundations for a new nation, but, in the process, he played a part in the dispossession of the continent's original people.Lover, fighter, egalitarian, autocrat - Lachlan Macquarie is a complex and engaging character who first envisaged the nation we call Australia.

    Every week, a woman is killed by a current or former partner. This is Australia's national emergency. Violence against women is preventable. It is not an inevitable part of the human condition. It's time to create a new normal. It is time to stop the slaughter in our suburbs.

    His great voyages of discovery were incredible feats of seamanship and navigation. Leading a crew of men into uncharted territories, Cook would face the best and worst of humanity as he took himself and his crew to the edge of the known world - and beyond.With his masterful storytelling talent, Peter FitzSimons brings the real James Cook to life. Focusing on his most iconic expedition, the voyage of the Endeavour, where Cook first set foot on Australian and New Zealand soil, FitzSimons contrasts Cook against another figure who looms large in Australasian history: Joseph Banks, the aristocratic botanist. As they left England, Banks, a rich, famous playboy, was everything that Cook was not. The voyage tested Cook's character and would help define his legacy.Now, 240 years after James Cook's death, FitzSimons reveals what kind of man James was at heart. His strengths, his weaknesses, his passions and pursuits, failures and successes.James Cook reveals the man behind the myth.

    When an old friend convinces her to give two adolescent boys a temporary home, she is torn between a growing love for these orphans and the grief in her past.After his marriage fell apart, Roman Taylor has focused on his career. An unexpected phone call sends him rushing to Abby's side where he is drawn into his estranged wife's new life - a life that could offer a future he thought he'd lost forever.Will they seize this second chance to have a family of their own? Or will fate once again destroy their dreams?Welcome to Bindarra Creek - A Town Reborn, a fictional town set on the western slopes of the New England tablelands. Take me Home is the first book in a eight book series by best-selling authors. With a community full of quirky characters, the books feature compelling romance, heart-warming family life, drama, and even suspense.

    Husband Joe is away months at a time droving livestock up north, leaving his family in the bush to fend for itself. Molly’s children are her world, and life is hard and precarious with only their dog, Alligator, and a shotgun for protection – but it can be harder when Joe’s around.At just twelve years of age Molly’s eldest son Danny is the true man of the house, determined to see his mother and siblings safe – from raging floodwaters, hunger and intruders, man and reptile. Danny is mature beyond his years, but there are some things no child should see. He knows more than most just what it takes to be a drover’s wife.One night under the moon’s watch, Molly has a visitor of a different kind – a black ‘story keeper’, Yadaka. He’s on the run from authorities in the nearby town, and exchanges kindness for shelter. Both know that justice in this nation caught between two worlds can be as brutal as its landscape. But in their short time together, Yadaka shows Molly a secret truth, and the strength to imagine a different path.Full of fury and power, Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is a brave reimagining of the Henry Lawson short story that has become an Australian classic. Brilliantly plotted, it is a compelling thriller of our pioneering past that confronts head-on issues of today: race, gender, violence and inheritance.

    Prostitute. Gangster’s Wife. Survivor. Tara grew up in squalor on the island of Alderney. When she was only four, she was sexually abused by one of her mother’s many lovers, a horror that continued for five long years. As a teenager, desperate to escape the toxic environment at home, she fled to London – but was swiftly drawn into working as a prostitute. She became involved with some of London’s most notorious gangsters – even marrying one – but when she realised the danger she was inflicting on her children, she knew she had to find a way to get out. This is the inspiring story of one woman’s will to survive, and to fight for a better life.

    We also have the necessary scientific skills. Australia could be the natural home for an increasing proportion of global industry. But how do we make this happen?In this crisp, compelling book, Australia’s leading thinker about climate and energy policy offers a road map for progress, covering energy, transport, agriculture, the international scene and more. Rich in ideas and practical optimism, Superpower is a crucial, timely contribution to this country’s future.

    The girl bears a striking resemblance to the victims of three brutal murders that occurred twenty years ago and Abby fears the killer is still on the loose.But the newspaper Abby works for wants to suppress the story for fear it will scare off tourists to the struggling township. Haunted by her own turbulent memories, Abby is desperate to learn the truth and enlists the help of Tom Gabriel, a reclusive crime writer. At first resentful of Abby’s intrusion, Tom’s reluctance vanishes when they discover a hidden attic room in his house that shows evidence of imprisonment from half a century before.As Abby and Tom sift through the attic room and discover its tragic history, they become convinced it holds the key to solving the bushland murders and finding the missing girl alive.But their quest has drawn out a killer, someone with a shocking secret who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

    What he lacked in experience and expertise, he made up for in enthusiasm. Or so he hoped.When the family arrived on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they had no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make that tangle of bush their home. From Angela Wales, eldest of the five kids, comes this extraordinarily vivid and evocative account of the next ten years as they tried to tame six thousand acres and navigate the challenges of country life.Filled with drama and hilarity, joy and back-breaking toil, Barefoot in the Bindis portrays a childhood spent in the bush, and is a sensational picture of Australia past.

    Those custodians came together, reached into their own hearts, and gifted us with a roadmap to find the heart of the nation - The Uluru Statement from the Heart. When you read this book, you will be feeling the pulse of this beautiful country, Australia. Finding the Heart of the Nation is a book full of stories about extraordinary people who will take you on an unforgettable journey to a place where we can start a new beginning. This book is a call to action that you will never forget.' – Thomas Mayor, 2019This is a book for all Australians.Since the Uluru Statement from the Heart was formed in 2017, Thomas Mayor has traveled around the country to promote its vision of a better future for Indigenous Australians. He’s visited communities big and small, often with the Uluru Statement canvas rolled up in a tube under his arm. Through the story of his own journey and interviews with 20 key people, Thomas taps into a deep sense of our shared humanity. The voices within these chapters make clear what the Uluru Statement is and why it is so important. And Thomas hopes you will be moved to join them, along with the growing movement of Australians who want to see substantive constitutional change. Thomas believes that we will only find the heart of our nation when the First peoples – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders – are recognised with a representative Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution.About the AuthorThomas Mayor is a Torres Strait Islander man born on Larrakia country in Darwin. As an Islander growing up on the mainland, he learned to hunt traditional foods with his father and to island dance from the Darwin community of Torres Strait Islanders. In high school, Thomas's English teacher suggested he should become a writer. He didn't think then that he would become one of the first ever Torres Strait Islander authors to have a book published for the general trade. Instead, he became a wharf labourer from the age of seventeen, until he became a union official for the Maritime Union of Australia in his early thirties.Quietly spoken in character, Thomas found his voice on the wharves. As he gained the skills of negotiation and organising in the union movement, he applied those skills to advancing the rights of Indigenous peoples, becoming a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a tireless campaigner. Following the Uluru Convention, Thomas was entrusted to carry the sacred canvas of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. He then embarked on an eighteen-month journey around the country to garner support for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations voice, and a Makarrata Commission for truth-telling and agreement-making or treaties. Thomas's journey continues, both in person and through the pages of this book. The book is his gift to the campaign for Voice, Treaty and Truth. Like the Uluru Statement from the Heart, he hopes that all Australians will accept it.

    Can Australia defend itself in the Asian century? How seriously ought we take the risk of war? Do we want to remain a middle power? What kind of strategy, and what Australian Defence Force, do we need? In this groundbreaking book, Hugh White considers these questions and more. With exceptional clarity and frankness, he makes the case for a reconceived defence of Australia. Along the way he offers intriguing insights into history, technology and the Australian way of war. Hugh White is the country’s most provocative, revelatory and yet realistic commentator on Australia’s strategic and defence orientation. In an age of power politics and armed rivalry in Asia, it is time for fresh thinking. In this controversial and persuasive contribution, White sets new terms for one of the most crucial conversations Australia needs to have.

     Cassie has made mistakes but hasn’t allowed tragedy or divorce to stop her. She devotes every working hour at Youth Connect. But her own needs are neglected. Chef Chris Evanson offers work experience to young men from Youth Connect. Cassie and Chris’s encounters become more than sassy bantering with a hint of attraction. Chris is a sincere romantic. How will Chris respond when he finds out her secret? She must tell him before he falls in love, but will he believe she deserves more than a second chance? To complicate matters, one of Youth Connect’s troubled teens needs rescuing. She’s pregnant and moves in with Cassie, bringing absolute chaos. Chris gains insight into what life with Cassie involves. Does he still want the total package? Will Cassie finally find her true soul mate? More Than A Second Chance is the first in a series of novels featuring women who've found themselves single, either widowed or divorced later in life, but hopeful to overcome all setbacks that life has thrown them. Contemporary Christian Romance, Australian setting, Sweet Romance, Clean Romance, Christian Fiction Other Christian novels with a romance thread, try authors such as Karen Kingsbury, Francine Rivers, Lori Wick, Tracie Peterson, Denise Hunter, Rachel Hauck, Lori Copeland, Melody Carlson,

    A police officer with 36 years' service in the Hunter region, he rose to national prominence in 2012 for his major role in speaking out for the victims of abuse within the church. He had been at the coalface fighting these heinous crimes for decades. He had worked with the victims and supported their families. He knew an enquiry was long overdue. His decision to become a whistle blower helped trigger Prime Minister Julia Gillard's historic decision to establish a far-reaching Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of children in institutions.He had no idea what speaking up would unleash. Peter's dedication and focus cost him his career, his health and also affected his wife's health. He and his family were threatened. Former friends shunned him. But the victims and the families that he supported consider him their champion. To them he is a hero.Walking Towards Thunder details the cumulative horrors our police face every day, it reveals the cover ups and the way sexual predators were moved around. It shows the backlash he faced and the lengths those in power will go to avoid facing the truth. Confronting and inspiring, this is an unforgettable story.

    Their prisons of repression and arrogant delusion break open the aphorism: ‘To birds born caged, flying is a crime.’ There is no judgement, purely the exposition: Do I question my inherited viewpoint, or do I reach for the ideal? In a surge of almost giddying prose that pulls us page-by-page, questioning our values in a fever of anticipation the sequel strings though the twenty two years that bring forth the dichotomy between love and the lifetime-punishment of war. What do we ultimately become when we are bereft of hope? In a grappling prequel, three young zealots risk their lives in a dubious exchange of Egyptian hashish for Israeli guns - with renegade soldiers to whom trigger-murder was little more than a whim. Are we really prepared to pay the price for what we believe in?This trilogy of novels begins with the reckless urge of idealism, it traverses the personal narrative rarely heard and closes with a finale that any lover would applaud.

    Along the way, she pays tribute to those who've spoken up and taken action in the face of ridicule, dismissal and violence.This Is What a Feminist Looks Like shows us how we got to where we are today -- and reminds us that some battles must be fought over and over again.

    This volume of his best and most celebrated stories and essays, collected here for the first time, ranges across his long career, and explores his enduring fascination with Australia’s landscape, culture, land management and history.Featuring new and previously unpublished fiction alongside his most revered and thought-provoking nonfiction – including extracts from his modern classic Dark Emu – this collection is perfect for Pascoe fans and new readers alike. It’s time all Australians saw the range and depth of this most marvellous of local writers.

    Since his first appearance in 2016, Ferragus Slackwyrm has become somewhat popular with fans all over the world. Now finally here he is on the page. Read Slack Wyrm's initial foray into webcomics, where he was still just simple, shiftless dragon talking to beloved lair-mate, Sir Corpse. Push on into his expanding world as we meet Otho the cunning crow, the enigmatic Duchess Doris, and Paul the gelatinous cube. Also Lizardman is in there somewhere too. And as an exclusive bonus - profiles and power levels of all the characters featured. What is Otho Crow's special attack? What is Duchess Doris special modifier? Find out here! Yes, folks it's Slack Wyrm - the ongoing story of unconcerned dragon in an uncaring world by Australian artist, Josh Wright. Don't you want to read the first book of Slack Wyrm? Of course you do!

    That is, until Art's wife Grace, a battle-hardened nurse, gets to work on them all with her no-nonsense wisdom.Told with Kim Kelly's inimitable wit and warmth, Sunshine is a very Australian tale of home, hope and healing, of the power of growing life and love, and discovering that we are each other's greatest gifts.Praise for Kim Kelly'colourful, evocative and energetic' - Sydney Morning Herald'Kelly is a masterful creator of character and voice' - Julian Leatherdale'Why can't more people write like this?' - The Age

    She had been Hotel K's most famous inmate.Schapelle was a 27-year-old beauty-school student when, in 2004, Bali customs officers found 4.2 kilograms of marijuana in her boogie-board bag. She was convicted of a crime she still vehemently denies committing.She spent ten years in Hotel K, where she survived unimaginable horrors, corrupt guards, degrading conditions, and abuse at the hands of other prisoners, but also, amazingly, found the love of her life - a love that still burns strong.In this revised and updated edition of My Story, first published in 2006, Schapelle describes her descent into madness, and finding her way back, the chaos of her release, the trials of surviving outside on parole and, eventually, her dramatic return to Australia, all the while hounded mercilessly by the media.This is the first time since 2006 that Schapelle has spoken, driven by a determination to show she has emerged, scarred, but with her dignity, humour and courage intact.Written with bestselling author Kathryn Bonella, this is a deeply unsettling but utterly compelling tale of what should have been a holiday in paradise but instead turned into 13 years of living hell. You won't be able to put it down.

    Although there are 22 separate Arab nationalities representing an enormous variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences, the portrayal of Arabs in Australia tends to range from homogenising (at best) to racist pop-culture caricatures.Edited by award-winning author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, and activist and poet Sara Saleh, and featuring contributors Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Ruby Hamad and Paula Abood, among many others, this collection explores the experience of living as a member of the Arab diaspora in Australia and includes stories of family, ethnicity, history, grief, isolation, belonging and identity.CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:Paula Abood | Nokomi Achkar | Michael Mohammed Ahmad | Rooan Al Kalmashi | Ryan Al-Natour | Rawah Arja | Hana Assafiri | Sarah Ayoub | Omar Bensaidi | Sara El Sayed | Asma Fahmi | Farid Farid | Ruby Hamad | Abdulrahman Hammoud | Lamisse Hamouda | Amani Haydar | Miran Hosny | Lora Inak | Elias Jahshan | Nicola Joseph and Huna Amweero | Zainab Kadhim and Mohammad Awad | Wafa Kazal | Yassir Morsi

    An ancient sword. What treasure is worth killing for?It’s 1927 in Victoria, Australia. A hedonistic time after the Great War when young people knew they could enjoy life without the threat of war hanging over them. A time when women have more options opened to them.There is a weekend house party at Thornton Park and Alexandra Thornton thinks it will be a good time to break the news to her father that she wants to be an antiques dealer, like him, her grandfather and great-grandfather before her.Only a small number of people are invited. Amongst the guests are Zhang Huo, the Chinese antiques dealer who, with his son, has brought a Ming dragon statue from China for Thomas Thornton. Benedict Archer, who is manager of Thornton Antiques in Melbourne and who has been secretly helping Alexandra learn more about her family business, is also invited. Alexandra asks Benedict and Edith Blackburn, her friend since childhood, to be with her when she approaches her father.When Edith claims that Benedict is in love with her, Alexandra can’t believe it. In all the time they’d been at Thornton Antiques together, he’d never said a word. Now, Alexandra looks at him differently. Can it be true?Then a body found in the orchard and, before the weekend is over, a priceless artefact is stolen. Alexandra is determined to discover how these things are connected to the Ming dragon and the antiques her great-grandfather brought with him from Hong Kong so many years ago.What secret has remained hidden atThornton Park for the last eight years?

    Today he is a MICA Flight Paramedic with decades of varied experience in 'a life of extremes' in an Australian ambulance service. He does shifts at base on-call, and teaches another generation of paramedics now. Loves his job.A list of well-known events that includes Victoria's Black Saturday Fires and the 2005 Bali Bombing - he was trying to get married when that call came in - mark two dark extremes. Technical matters - trauma treatment decisions, and the limits of aviation, for example - are explained. And this book includes the little things like the time the supermarket aisle was alive with the sound of music from an ex-patient's kid's lips: 'Thanks for looking after Daddy.' Darren couldn't have put it better himself, and it made his heart sing.This book tells what is like to be Darren Hodge on the end of a line, what it is like to be a paramedic. Open, honest reports, warts and all, this memoir is an unflinching account of how it feels, say, to pluck people from imminent death. And there are some laughs on the way...

    How did she do it? Her memoir is a moving story of growing up with adoring parents and siblings. She knew early on that she wanted to be a filmmaker, and her dreams were encouraged by her family and by her teachers. Meeting P.J. Hogan, becoming parents and filmmakers together was a turning point. But when they discovered that two of their children were autistic, Jocelyn’s life turned upside down. In Unconditional Love, she talks from the heart, with humour and intelligence, about her fears for her children, the highs and lows in her international career, about Hollywood and home, and about her love for what she does best—filmmaking and motherhood.

    But Wally never reckoned on charismatic fighter pilot Ross Smith, and an invitation to compete in the world's most audacious air race.A £10,000 prize has been offered for the first airmen to fly from England to Australia. Smith is banking on an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy, a biplane with a fuselage that looks ominously like a coffin.And who can resist a hero? Wally writes to Helena to say he won't be home for another year - and the love of his life is left holding her hand-stitched wedding dress ...Using war diaries, letters and Churchill Fellowship research from along the race route, Long Flight Home recreates one of the most important - and largely forgotten - chapters in world aviation history.Lainie Anderson's ambitious and moving novel is told through her narrator, Wally Shiers. The tale spans the decades and crosses the globe, and at his journey's end we're left peering down from an open cockpit on two beacons of truth. There is no heroism without honour. There is no legacy without love.Praise for Long Flight Home'This is a wonderful tale, superbly told. And it all happened!’ – Peter FitzSimons

    Resolute, self-possessed and a penetrating thinker on subjects from workplace relations to foreign affairs, she is admired by members of parliament and the public from across the political divide.In this first-ever biography of Penny Wong, acclaimed journalist Margaret Simons traces her story: from her early life in Malaysia, to her student activism in Adelaide, to her entry into the male-dominated chambers of federal parliament, to her leading role as a voice of reason and respect in the polarising campaign to legalise same-sex marriage – and to her current position, poised to become Australia’s future minister for foreign affairs. What emerges is a picture of a leader for modern Australia, a cool-headed, cautious, yet charismatic figure of piercing intelligence and a personal history linking back to Australia’s colonial settlers and through to its multicultural present.Drawing on exclusive interviews with Penny Wong, and her Labor colleagues, parliamentary opponents, close friends and family, this scintillating portrait of an Australian politician without precedence promises to be one of the most talked-about political biographies of the year.

    'Guilty' he pronounced five times. The third most senior Catholic cleric in the world had been found guilty of sex crimes against children, bringing shame to the Church on a scale never seen before in its history. Investigative journalist Lucie Morris-Marr was the first to break the story that Cardinal George Pell was being investigated by the police. In this riveting dispatch, she recounts how the cleric was trailed by a cloud of scandal as he rose to the most senior ranks of the church in Australia, all the way to his appointment by Pope Francis to the position of treasurer in the Vatican.Despite anger and accusations, it seemed nothing could stop George Pell. Yet in 2017 he was charged by detectives, returning to Australia to face trial.Take a front row seat in court with the author as she reveals the many intriguing developments in the secret legal proceedings which the media could not report at the time. Fallen reveals the full story of the brutal battle waged by the prince of the church as he fought to clear his name, including a ferocious bid to be freed from jail. The author also shares her own compelling personal journey investigating the biggest story of her career and the frequent attacks she endured from powerful Pell supporters. This book also charts how Pell's shocking conviction plunged the Vatican into an unprecedented global crisis after decades of clergy abuse cases. It is a vitally important story that will fascinate anyone interested in the failure of the Catholic Church to address the canker in its heart.

    He made every sentence count and shot the stragglers.’ Shane Maloney Peter Temple didn’t start publishing novels until he was fifty, but then he got cracking, writing nine of them in thirteen years. When he died, in March 2018, there was an unfinished Jack Irish novel in his drawer. This substantial fragment, entitled High Art, reveals a writer at the peak of his powers. The Red Hand also includes the screenplay of the ABC telemovie Valentine’s Day, an improbably delightful tale about an ailing country football club, as well as stories, essays, autobiographical reflections, and a selection of Temple’s brilliant book reviews. What connects them all is his trademark wit, his ruthless intelligence, and his abiding love of his adopted homeland of Australia. Peter Temple held crime writing up to the light and, with his poet’s ear and eye, made it his own incomparable thing. His work transcends all notions of genre: he remains a towering presence in contemporary Australian literature. This wonderful book pays tribute to all the achievements of the master. Peter Temple held crime writing up to the light and, with his poet’s ear and eye, made it his own incomparable thing. ‘Peter Temple is an addiction. Read one book and you will want to read them all.’ Val McDermid

    There is only grey ash and melted metal, the blackened husks of cars.And the lost people: in temporary accommodation on the outskirts of the city, on the TV news in borrowed clothes, or remembered in flyers on a cafe wall.A Constant Hum grapples with the aftermath of disaster with an eye for telling detail. Some of these stories cut to the bone; others are empathetic stories of survival, even hope.All are gripping and beautifully written, heralding the arrival of an important new voice in literary fiction.

    First seen at joshuawright.net and various social media sites, Slack Wyrm is the ongoing, rambling story of an unconcerned dragon in an uncaring world. Ferragus Slackwyrm is a lazy, sluggish, self-absorbed creature who lives in an exotic fantasy realm of dubious integrity. Along with Ferragus himself, in Book 2 you'll meet his sister, the terrifying Great Gretch for the first time, and learn why she is everything a dragon should be. You'll follow the oddball, Duchess Doris as she searches her way through Slackwyrm Keep, meeting curious new characters, and being guided by the highly unreliable Otho Crow. You'll also find all-new profiles and secret stats on these featured characters. And as an extra bonus, The Adventures of Sir Glame and Bill - a series of comics originally intended for Slack Wyrm, but never used. Read them in print for the very first time.If you already have Slack Wyrm Book 1, you NEED Book 2 to complete your collection! If you don't have Slack Wyrm Book 1, get Book 2 regardless. It's better than Book 1 anyway!

    He wants to be left alone.What connects them is a country lane that may be their pathway to love—if only they’d stop irritating each otherRecovering from a personal trauma, IT geek, Jessica, stumbles into Heart Springs with one goal in mind. What she hadn’t planned on was clashing with the bantering, blue-eyed, hard-bodied, Brett. Shouldering his own emotional tragedy, Brett prefers the solitude of his farm. Until he discovers his new neighbour, the disagreeable yet desirable Jessica standing in his way.Over six long weeks of winter, these two torn souls somehow agree to work together. But do they dare act upon their mutual attraction, or will they walk away from each other for good?From the lush countryside of New South Wales to the harsh Centralian outback, hike into the heart of this sweet, small-town rural romance. Where learning to let go of the past can be the most imperfectly perfect step towards love.

    A River with a City Problem is a compelling history of floods in the Brisbane River catchment, especially those in 1893, 1974 and 2011. Extensively researched, it highlights the force of nature, the vagaries of politics and the power of community. With many river cities facing urban development challenges, Cook makes a convincing argument for what must change to prevent further tragedy.

     A philosopher by training, Fleming combines meticulous observation of his life with a keen sense of the absurdity of his actions. He describes the intricacies of drug use and acquisition, their impact on the intellect and emotions, and the chaos that emerges as his tightly managed existence unravels into arrests, hospitalisations and family breakdown. His account is accompanied by searching reflections on his childhood, during which he developed acute obsessive compulsive disorder and became fixated on martial arts, music-making and bodybuilding. In confronting the pathos and comedy of drug use, On Drugs also opens out into meditations on the self and its deceptions, on popular culture, religion and mental illness, and the tortuous path to recovery. ‘Philosopher Chris Fleming’s memoir is a searching, considered account of drug and alcohol use and the mechanisms of addiction. Fleming traces his history of marijuana, codeine-based painkillers and alcohol consumption, as his fluctuating control over his drug use ultimately deteriorates….As well as being an engaging writer, Fleming is skilled at pulling a diverse array of academic theory and ideas into his memoir, and making them relevant to his project of understanding addiction.’ — Brad Jefferies, Books+Publishing

    When he was a child, many blind people spent their lives making baskets in sheltered workshops, but Ron's mother had other ideas for her son. She insisted on treating him as normally as possible.In this endearing memoir, Ron recounts his social awkwardness and physical mishaps, and shares his early fears that he might never manage to have a proper career, find love or become a parent. He has achieved all this and more, becoming a professor of law at a prestigious university, and chairing a committee at the United Nations. Ron's glass is always half full. He has taken advantage of every new assistive technology and is in awe of what is now available to allow him and other blind people to realise their potential. His is a life richly lived, by a man who remains open to all people from all walks of life.'Ron McCallum's life story is both fascinating and inspiring.' - Julian Morrow, The Chaser 'A moving book on the life of a brilliant man who often "saw" the needs of our world more clearly than the sighted people around him.' - The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG, Past Justice of the High Court of Australia 'In this warm, wise and witty memoir, he makes us see his remarkable life.' Deborah Glass OBE, Victorian Ombudsman 'Ron has lived through a period of major changes in society, technology and the lives of people with disabilities. His description of his life full of challenges and his many successes is inspiring.' Maryanne Diamond AO, former President of the World Blind Union

    They plotted. They schemed. They unleashed chaos.Australia lost two prime ministers in three years in a period of political bloodshed that took the nation's government to the brink of collapse - until an extraordinary election changed everything.Venom is the secret history of the brutal power play to lead the government. It sheds new light on the fall of Tony Abbott, the rise of Malcolm Turnbull and the electrifying leadership spill that brought parliament to a halt in August 2018. In a day-by-day account, it reveals the strategy Scott Morrison used to defeat his opponents and claim ultimate authority.David Crowe reported these events for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age as they unfolded. Using more than one hundred interviews with the participants, he tells an epic story of revenge, hatred and the ruthless pursuit of power. And he asks whether the future holds any peace when the past is so full of poison.PRAISE'David Crowe is both wise guide and sage interpreter in this gripping journey through the angry years of Australian politics' Chris Uhlmann'David Crowe writes with precision and clarity - dissecting the characters, deep rivalries and ideological wars that churned through three Liberal Prime Ministers' Patricia Karvelas'A compelling read about a time of Liberal madness' Michelle Grattan'Crowe's book is as good a piece of modern political history as you'll find. It has some failings' Dennis Atkins, The Australian'... a 21st-century contribution to the [revenge tragedy] genre' Jeff Sparrow, Sydney Morning Herald / The Age

    Its grand vistas of sweeping dusty plains and its evocation of a tough pioneering spirit form the foundation of our prosperous culture. But these romantic visions often hide the stark environmental, economic, and social problems that have inadvertently been left in the wake of our collective past.Through retelling the struggle of his family amid droughts, financial ruin, depression, and death, David Pollock exposes the modern-day realities of managing a remote outback station. Forced by a sense of moral responsibility, he set out on an uncharted course to restore the 153,000 hectares of degraded leasehold land that he felt he was obliged to manage on behalf of the Australian people. Then, just at the point when that course seemed certain to fail, the project was saved by the generosity and faith of everyday Australians.This is an urgent story of political irresponsibility, bureaucratic obstinacy, industrial monopolisation, and, above all, ecological illiteracy in a vast segment of the Australian continent. It is a familiar story of overexploitation. Yet it is also a story of the extraordinary ability of the natural environment to repair itself, given the chance. After over a decade of his hard-won insights, Pollock outlines in The Wooleen Way a specific and comprehensive plan to reverse the ecological damage done to the pastoral resource since European colonisation. He also emphasises the economic and social necessity of carrying it out.This is a story with national implications about a way to curb the conquering human spirit so that it aligns with the subtle power of the natural landscape.

    The assassins aimed, fired, and vanished.A literary thriller novella set in 1980s Sydney and drawn from true events, including a series of international terrorist attacks, My Name is Revenge is the story of a young man seeking justice.A finalist in the 2018 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award, My Name is Revenge is published by Spineless Wonders.“Weaves a mostly-forgotten strand of our history into a compelling contemporary crime story." - Emily Maguire"A heartfelt and gripping story of family, hardship and resilience." - Candice Fox

    A good book of poems for people who like a procession of dogs' dicks, bodily fluids, naked old ladies, groundhogs, asses, nose picking, depression and bisexual innuendo. A poetry collection like nothing else but actually like a lot of other things. Pushing the sad into the funny and back into the sad again, this book provides a portrait of a young human coping with a cruel and indifferent universe, love, life, mental illness, celebrity culture; and smizing all the way down. This poetry collection is a fat wet tongue writhing with pleasure and agony in the mouth of a culture overflowing with bad behaviour, worse intentions and even worse, smellier saliva. This book is like chicken soup for the soul, except someone misheard and they used chicken poop instead. And now they have chicken poop instead of a soul. Eloise Grills tears her time-space continuum a new one, slapping our sumptuous hams over and over; so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the arse.

    'We've become a khaki town.' It's March 1942. Singapore has fallen. Darwin has been bombed. Australia is on the brink of being invaded by the Imperial Japanese Forces. And Val Callahan, publican of The Brown's Hotel in Townsville, could not be happier as she contemplates the fortune she's making from lonely, thirsty soldiers. Overnight the small Queensland city is transformed into the transport hub for 70,000 American and Australian soldiers destined for combat in the South Pacific. Barbed wire and gun emplacements cover the beaches. Historic buildings have been commandeered. And the dance halls are in full swing with jitterbug and jive.The Australian troops, short on rations and equipment, begrudge the confident, well-fed 'Yanks' who have taken over their town (and women). And there's growing conflict, too, within the American ranks. Because black GIs are enjoying the absence of segregation and the white GIs do not like it.Then one night a massive street fight leaves a black soldier lying dead in the street, and the situation explodes into violent confrontation.

    Even weird, chicken-obsessed Tahlia.BUT she’d way prefer to hang out with the cool K-girls at school. The only problem is that they don’t seem interested in her, at least not until Year 6 camp. That’s when Maddie has a decision to make: how far will she go to be popular?Will she be able to live with the guilt when she finally has everything she’s been hoping for?Follow Maddie’s hilarious antics with chickens, secrets and undies in the latest adventure at Kangaroo Valley Public School.

    For the first-time ever, these voices are transported from the stage to the page, captured in print so that the spoken-word experience can be shared with a new and broader audience.Solid Air showcases the work of more than 100 performance poets - combining elements of slam, hip-hop and experimental performance poetry - to deliver an unforgettable reading experience that is both literary and loud. Poems capture themes of modern culture, identity and resistance.Contributors include: Ali Cobby Eckermann, Omar Musa, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Taika Waititi, Quan (Regurgitator), Claire G. Coleman, Tayi Tibble, Hera Lindsay Bird, Behrouz Boochani, Luka Lesson, Steven Oliver, PiO, Candy Royalle, Michelle Law, Courtney Barnett, Quinn Eades, Selina Tusitala Marsh and many more.

    Beginning with a Bengali poetry collection discovered in a nineteenth-century mosque in the town of Broken Hill, Samia Khatun weaves together the stories of various peoples colonized by the British Empire to chart a history ofSouth Asian diaspora. Australia has long been an outpost of Anglo empires in the Indian Ocean world, today the site of military infrastructure central to the surveillance of 'Muslim-majority' countries across the region. Imperial knowledges from Australian territories contribute significantly to the Islamic-Westernbinary of the post- Cold War era. In narrating a history of Indian Ocean connections from the perspectives of those colonized by the British, Khatun highlights alternative contexts against which to consider accounts of non-white people. Australianama challenges a central idea that powerfully shapes history books across the Anglophone world: the colonial myth that European knowledge traditions are superior to the epistemologies of the colonized. Arguing that Aboriginal and South Asian language sources are keys to the vast, complexlibraries that belie colonized geographies, Khatun shows that stories in colonized tongues can transform the very ground from which we view past, present and future.

    Poetry. Women's Studies, Native Australian Studies. Forty years ago, letters, words and feelings flowed between a teenage daughter and her mother. Letters written by that teenage daughter--me--handed around family back home, disappeared. Yet letters from that mother to her teenage daughter--me--remained protected in my red life-journey suitcase. I carried them across time and landscapes as a mother would carry her baby in a thaga. In 1978-79, I was living in an Aboriginal girls' hostel in the Bentley suburb of Perth, attending senior high school. Mum and I sent handwritten letters to each other. I was a small-town teenager stepping outside of all things I had ever known. Mum remained in the only world she had ever known. NGANAJUNGU YAGU was inspired by Mother's letters, her life and the love she instilled in me for my people and my culture. A substantial part of that culture is language, and I missed out on so much language interaction having moved away. I talk with my ancestors' language--Badimaya and Wajarri--to honour ancestors, language centres, language workers and those Yamaji who have been and remain generous in passing on cultural knowledge.

    Yet what happens now will test her faith in everything she thought she knew and someone she trusted. Book 5 Witches' Spells Pepper discovers an unopened letter addressed to the aunts in the attic. The letter holds the secret to her parents’ disappearance. The only trouble is, the trail leads straight to murder. With Lucas called away on mysterious business, can Pepper keep a clear head and solve the murder with the help of her aunts and her cat? Book 6 Witches' Charms Pepper Jasper finally discovers what happened with her parents. But with another murder at Mugwort Manor, and someone close to home spying on the Jaspers, danger lurks around every corner. Can Pepper solve the murder and escape a near-death experience? Or has Pepper’s luck run out? Witch cozy mystery series

    Her work as a sculptor and her wolfdog Girl are enough. News of mainland turmoil is as distant as myth until refugees from that world arrive: her granddaughter Cat, and Luis and Alejandra, a brother and sister escaping persecution. When threats from the mainland draw closer, they are forced to flee for their lives. They travel north through winter, a journey during which Kitty must decide what she will do to protect the people she loves.Part western, part lament for a disappearing world, Wolfe Island (set off the northeast coast of the US) is a transporting novel that explores connection and isolation and the ways lives and families shatter and are remade.

    There has not been one like Carn.Carn tells the story of the Victorian Football League and its successor, the Australian Football League, from 1897 to the present day, by focusing on 50 of the thousands of games which have been played down the decades. Some of these matches have been significant to the game of Australian football; others have been significant to Australia as a whole. Carn recognises that while the game is only a game, it has also always been much more than that: anything which consumes so much of the nation's attention can't help but reflect something of the nation's character.Carn is a book replete, as the Australian game is, with great yarns and extraordinary people. It is a book for fans of Australian football, and fans of Australia.

    Now malice and murder threaten their second chance…In the summer of 1816, Emma Braithwaite struggles to keep her family’s traditional wool cloth manufacturing company afloat. Her father has died, her brother is missing, and the new cotton factories are spreading, rendering the fine worsted fabrics the Braithwaites have made for generations, expensive and unfashionable. Being a woman in a man’s world of trade is challenging enough, but when her warehouse catches fire it brings her only a step away from financial ruin and debtor’s prison.After eight years of war, Major Adam Caldwell is returning for the first time to his family home, Rengarth Castle, when he stops to assist at a warehouse fire … and comes face-to-face with the woman he once loved and lost. Despite all his efforts to forget her, in truth she’s never been far from his thoughts. He was unworthy of her then, and even more so now.But as the threats against Emma escalate, they discover that someone wants control of Emma’s family company and is prepared to murder anyone in the way of getting it - including Emma.

    Newlyweds, Thelma and Wolff Spelled, are enjoying their gifts to one another, two cute kittens, when a neighbour comes to seek their help. Mavis’s husband has been missing for a year, and police have just now found his body.When Thelma attempts to solve the case with magic, all she brews up is trouble.With rival witch, Jasmine Walters, making eyes at Wolff, can Thelma keep Jasmine at bay, solve the murder, and be home in time for Christmas dinner?2: A Witch in Time (10,000 words)Thelma Spelled finds a body in her garden. The detective who attends the scene asks her to make a statement at the police station. When she arrives, the desk sergeant informs her the crime happened many years earlier. Thelma soon finds herself in the midst of Indigenous Australian magic.Can Thelma solve the crime while holding onto her sanity, and her husband?Can she thwart the evil intentions of rival witch Jasmine, or will she remain a witch in time?

    And you can talk about a Mallee tree. And you can talk about the Mallee itself: a land and a place full of red sand and short stubby trees. Silent skies. The undulating scorch of summer plains. Quiet, on the surface of things. But Elise wasn't from the Mallee, and she knew nothing of its ways. Discover the world of a small homestead perched on the sunburnt farmland of northern Victoria. Meet Elise, whose urbane 1950s glamour is rudely transplanted to the pragmatic red soil of the Mallee when her husband returns to work the family farm. But you cannot uproot a plant and expect it to thrive. And so it is with Elise. Her meringues don't impress the shearers, the locals scoff at her Paris fashions, her husband works all day in the back paddock, and the drought kills everything but the geraniums she despises.As their mother withdraws more and more into herself, her spirited, tearaway daughters, Marjorie and Ruby, wild as weeds, are left to raise themselves as best they can. Until tragedy strikes, and Marjorie flees to the city determined to leave her family behind. And there she stays, leading a very different life, until the boy she loves draws her back to the land she can't forget...'In the same vein as Rosalie Ham, Brinsden weaves a compelling story of country Australia with all its stigma, controversy and beauty.' Fleur McDonald

    Trim was the ship's cat who accompanied Matthew Flinders on his voyages to circumnavigate and map the coastline of Australia from 1801 to 1803. Trim, The Cartographer's Cat is a charming ode to the much-loved pet, which will warm the heart of any cat lover. The first part of the book reproduces Flinders' own whimsical tribute to Trim, written while in captivity in the early 1800s, with added "friendly footnotes" to provide some background to Flinders' numerous literary allusions and nautical terms. Next the book discusses where Flinders was when he wrote his tribute and why, and what his letters and journals from that time tell us about his "sporting, affectionate and useful companion." Finally, we learn what Trim's views on all of this might have been, in a fun and fanciful observation on his premature epitaph.Accompanying this jam-packed fascinating text are beautiful maps, historical photographs, quirky original illustrations by illustrator Ad Long and excerpts from Flinders' original script, showing his beautiful handwriting. This book will make a unique and treasured gift for Flinders fans and cat lovers around the world.

    Mum and Dad start packing bags, grabbing woollen blankets, the first-aid kit, torches, and then the photo albums. Dad puts Ruby on her lead and ties her up near the back door. My chest feels hollow, like a birdcage. Atmospheric and intensely moving, this is the story of a family experiencing a bushfire, its devastating aftermath, and the long process of healing and rebuilding.

    By the end of the decade conscription was scrapped, tertiary education was free, access to abortion had improved, the White Australia policy was abolished and a woman read the news on the ABC for the first time. The Seventies was the decade that shaped modern Australia. It was the decade of ‘It’s Time’, stagflation and the Dismissal, a tumultuous period of economic and political upheaval. But the Seventies was also the era when the personal became political, when we had a Royal Commission into Human Relationships and when social movements tore down the boundary between public and private life. Women wanted childcare, equal pay, protection from violence and agency to shape their own lives. In the process, the reforms they sought — and achieved, at least in part — reshaped Australia’s culture and rewrote our expectations of government. In a lively and engaging style, Michelle Arrow has written a new history of this transformative decade; one that is more urgent, and more resonant, than ever. ‘At last, personal politics as national history. In lucid and nimble prose, Michelle Arrow demonstrates that — in the 1970s at least — it was about the relationships, stupid. A revelation.’ — Clare Wright

    Below, Birrarung begins its long winding path down to palem warreen.Yarra Riverkeeper Andrew Kelly and Aboriginal Elder of the Wurundjeri people Aunty Joy Murphy join to tell the Indigenous and geographical story of Melbourne’s beautiful Yarra River — from its source to its mouth and from its prehistory to the present day. The writing dazzles with poetic descriptions of the trees, plants, and wildlife that thrive in harmony along the iconic waterway. Lush and vibrant acrylic paintings from Indigenous illustrator Lisa Kennedy make the mighty Yarra come to life — coursing under a starry sky, drawing people to its sunny shores, mirroring a searing orange sunset. Jewel-like details in the illustrations offer opportunities for discovery on every page. As gorgeous and powerful as the river itself, this stunner invites all to come to Wilam: home.End matter includes an authors' note and a glossary of the Woiwurrung words used in the story.

    Rich in characterisation and feeling, Mother of Pearl, and the timely issues it raises, will generate discussion amongst readers everywhere.

    We now take it for granted that the first colony was the basis of one of the most successful nations in the world today. But in truth, the New World of the 18th century was dotted with failed colonies, and New South Wales nearly joined them. The motley crew of unruly marines and bedraggled convicts who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 in leaky boats nearly starved to death. They could easily have been murdered by the natives, been overwhelmed by an attack from French or Spanish expeditions, or brought undone by the Castle Hill uprising of 1804. Yet through fortunate decisions, a few remarkably good leaders, and most of all, good luck, Sydney survived and thrived. Bestselling historian David Hill tells the story of the first three decades of Britain's earliest colony in Australia in a fresh and compelling way.

    It’s safe in Australia, but Jamila is finding it hard to settle in. She misses her best friend and worries for her dad’s safety back in Iraq. It’s hard to speak and write in English all day. And Jamila has a secret she wants to keep hidden.When she joins the choir, Jamila begins to feel happy. Singing helps take her worries away. And singing will help her find her place in her new life, a place where she can shine.Songbird is a tender story about belonging, about the importance of friendship and asking for help, and about the parts of our lives we keep concealed.

    The smoke is a blessing — it will protect the baby and remind them that they belong. This beautiful ritual is recounted in a way young children will completely relate to. Jasmine Seymour is a Darug woman and a descendant of Maria Lock, daughter of Yarramundi, the Boorooberongal Elder who had met Governor Phillip on the banks of the Hawkesbury in 1791. It is Jasmine's wish that through her books, everyone will know that the Darug mob are still here, still strong. Jasmine is a primary school teacher in the Hawkesbury area of NSW.

    It means sunset country. When the sun goes down the red heat of the day bleeds into the sky and sets it on fire. Drought and rain – life under a Mallee sky. This poetic text by emerging author Jodi Toering is beautifully accompanied by lush oil paintings by fine artist and illustrator Tannya Harricks.Beautifully told, exquisitely illustrated and essentially Australian.This poetic text describing a desert landscape (the Mallee) in drought is about the effect on the physical landscape, the crops and the people. In essence the book is about the effects of climate change.A moving account of the ripple effect that drought has on a family and on community.

    He quickly finds work on a remote outback cattle station owned by a reclusive American, Rebecca Golding, but he’s more interested in uncovering why she left Brooklyn in 1967 as a young woman to work as an outback governess, and how she came to own Glen Eira Station.Through Nellie, Rebecca’s long-time friend and housekeeper, he begins to understand the joy and heartache of life in rural Australia.

    It wasn’t even the long list of scandals exposed to a horrified nation — charging fees to dead people, blatant conflicts of interest, and taking $1 billion from customers in fees that banks were never entitled to.What made it so fascinating, so heart-breaking, and so enraging was the procession of faces through the witness box, and the team of counsel gazing into the dark heart of banking.Tearful victims, blank-faced executives, hapless regulators, and a couple of utter charlatans all had their day in court, watched by an audience of millions, and revealing — in their stories — the material to justify re-shaping the multi-trillion dollar financial services industry that forms a pillar of Australian life.A Wunch of Bankers covers not just the big shocks, but the small moments — lost in the flurry of daily reporting — that reveal how companies have used the law, limp enforcement, and basic human behaviour to take advantage of customers.Is there a phrase that judges how much life-insurance spruikers in call centres can terrify you about your impending death — and the grief-stricken ruins of an estate you’ll leave for your bereaved family — while still being legal?Yes, there is.Was there a meeting in which a bank’s executives ignored a warning of “Extreme” from its chief risk officer, to embark on an illegal scheme that accrued $3.6 billion in funds?There was.Mixed among the testimony are snippets from life on the road as the World’s Oldest Debuting TV Reporter — not just driving five hours one-way to talk to a man who almost blew his brains out over a bank nabbing his $22 million estate, but explaining how journalism can only ever give you a glimpse inside complex issues.In A Wunch of Bankers, Danel Ziffer bring out the colour and grit of the royal commission’s proceedings, and explores broader issues raised by the testimony. A mixture of analysis, reportage, and observations, it is densely researched and compellingly written.

    As a wife in the upper echelon of New York society, she was expected to take her place among some of the wealthiest people in America. A society that judges you on your looks will ignore certain things because of the money your family possesses, which you will eventually inherit; however, certain peccadillos will never be acceptable, and as Melissa becomes Mel and begins to realize her potential, life sends her on a journey she never could have anticipated.

    Is identity a myth? A constructed story we tell ourselves? Tribalism, nationalism and sectarianism are dividing the world into us and them. Communities are a tinderbox of anger and resentment. He passionately hopes we are not hard wired for hate. Grant argues that it is time to leave identity behind and to embrace cosmopolitanism. On Identity is a meditation on hope and community.

    Determined to live a full life like her mother had known, she seizes every chance, creates choices where there appear to be none and finally has the world open up to her. The memoir distinguishes itself from other accounts of this period in being a story of hope. It celebrates resilience, the power of literature, music and the imagination; and pays tribute to the people who retained the fundamental decency that can easily disappear in adverse circumstances. Mao’s China is now history, but similar dark regimes and mad ideologies still exist. There is much suffering from discrimination, humiliation and injustice at this moment. This is why this memoir has been written.About the author: Vivian (Xiyan) Bi migrated to Australia in 1990 and became a published writer. She has received three literature grants and a residency award from the Australia Council for the Arts. She has a PhD in literary criticism, University of Sydney, 2001. She is the author of several novels, text books, short stories and translations. Vivian Bi lives in Petersham, NSW.

    With a reputation for being hard to discipline, generosity to their comrades, frankness and sticking it up any sign of pomposity, Australian soldiers were a wild and irreverent lot, even in the worst of circumstances during World War II.In Larrikins in Khaki, Tim Bowden has collected compelling and vivid stories of individual soldiers whose memoirs were mostly self-published and who told of their experiences with scant regard for literary pretensions and military niceties. Most of these men had little tolerance for military order and discipline, and NCOs and officers who were hopeless at their jobs were made aware of it. They laughed their way through the worst of it by taking the mickey out of one another and their superiors. From recruitment and training to the battlegrounds of Palestine, North Africa, Thailand, New Guinea, Borneo and beyond, here are the highly individual stories of Australia's World War II Diggers told in their own voices - warts and all.

    The fires overwhelmed local fire-fighting efforts and sent a skyful of embers sailing onto millions of square metres of exposed, highly flammable brown coal. Twelve hours later, the mine was burning.The Hazelwood mine fire burned out of control for 45 days. As the air filled with toxic smoke and ash, residents of the Latrobe Valley became ill, afraid – and angry. Up against an unresponsive corporation and an indifferent government, the community banded together, turning tragedy into a political fight.In Hazelwood, Tom Doig reveals the decades of decisions that led to the fire, and gives an intimate account of the first moments of the blaze and the dark months that followed. This is a gripping and immediate report of one of the worst environmental and public health disasters in Australian history.

    Their stories reveal how the dogs came to be lost, how and why they were in the shelter, and the love and care they received while there and in their new forever homes.Fully illustrated and with both before- and after-adoption photography from award-winning pet photographer Peter Sharp of Tame & Wild Studio, this touching collection of precious pups will warm the hearts of animal lovers near and far.All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Sydney Dogs & Cats Home.

    Based on a true story.William Buchanan lived an extraordinary life. Born a slave on a plantation in Jamaica, he escaped the gallows more than once. His part in the slave uprisings of the 1830s led to his transportation across the world as one of the convicts sent to New South Wales.This is a story not only about a boy who fought against all odds in search of freedom, but also about a world not so long ago, when the violence of colonisation was in full force. It is a story of Jamaica, and Australia, but at its heart, it is a story about how one lives a life, whether slave or free man.

    This fully updated guide, now in a paperback edition, offers clear step-by-step information in classic DK style and offers a greater focus on the issues surrounding sustainable living for people in urbanised parts of Australia. You will find practical advice on reducing your carbon footprint; growing and using your own fruit and vegetables; keeping chickens and other animals; community gardening, design options for energy saving and retrofitting, and doing more with less. With authoritative advice, step-by-step guidance and fascinating illustrations, Practical Self Sufficiency will help you make simple changes that can have a major impact on your life and reduce your impact on the planet. Author BiographyBorn in Burma and brought up in Northern Ireland, Dick Strawbridge has had more than twenty years' distinguished service in the army, retiring as a Lietenant Colonel. In 1993 he was awarded an MBE. Dick is regularly on screen, appearing in many television programs including Planet Earth Challenge, Coast, The Reinventors, The Big Idea, Planet Mechanics and Scrapheap Challenge. - Practical Self Sufficiency By Dick Strawbridge, James Strawbridge (Paperback)

    Carment writes as he paints – from life – capturing the likeness of a particular place in time, or the moment when he sees something striking or strange. His paintings and drawings are small, limited by what he can carry with him on his travels. In his writing too he is a miniaturist working on a large scale. It is Carment’s quiet determination to capture life as it passes, across all corners of the country, that makes this collection unique.

    Winston is thrilled, but Macy is miserable. Wooba might have the Big Bread, but what use is a crumbling tourist attraction when Macy wants to become an Olympic gymnast? It’s up to Winston and his friends to convince Macy to love Wooba as much as they do so they can stay there forever. But how? Could a gymnastics club be the answer to all their problems?

    Yet Australian Indigenous languages actually share many common features. Bob Dixon has been working with elders to research Australian languages for half a century, and he draws on this deep experience to outline the common features. He provides a straightforward introduction to the sounds, word building, and wide-ranging vocabulary of Indigenous languages, and highlights distinctive grammatical features. He explains how language is related to culture, including kinship relationships, gender systems, and naming conventions. With examples from over 30 languages and anecdotes illustrating language use, and avoiding technical terms, Australia's Original Languages is the indispensable starting point for anyone interested in learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait languages and is written in an accessible, easy to read style,

    Legendary explorers such as Shackleton, Mawson and Scott continue to inspire to this day, and their faithful ships, the Endurance, Aurora and Terra Nova are vivid characters in their fateful voyages of discovery.The first and only Australian-built Antarctic flagship, Aurora Australis, and her crews have likewise secured a place in Antarctic history.This is the 30-year story of Aurora Australis and of her diverse charges - crew, technicians, scientists, explorers, writers and artists.It's the tale of a problem-plagued construction, two devastating fires, a crippling besetment in ice and a blizzard-induced grounding in Antarctica. It tells of brave rescue missions of other ships and their grateful crews, and of the heroic administering of medical help while battling life-threatening temperatures and hurricane-force winds.This is a tale of engineering brilliance, team tenacity and human resilience. It brings polar research to life and unveils stunning scientific discoveries. It transforms the Aurora Australis into a compelling character in Australia's chapter of Antarctic history and makes heroes of the men and women who have guided her through the most inhospitable seascapes on earth.

    Unpacking the small towns around where she lives and the communities that keep them going through threat and times of plenty. With half her year spent in Canberra, reporting from Parliament House, and half her year in the sticks, she really does have a unique perspective. The Great Divide between city and country is only one subject that arises. The National Party talks about farmers, but what about those who live in regional towns? Her forensic focus in the nearby towns is on ordinary lives not often seen, and the conversations in this book are broad, national and at times international; immigration, transport, health, the NBN, globalization, and tariffs. Gabrielle also draws on her own observations about community. Newcomers initially face strong distrust based on money or race, but once you are accepted, there is a strong belonging and interaction, much more so than her experience in the city. Middle class people in the city, like Gabrielle, show compassion for poverty or racial difference, but there is little interaction with the "other." That is the gift the country gave her. Gabrielle has spent 30 years covering politics and lived 20 of those years in the country. Her kids were raised in country schools where she did her time on school councils, watching the lives of fellow parents and their kids from the poorest to the richest rural families. Gabrielle served on community groups grappling with loss of population, economic recession and mundane parking issues. She has witnessed fiery town meetings dealing with bank closures and doctor shortages. She has felt parents' extraordinary losses to ordinary causes like car accidents, drugs, and crime in a small town. And all this while documenting the modern Australian political story. This book is both the broad and the narrow, the personal and the public. There is no other book like this in Australia and Gabrielle is the only person to write it.

    With bewildering speed Jacqueline found herself in alien territory: with a man almost twenty years older, whose life experience could not have been more different from her own. She had to come to terms with complicated finances and expectations, and to negotiate relationships with Ken’s children, four people almost her own age. But with this man of contradictions—funny and sad, headstrong and tender—she found a real and sustaining companionship. Their life together was often joyful, sometimes enraging, always exciting—until one devastating evening. But, as Jacqueline discovered, even when a story is over that doesn’t mean it has come to an end.

    Here was a young woman, who looked like a Sunday school teacher, celebrating sexual passion in a provocative series of sonnets. She was hailed as a genius, and many expected her to endure as a household name alongside Shakespeare and Rossetti. While Cross’s fame didn’t last, she kept writing through financial hardship, personal tragedies and two world wars, producing a remarkable body of work. Her verse, prose and correspondence with the likes of Ethel Turner, George Robertson (of Angus & Robertson) and Mary Gilmore place Zora Cross among the key personalities of Australia’s literary world in the early twentieth century. The Shelf Life of Zora Cross draws on these rich sources to reveal the life of a neglected writer and intriguing person.

    The narrative takes us from remote NSW to New Zealand and England through a series of deeply affecting experiences of poverty, domestic violence, loneliness, infertility, adoption and grief. Carol Lefevre’s writing is sharp, moving, insightful and beautifully poetic. Lily’s story allows the author to navigate some of the difficulties of memoir, and out of its bittersweet blend of real, remembered, and imagined life, the portrait of a writer gradually emerges. In fiction that forms around a core of memory, life writing that acknowledges the elusiveness of truth, Carol Lefevre has written a remarkable, risk-taking book that explores questions of homesickness, infertility, adoption, and family estrangement in Lily Brennan’s life, and in her own.

    You've made it. Your child is grown up. He's got a great job, living a full and happy life overseas. You don't have to worry about him like you did when he was young. And then a call from half way across the world. Something terrible has happened ...Until now there ahas been no word for a mother who has lost her child. This is a story of finding and healing yourself after that unspeakable loss, healing through walking and taking what life throws at you, one step at a time.

    In stark contrast to her own childhood during the last days of the Raj in India, the spectacular beauty surrounding their home, Rathgarven in Ireland has proven to be a happy place for Kathleen O'Sullivan and her husband, James, to raise their four children. But Kathleen is no stranger to heartbreak, and when the family is faced with losing everything, she knows they will need to adapt to survive. Even if that means leaving their beloved home and moving to Australia to start afresh.Lillie O'Sullivan knows that her mother and father haven't been entirely truthful about the reasons for their move to Australia. But as they settle into their new home in rural New South Wales she is willing to give it a chance. That is, until the secrets her parents have kept for so long finally catch up with them.Secrets that have the power to destroy their family and ruin their future.From the vibrant colours of India to the meadows of Ireland to the harsh but beautiful Australian land, a family fights for their future.'A heartwarming novel ... a welcome addition to the genre.' - J.H. Fletcher, bestselling Australian author

    Every time Puggle tires to make sound nothing comes out. Can Puggle find his voice and join the bush choir?

    Ross Grant has always felt like the black sheep of his wealthy Scottish family. An explorer at heart, he dreams of life on Waybell, their remote cattle station in Australia's last remaining wilderness, the Northern Territory.Then his brother Alastair is branded a deserter after going missing during the Great War. To help restore the Grants' damaged reputation, Ross is coerced into marrying Darcey Thomas, a woman he has never met. Disgusted by his manipulative family, he turns his back on his unwanted wife just hours after the ceremony, and heads to Waybell with no plans to return. He carries with him the hope of carving his own empire in the far north.But Ross has not counted on Darcey's determination to be his wife in more than just name. Nor did he anticipate meeting Maria, a young, part-Chinese woman who will capture his heart. And he certainly wasn't prepared for how this beautiful yet savage land will both captivate and destroy his soul . . . From nineteenth-century Adelaide and the red dirt of mid-north South Australia, to the cattle stations and buffalo plains of the far north Ross's journey is one of anger and desire, adventure and determination, to the heart of stone country and beyond.

        Bob Hawke began life as a good Christian boy from a teetotal family, became a wild, drinking, womanising student, a Rhodes Scholar, a champion of workers, a folk hero recognised throughout the country, a dynamic politician who was elected four times as Australia’s Prime Minister - and transformed his country. He was our longest serving Labor Prime Minister and considered by many our greatest.   By the early 1980s Australia was on the road to becoming ‘the poor white trash of Asia’. Hawke as prime minister, with Paul Keating as treasurer, changed all that. Australia became a forward-looking and humane country whose voice commanded respect on the international stage.    Hawke was an environmentalist before it was fashionable, he loathed racism, helped end apartheid in South Africa, sent ministers to end the war in Cambodia, foresaw that China would become a great world power and established the first Chinese investment in an iron ore mine in Australia.   His journey from the manse of a small South Australian country town to the palaces of Europe, Asia and the United States is the odyssey of a leader it is hard to imagine we will ever see the like of again - a man of towering passions and commitment to causes, and an unshakeable love of humanity.

    Tales of the lost and found.Rarely seen stories, reprinted. Brand new stories - in new places and familiar words.Scar Tissue and other stories.Holmes ♥ Watson Ravenfall Kitty and Cadaver The Vampires of Melbourne Holmes + Watson