You know, again.

    Throughout her short life, Sallie-Anne Huckstepp lived a dangerous existence. This is a true story, brilliantly told, of someone who was gutsy and determined – and who paid the ultimate price for speaking out against corruption and murder.In 2014, Xoum is proud to release a new edition of this seminal work.Praise for Huckstepp by John Dale‘A marvellous book, brilliantly written and researched.’ Louis Nowra‘A significant, original work that challenges as much as it reveals.’ The Australian‘Dale nails the treachery, corruption and decadence of a part of Sydney society that traces its origins to the Rum Corps.’ Andrew Rule‘A brilliantly constructed record of one of Kings Cross’ most infamous characters. A great city story.’ The Australian‘A fine and disciplined piece of writing.’ HQ‘As gripping as a thriller.’ The Northern Star‘Only the very famous – or infamous – are known by a single name. Huckstepp conjures memories of the bad old days in Sydney; of a time when cops and crims were as likely to be allies as enemies. In the age of Underbelly, John Dale’s new edition of Huckstepp is a timely reminder of the human cost behind the headlines. Through extensive interviews with those who knew, loved and used Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, Dale vividly recreates a time when heroin was currency, and corruption and murder were the everyday tools of violent men. It is a deadly, dangerous, brutal world, depicted with realism, not romanticism. For some, the name Huckstepp will forever carry a frisson of excitement, the promise of secrets, sex, drugs and crime. In this book, Dale ensures that Sallie-Anne’s name will also forever remind us of that fateful moment when a young woman with a gap-toothed smile and a story to tell naively believed that publicity would guarantee her protection. Huckstepp is still famous, but her story runs deeper than the headlines. In this book, Dale takes the reader beyond the underbelly, into the very belly of the beast.’ P.M. Newton

    In 2006 Will Elliott had his first novel the Pilo Family Circus published. It won five literary awards and great acclaim, nationally and internationally. What nobody knew was that the young author of that work of terrifying fantasy had recently recovered from a psychotic episode and been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Strange Places takes us on a journey through psychosis and out the other side, documenting the delusions, the drugs and the insights that recovery brings. A beautifully written memoir of a harrowing - and enlightening - time, from one of Australia's best young writers.

    . . I was 32 years old and barely knew the country of my birth. It was time to change that.' What happens when a 32-year-old first-generation Australian woman decides to chuck in a dream job, pack a sleeping bag and tent, and hit the long, dusty road for six months? Thirty-thousand kilometres later, Monica Tan has the answer, and it completely surprises her. In mid-2016, Monica left Sydney, unsure of her place in Australia. As a Chinese Australian city slicker, she couldn't have felt more distant from powerful mythologies like the Digger, the Drover's Wife and Clancy of the Overflow. And more importantly, Monica wondered, how could she ever feel she truly belonged to a land that has been the spiritual domain of Indigenous Australians for over 60,000 years? Stranger Country is the riveting account of the six months Monica drove and camped her way through some of Australia's most beautiful and remote landscapes. She shared meals, beers and conversations with miners, greynomads, artists, farmers, community workers and small business owners from across the nation: some Aboriginal, some white, some Asian, and even a few who managed to be all three. The result is an enthralling and entertaining celebration of the spirit of adventure, a thoughtful quest for understanding and a unique portrait of Australia and all it means to those who live here.

    It felt like it did not count. Like we were unfinished. Incomplete. There was always a gap at the table, room to set places for others. Visitors were few and far between. Mostly, there was only me.Only is a memoir of an unconventional childhood that explores what it means to be an Only Child -- as both child and adult. Also what it means to be the daughter of two people damaged by trauma and tragedy, particularly a domineering and explosive father. Secrets are revealed and differences settled.Caroline Baum's moving and gripping memoir is for everyone who has felt they are the fulcrum of a seesaw, the focus of all eyes and expectations, torn between love and fear, obedience and rebellion, duty and the longing to escape. It is also for anyone who has felt the burden of trying to be a Good Daughter -- what that means and why it is so hard. Revelatory, lyrical and unflinching.‘With a glamorous mother and a successful father, Caroline Baum’s prosperous childhood seems like the epitome of privilege. Yet below the shimmering surface, rolling currents from scarred pasts buffet her girlhood, creating dislocations that resonate into adulthood. This beautifully rendered, searingly honest account becomes, in the end, a testimony to the enduring power of love, no matter how imperfectly enacted or expressed.’ GERALDINE BROOKS, author of The Secret Chord

    Say hello to Carly.'In fairytales, the characters who look different are often cast as the villain or monsters. It's only when they shed their unconventional skin that they are seen as "good" or less frightening. There are very few stories where the character that looks different is the hero of the story ... I've been the hero of my story - telling it on my own terms, proud about my facial difference and disability, not wanting a cure for my rare, severe and sometimes confronting skin condition, and knowing that I am beautiful even though I don't have beauty privilege.'This honest, outspoken and thought-provoking memoir by award-winning writer and appearance activist Carly Findlay will challenge all your assumptions and beliefs about what it is like to have a visibly different appearance. Carly lives with a rare skin condition, Ichthyosis, and what she faces every day, and what she has to live with, will have you cheering for her and her courage and irrepressible spirit. This is both a moving memoir and a proud manifesto on disability and appearance diversity issues.'Believe the hype - by turns frank, funny, and fearsome, Findlay's extraordinary memoir is an early contender for 2019's best Australian non-fiction ... a powerful and moving invitation to examine the structures of privilege and dehumanisation that we so desperately need address in this country.' Better Read Than Dead

    But there was no 'big house' here - Toni did not grow up in a large homestead. She lived in a shack that had no electricity and no running water. The oppressive climate of the Territory - either wet or dry - tested everyone. Fish were known to rain from the sky and sometimes good men drank too much and drowned trying to cross swollen rivers.Toni grew up with the Aboriginal people who lived and worked on the station, and got into scrapes with her ever-increasing number of siblings. She loved where she grew up - she was happy on the land with her friends and family, observing the many characters who made up the community on Killarney. When she was sent to boarding school all she wanted to do was go back to the land she loved, despite the fact that her parents' marriage was struggling as Bill Tapp succumbed to drink and June Tapp refused to go under with him.Toni's love of the natural world and of people alike has resulted in a tender portrait of a life that many people would consider tough. She brings vividly to the page a story seldom seen: a Territory childhood, with all its colour, characters and contradictions.

    These include her "transformation from Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to are-you-a-lesbian-or-what tom man," attempting to find watchable porn, and identifying the difference between being called "ma'am" and "miss" ("Miss" sounds like you weigh ninety-nine pounds).Raw, relatable, and consistently hilarious, YOU'LL GROW OUT OF IT is a one-of-a-kind book by a singular and irresistible comic voice.

    'I have several young busty blondes, Derek,' Ruth sang like the weathergirl. 'One is a very sexy Danish girl, just back from a skiing trip, five-foot-five, long wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, twenty-five years old. A fantastic figure: thirty-six, twenty-five, thirty-five. Or I have a more demure, very pretty, young strawberry blonde Australian, Derek. She's nineteen ...' When her acting career stalls, Merridy Eastman lands a challenging role: night receptionist at a Sydney brothel. A long way from the bright lights of a TV studio, she is swept into the high drama of the sex industry. This former Play School presenter learns words for items and acts she never imagined, she opens the door to first-timers, old hands, couples and the occasional celebrity. But the place she spends every moment she can is the kitchen table, having a cup of tea and discussing investment portfolios, and life's many great mysteries, with Sapphire, Shelby, Antoinette and Bree - the women who make a living from having sex with strangers. And then, in this most unlikely of places, she finds herself falling in love ... There's a Bear in There (and he wants Swedish) is a funny, fascinating and true account of a forbidden world.

    Songwriter. Swamp child. Soul man. Tex Perkins is a true rock'n'roll animal. In this loud, uncut, no-holds-barred, laugh-out-loud and take-no-prisoners memoir, the enigmatic king of the Australian music underground lays bare an extraordinary life lived on the road, on the stage and on the edge.Raised a bible-thumping Catholic and beaten bloody on the streets of Brisbane for being a "cow-punk", skinny Gregory Perkins flees to Sydney and mutates into "Tex", rogue leader of the Dums Dums, Thug and Salamander Jim before finding a strange kind of success, celebrity, sex symboldom and icon status as Tex Perkins, snake-hipped, honey-voiced, often bloodied frontman of influential Aussie bands the Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and Tex, Don & Charlie... and inventor of "Zoneball".Gigs. Albums. Tours. Fights. Feuds. Arrests. Drugs. High times. Low roads. This is a wild ride of a life written loudly, proudly and full of punk energy.

    Welcome to a chronicle of broken hearts, fervid pursuits, passionate friendships, deranged letter-writing, the allure of the bottle, the singular charms of musicians, the lost song of youth, and three very awkward evenings with varying prostitutes--exactly zero percent of which the author's parents will want to read. Add to that a slightly misguided attempt to give real-life friends and ex-lovers a 'right of reply' to the stories they appear in and it's fair to say an extended stint in the Witness Protection Program beckons.Confessional, voyeuristic, painful, hilarious and heartfelt, You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead reveals the acerbic wit, unflinching gaze and razor-sharp insight of a writer at the height of her powers-or the unhinged fantasies of a dangerous mind with not enough to do.

    Mora also offers a unique insight into the lives of her famous contemporaries - Boyd, Blackman, Perceval and others.

    So when an airport beggar read her palm and told her she would return to India—and for love—she screamed, “Never!” and gave the country, and him, the finger.But eleven years later, the prophecy comes true. When the love of Sarah’s life is posted to India, she quits her dream job to move to the most polluted city on earth, New Delhi. For Sarah this seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love, and it almost kills her, literally. Just settled, she falls dangerously ill with double pneumonia, an experience that compels her to face some serious questions about her own fragile mortality and inner spiritual void. “I must find peace in the only place possible in India,” she concludes. “Within.” Thus begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death.Holy Cow is Macdonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats and crumbling nirvanas to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.

    Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one, her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father—in her own father's hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall's parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in which loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom.

    Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother’s kitchen in South India.Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi’s extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges’ table of Top Chef and beyond. It chronicles the fierce devotion of the remarkable people who shaped her along the way, from her headstrong mother who flouted conservative Indian convention to make a life in New York, to her Brahmin grandfather—a brilliant engineer with an irrepressible sweet tooth—to the man seemingly wrong for her in every way who proved to be her truest ally. A memoir rich with sensual prose and punctuated with evocative recipes, it is alive with the scents, tastes, and textures of a life that spans complex geographies both internal and external.Love, Loss, and What We Ate is an intimate and unexpected story of food and family—both the ones we are born to and the ones we create—and their enduring legacies.