It is the story of Albert Facey, who lived with simple honesty, compassion and courage. A parentless boy who started work at eight on the rough West Australian frontier, he struggled as an itinerant rural worker, survived the gore of Gallipoli, the loss of his farm in the Depression, the death of his son in World War II and that of his beloved wife after sixty devoted years - yet he felt that his life was fortunate.Facey's life story, published when he was eighty-seven, has inspired many as a play, a television series, and an award-winning book that has sold over half a million copies.

    But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us? Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living from the land, Don Watson explores the bush as it was and as it now is: the triumphs and the ruination, the commonplace and the bizarre, the stories we like to tell about ourselves and the national character, and those we don't. Via mountain ash and mallee, the birds and the beasts, slaughter, fire, flood and drought, swagmen, sheep and their shepherds, the strange and the familiar, the tragedies and the follies, the crimes and the myths and the hope – here is a journey that only our leading writer of non-fiction could take us on. At once magisterial in scope and alive with telling, wry detail, The Bush lets us see our landscape and its inhabitants afresh, examining what we have made, what we have destroyed, and what we have become in the process. No one who reads it will look at this country the same way again.

    One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the lynch mob – but will justice prevail in the courts?Nine months later, a baby is born … with Jessica determined to guard the secret of the father's identity. The rivalry of Jessica and her beautiful sister for the love of the same man will echo throughout their lives – until finally the truth must be told.Set in the harsh Australian bush against the outbreak of World War I, this novel is heartbreaking in its innocence, and shattering in its brutality.'A deserved bestseller, based on fact, a story told with heartbreaking honesty.' Australian Women's Weekly'Courtenay draws on the social satire of Jane Austen and the dark forces of Thomas Hardy, and his tragic heroine parallels Antigone … ' Herald Sun

    If nobody asks, you never have to tell.'Christopher Bright is a well-respected conservation architect, good neighbour and friend. He has a devoted wife, two talented children and an old Rover. He plays tennis on Saturdays and enjoys a beer with his business partner after work.Life is orderly, yet an unresolved question has haunted him for as long as he can remember: Who was his birth father?Devotion to his adoptive parents has always prevented Chris from enquiring too deeply, but when his mother dies, information emerges that becomes the catalyst for changes he has never imagined.As light is cast on his father, attention turns to his birth mother, but when he goes in search of the person behind the photo, he encounters a conspiracy of silence. His quest for information, however, reveals not only the truth about his mother's life but exposes the fault lines in his own, and Chris finds the price of knowledge increasingly heavy. Nevertheless, the truth must be told ...Or must it?

    Lisa Scottoline’s Every Fifteen Minutes is a psychological thriller that explores the eccentricities of sociopaths by getting in the mind of one who is determined to ruin the life of a psychiatrist Dr. Eric Parrish is the respected Chief of Psychiatry at the Philadelphia-area hospital where he works. His unit has just received national recognition and Eric is largely credited for the positive accolades. His personal life, however, has recently taken a hit as he is locked in the middle of an increasingly nasty divorce and possible custody battle. Eric is advised by his lawyer to walk the straight and narrow, which would ordinarily not be a challenge for the faithful rule follower. That is, until he meets Max, a seventeen-year-old patient with OCD characteristics and a severe self-esteem problem. Eric fears Max is a suicide threat after he turns up missing following the death of his beloved grandmother. His concerns only escalate when he learns Max’s romantic interest has been found murdered. This companion to Every Fifteen Minutes also includes the following: • Book Review • Story Setting Analysis of Every Fifteen Minutes • Story elements you may have missed as we decipher the novel • Details of Characters & Key Character Analysis • Summary of the text, with some analytical comments interspersed • Thought Provoking /or Discussion Questions for Readers & Book Clubs • Discussion & Analysis of Themes, Symbols… • And Much More! This Analysis of Every Fifteen Minutes fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience.

    Co-winner of the 2009 Australian/Vogel Literary Award.It's the 1880s and Marvellous Melbourne is a lavish and raucous city where anything could happen. Eccentric entrepreneur Edward William Cole is building the sprawling Cole's Book Arcade and filling it with whatever amuses him, or supports his favourite causes: a giant squid, a brass band, monkeys, a black man whose skin has turned white, a Chinese tea salon, and of course, hundreds of thousands of books. When Edward decides to marry he advertises for a wife in the newspaper, shocking and titillating the whole town. To everyone's surprise he marries his broadsheet bride and the Arcade grows into a monumental success.But the 1890s depression hits Melbourne - and Edwar - hard, and the death of one of his children leaves him reeling. Grief, corruption and a beautiful, unscrupulous widow all threaten to derail his singular vision. But it's not until he visits Chinatown one nigh - and his own deeply suppressed pas - that the idealist faces his toughest challenge. Utopian Man is the story of a man who lives life on his own terms, and leaves behind a remarkable legacy.

    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?

    But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur; Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual; and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather at Sylvie's old beach house--not for festivities this time, but to clean it out before it is sold. Can they survive together without her?Without Sylvie to maintain the group's delicate equilibrium, frustrations build and painful memories press in. Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface--and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.The Weekend explores growing old and growing up, and what happens when we're forced to uncover the lies we tell ourselves. Sharply observed and excruciatingly funny, this is a jewel of a book: a celebration of tenderness and friendship from an award-winning writer.

    The CIA wanted to kill him. This is the remarkable true story of Australian war hero Barry Petersen. In 1963, 28-year-old Australian Captain Barry Petersen was sent to Vietnam as part of the 30-man Australian Training Team, two years before the first official Australian troops arrived. Seconded to the CIA, he was sent to the remote Central Highlands to build an anti-communist guerrilla force among the indigenous Montagnard people. He was sent off with bagloads of cash and a vague instruction to 'get to know the natives'. Petersen took over the running of the paramilitary force that had been started by the local police chief and started to earn the Montagnards respect. He lived drank and ate with the Montagnards, learned their language and respected their skills. The Vietcong dubbed Petersen's force 'Tiger Men'. When Petersen he heard this, he had special badges made for their berets and supplied tiger print uniforms. The Montagnards loved Petersen and flocked to join his force but the CIA were worried. They thought he was out of control and too close to the Montagnard people...

    my daughter asked. 'Well, over time I got to know him and he made me laugh, and ...and I knew deep down that, that ...even though we were really different ...he was a good person.' Without skipping a beat, she said, 'He.s not that good, he.s in jail!'..After fourteen years of marriage, Mel Jacob's life looked as perfect as the roses perched above her white picket fence. The nice house in the suburbs, two great kids, a good husband. Until ...Her life took an unexpected detour when her seemingly saintly husband was jailed for two years. In Sickness, in Health ...and in Jail follows Mel's funny, moving and insightful journey as she navigates single parenthood, prison visitations and nosy neighbours...Mel's revealing account is the story of the family left behind. It chronicles the grief, the stigma and the conversational minefields of her husband's whereabouts, as well as the logistical problems of making a baby sibling for her two children, and why it's not appropriate to tell people that Daddy's in jail...In Sickness, in Health ...and in Jail is a funny and touching account of grief and love and forgiveness...

    But with each step she takes she feels the sharp tug of invisible threads: the love and worry of her parents, who want more than anything to keep her from harm. Her father fears for her safety to an extraordinary degree - but why? As she digs further into her father's story, Alice embarks on a journey of painful discovery: of memories lost and found, of her own fears for the future, of history and how it echoes down the years. Set in Melbourne, China and Cambodia, Her Father's Daughter captures a father-daughter relationship in a moving and astonishingly powerful way.

    Her father Brian, a Vietnam veteran struggling with the long-term effects of the war, has been missing ever since he walked out on Beth and their two children in the dead of night twenty years ago. Matt dreams of one day finding his own path like his heroic father, as Beth’s religious fervour propagates a childhood of parental disappointment. Rachel sets before her family one last request: a journey to the exotic and the unknown. Rachel, ever the free spirit, administers a dose of her notorious wanderlust.The Happiness Jar is a story about how tightly you hold on to what you believe in; how one person’s beliefs can affect a family and tear at the already fragile folds where love hides. It’s about faith, and what can endure despite the burdens we place on ourselves and each other.Set against the red dust of the Kimberley desert, and the smoky backdrop of the holy river Ganges in India, The Happiness Jar is a novel that reminds us that we continue to live in the memories we leave behind. “The Happiness Jar will take the reader on a journey of discovery, of oneself and those whom we love, and others we may not love at all. I found this book to be a wonderful read from start to finish and was left pondering at the end, my own mortality, outlook and relationships. Samantha Tidy has penned a book that you may well want to read again and again.” Gary McKay, Author

    What could drive a girl on the cusp of womanhood to lock herself away from the world forever?Sarah is just seventeen when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman shut away in a cell that measures only seven by nine paces, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth as well as pressure to marry the local lord's son, she decides to renounce the world--with all its dangers, desires, and temptations--and commit herself to a life of prayer.But it soon becomes clear that the thick, unforgiving walls of Sarah's cell cannot protect her as well as she had thought. With the outside world clamoring to get in and the intensity of her isolation driving her toward drastic actions, even madness, her body and soul are still in grave danger. When she starts hearing the voice of the previous anchoress whispering to her from the walls, Sarah finds herself questioning what she thought she knew about the anchorhold, and about the village itself.With the lyricism of Nicola Griffith's Hild and the vivid historical setting of Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, Robyn Cadwallader's powerful debut novel tells an absorbing story of faith, desire, shame, fear, and the very human need for connection and touch. Compelling, evocative, and haunting, The Anchoress is both quietly heartbreaking and thrillingly unpredictable.

    Across the desert, across America on a Harley Davidson, or walking through the bush of ghosts at night. In these articles that make up Travelling Light, the bestselling author of Tracks takes us into the wilds of many countries - as well as countries of the mind.

    Sometimes, rather than making you laugh or cry out in surprise, a story will instead leave you wondering about human fragility... In the telling of his own tale, children's author and screenwriter Paul Jennings demonstrates how seemingly small events can combine into a compelling drama. As if assembling the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, he puts together fragments, memories and anecdotes to reveal the portrait of a complex and weathered soul. 'Untwisted' is revealing, moving and very funny. It will appeal to all students of creative writing and all those who wonder about the origins and outcomes of success – and, of course, to Paul's many fans around the world.