From his early years in the Netherlands to growing up in Australia during the 1980s, Michael recalls the secret surrounding his estranged Greek father and how scandalous events from the past fractured his family. This is a moving chronicle of a boy’s turbulent relationship with his bullying stepfather, aloof older brother and adored mother, whose cheerful apathy has devastating consequences. As his life unfolds, Michael – now a father – must decide if he can free himself from the dark pull of the past.Reminiscent of the great autobiographical novels of JM Coetzee and Michael Ondaatje, The Last Thread is a beautifully crafted work from an exceptional new writer.

    When Roisin Ogilvie moves to Wollombi her thoughts are only of protecting her illegitimate son, Ruan, from the grasps of his powerful and dangerous father. Posing as an impoverished widow, she settles into a quiet existence as a local dressmaker. She doesn’t expect to catch the attention of Irish champion cedar cutter Carrick O’Connor, or any other man for that matter.Carrick O’Connor may have won the coveted Wollombi Wood Chop, but his mind is on the beautiful seamstress and her son. Or rather, on who they remind him of. Determined to exact revenge for the horrors of his past, Carrick plans to return to Ireland to seek revenge on the land agent who was responsible for the death of his wife and child, and his transportation. Then, hopefully, he can return to Wollombi to start life afresh.But a murder charge, a kidnapping, a growing attraction, and a past that refuses to stay silent will turn both his and Roisin’s lives upside down and will lead them to a hard choice. Redemption? Or cutters’ justice?

    A traumatic, violent upbringing saw to that. But after serving a short sentence for theft as a teenager, she worked hard to break the cycle. Thirteen years later Angela was studying, teaching, providing a stable home for her son, and finally feeling like she'd got her life together. Then she got hit by a postie bike. Police realised that Angela still had ten months to go on the prison sentence she'd thought was in her distant past. However, Angela was a different prisoner the second time around: no longer a scared, damaged nineteen-year-old, she knew how to speak up for herself and her fellow prisoners against a system of power, privilege and cruelty that controls the lives of Australia's most vulnerable women and offers little hope for redemption. With unwavering courage, intelligence and humour, SNAKES AND LADDERS reveals an astonishing true story of falling through the cracks, and what it takes to climb back out again.

    

    The daughter of Lang Hancock – legendary arch-conservative, secessionist, mining millionaire and discoverer of the world's largest iron deposit in the Pilbara – Gina has grown up in a family known as much for its front-page legal stoushes as for its business acumen and toughness.With her reported wealth more than doubling in the last twelve months, Rinehart is beginning to flex the enormous power her money gives, buying large shareholdings in television's Ten Network and newspaper group Fairfax Media. They are moves that will give Rinehart and her controversial views a major place in Australian life and public affairs.Based on painstaking research and a wealth of interviews with Rinehart's colleagues, friends, family and former employees, award-winning journalist Adele Ferguson has written the definitive biography, shining a light into the private world of Gina Rinehart, her family, her feuds and the iron determination that has driven her relentless rise.

    How school and later university became her escape route from a family filled with secrets and violence. It is also a story of how, as a mature woman and a mother herself, she came to face what had happened to her as a child. How she had to bring long-buried memories into the light in order to move on.

    Fiona has also had successful shows at the Edinburgh and Adelaide fringe festivals, the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.This book contains her stories - funny and sometimes sad stories about her upbringing as part of a large Irish-Catholic family on a wheat farm in South Australia, her chaotic and disorganised family life ever since, living in Alice Springs and making it as a stand-up comedian. She also talks of a darker side of the life of many performers - alcohol.This book is for anyone who likes to laugh (and cry), who wants to read about a woman living her life on her terms.

    It began life scribbled on airline sick bags during Cave’s 22-city tour of North America in 2014. It soon grew into a restless full-length contemporary epic. Spurred by encounters with modern day North America, and racked by romantic longing and exhaustion, Cave teases out the significant moments, the people, the books and the music that have influenced and inspired him, and drops them into his Sick Bag.The Sick Bag Song blends poetry, lyrics, memories, musings, flights of fancy and journal entries. Both mythic and contemporary, it lies somewhere between The Wasteland and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and explores and develops the imaginative universe of Nick Cave.The sumptuous physical edition reproduces in full colour twenty-two sick bags, each hand-customised by Nick, that are integrated throughout the text.

    Hester has never seen the outside world. The story told by Hester is often dark and terrible, but the sheer blazing brilliance of her language and the imagery that illuminates the pages make this novel an exhilarating, enlightening and joyous act of faith.

    Internationally acclaimed, Say No to Death has been translated into fourteen languages.'Dymphna Cusack... has created a number of attractive, likeable characters, given them a tragic dilemma, and moved them inexorably to a fine dramatic conclusion.' New York Times

    Important, so inspiring... Please read this book" -Sonny Moore, Recording Artist "There are very few ways to get inside the mind of a lyricist. One way is through reading their diaries, the other through sleeping with them. Eric's book is the more entertaining of the options. It's a raw look inside the heart and mind of a rock 'n' roll spiritualist whose struggles with love (Chaplin) and versus the world (Keaton) are laid out bare like an exhibitionist on a double-dare." -Mike Shea, Founder, AP Magazine "Coma Therapy" is the sound of a powerful new voice in contemporary American literature. Victorino's brand of punchy prose often draws comparisons to the likes of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. This debut collection of poems and short stories draws a dangerously thin line between the heartwarming and the horrifying... Eric Victorino then mischievously walks that line all the way to the last page. Defiant, triumphant, hopeful and wise.

    He even dreams a history of the world as a chronicle of sexual frustration.A Lifetime on Clouds is funny, honest, and sweetly told: a less ribald, Catholic Australian Portnoy's Complaint.

    So when an outsider with grand plans threatens to demolish an iconic local landmark and build a huge resort the battle lines are drawn.Young journalist Jessica hopes to make it big with her coverage of the court case, but first she has to appease her editor and put a human interest spin on the situation. At first glance the five people she chooses to background have little in common – but it soon becomes apparent that staying at The Beach House has changed all of them in some way.In telling the stories of Kate, Simone, Tom, Clare and Jack, Jessica too learns some important life lessons.

    Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there...and light the bloody thing yourself!After being named the Bulletin/Qantas Businesswoman of the Year in 1991, and following the phenomenal success of From Strength to Strength - the 1993 Australian Booksellers' Book of the Year, Sara Henderson's life changed forever. Australians took her into their hearts and she became an overnight celebrity. But beyond the glory, life continued to deal Sara its heavy blows.1992 saw her lose a court case that left Bullo River, the million acre outback station she had struggled so hard to save, under threat. Then her daughter, Marlee was diagnosed with cancer and Sara found herself close to breaking point.But when letters, faxes and phone calls from people all over Australia started arriving, they were filled with such compassion that Sara was inspired to carry on.In her bestselling sequel The Strength In Us All Sara updates us on life at Bullo and tells more of the colourful stories about Charlie, Uncle Dick, the girls and their animals, and all the other unforgettable characters that have played a part in her remarkable life.

    But failed efforts to win a fortune at the racetracks turned Emmett into a broken down gambling drunk who terrorized his wife and children. Starting at Emmett’s funeral and reflecting back, the two eldest Brown children—Louise and Rob—recount the rise and fall of their family. Each of Emmett’s children must address the fallout of Emmett, and each comes to discover that they loved and learnt from their father in both his golden and his dark days.