The New Ships


Kate Duignan - 2018
    His attempts to understand the turn his life has taken lead him back to the past, to dismaying events on an Amsterdam houseboat in the seventies; returning to New Zealand and meeting Moira, an amateur painter who carried secrets of her own; and to a trip to Europe years later with his family. An unexpected revelation forces Peter to navigate anew his roles as a husband, father, and son. Set in Wellington after the fall of the Twin Towers, and traversing London, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent, The New Ships is a mesmerizing book of blood-ties that stretch across borders. A novel of acute moral choices, it is a rich and compelling meditation on what it means to act, or to fail to act.

Travels of an Ordinary Man Australia


Paul Elliott - 2013
    Heading to Australia after selling everything that he owns, apart from the contents of his rucksack, the story follows Paul Elliott’s four month journey around the continent.It chronicles his adventures and the myriad of people that he encounters in a humourous and entertaining way. Not only does he begin to find a direction for his life, he also begins to find his true self in an ultimately uplifting adventure.

Iron House Station: A father's love runs deep...


Kelly Cameron - 2020
    

Mr Stuart's Track


John Bailey - 2006
    The Australian continent stretched for another 2,000 kilometres to the north and 2,500 to the west and no white man had the slightest idea of what was there. It was to be the first of six expeditions mounted by Stuart, then aged 42, as he sought to uncover the mysteries of the interior and forge a path to the north.Ultimately he was to become part of a race across the continent, his rivals being the Burke and Wills expedition. In the end Stuart was to be the first European to cross Australia from south to north and return again, as the cumbersome expedition of Burke and Wills turned from farce to tragedy. Yet his hero's homecoming was to be shortlived. Mr Stuart's Track is a fascinating study of a loner, an explorer of no fixed abode, who battled alcoholism and ill-health to push himself to the limits of endurance in crossing straight through the red centre to the northern seas.

The Necessary War: Canadians Fighting the Second World War, 1939-1943 (Volume One)


Tim Cook - 2014
    It gauges Canadian effectiveness against the skilled enemy whom they confronted in battlefields from 1939 to 1943, from the sweltering heat of Sicily to the frigid North Atlantic, and from the urban warfare of Ortona to the dark skies over Germany. The Necessary War examines the equally important factors of morale, discipline, and fortitude of the Canadian citizen-soldiers.The war was an engine of transformation for Canada. With a population of fewer than twelve million, Canada embraced its role as an arsenal of democracy, exporting war supplies, feeding its allies, and raising a million-strong armed forces that served and fought in nearly every theatre of war. The nation was mobilized like never before in the fight to preserve the liberal democratic order. The six-year-long exertion caused disruption, provoked nationwide industrialization, ushered in changes to gender roles, exacerbated the tension between English and French, and forged a new sense of Canadian identity. Canadians were willing to bear almost any burden and to pay the ultimate price in the pursuit of victory.As with his award-winning two-volume series on WWI, Tim Cook uses original sources, letters from soldiers, rare documents, and maps of battlefields to illustrate the contributions and sacrifices made by what is often called the greatest generation. Magisterial in its scope, The Necessary War illuminates Canada’s past as never before. From the Western Front to the home front, Canadians served many roles in a war that had to be fought and won.

The Original Australians: Story of the Aboriginal People


Josephine Flood - 2006
    From the wisdom and paintings of the Dreamtime, to the first contacts between Europeans and indigenous Australians, right through to modern times, it offers an insight into the life and experiences of the world's oldest culture. The resilience and adaptability of Aboriginal people over millennia is one of the great human stories of all time.Josephine Flood answers the questions about Aboriginal Australia that Australians and visitors often ask: Where did the Aborigines come from and when? How did they survive in such a harsh environment? What was the traditional role of Aboriginal women? Why didn't colonists sign treaties with Aboriginal people? Were Aboriginal children 'stolen'? Why are there so many problems in Aboriginal communities today? And many more.This rich account aims to understand both black and white perspectives and is fascinating reading for anyone who wants to discover Aboriginal Australia.Another enthralling account by Josephine Flood, of Australian Aborigines! Her ensuring respect for her fellow humans underwrites every part of her exploration of the life and times of the Aboriginal people.Pat O'Shane, MagistrateThis is an up-to-the-minute and balanced account of Aboriginal experience from earliest prehistory to today. Clearly written and well-illustrated, this is the best book to give someone who wants to know about Aborigines, their survival through the millennia, and the experiences they have to contribute to modern Australia.Emeritus Professor Campbell Macknight, Australian National University

Nona & Me


Clare Atkins - 2014
    Yapas.They are also best friends. It doesn’t matter that Rosie is white and Nona is Aboriginal: their family connections tie them together for life.Born just five days apart in a remote corner of the Northern Territory, the girls are inseperable, until Nona moves away at the age of nine. By the time she returns, they’re in Year 10 and things have changed. Rosie has lost interest in the community, preferring to hang out in the nearby mining town, where she goes to school with the glamorous Selena, and Selena’s gorgeous older brother Nick.When a political announcement highlights divisions between the Aboriginal community and the mining town, Rosie is put in a difficult position: will she be forced to choose between her first love and her oldest friend?

Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee


Chloe Hooper - 2008
    Forty minutes later he was dead in the jailhouse. The police claimed he'd tripped on a step, but his liver was ruptured. The main suspect was Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, a charismatic cop with long experience in Aboriginal communities and decorations for his work. Chloe Hooper was asked to write about the case by the pro bono lawyer who represented Cameron Doomadgee's family. He told her it would take a couple of weeks. She spent three years following Hurley's trail to some of the wildest and most remote parts of Australia, exploring Aboriginal myths and history and the roots of brutal chaos in the Palm Island community. Her stunning account goes to the heart of a struggle for power, revenge, and justice. Told in luminous detail, Tall Man is as urgent as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and The Executioner's Song. It is the story of two worlds clashing -- and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget.

Terra Nullius


Claire G. Coleman - 2017
    There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run. There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future. All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from. Jacky was running.The Natives of the Colony are restless. The Settlers are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line. Families are torn apart, reeducation is enforced. This rich land will provide for all.This is not Australia as we know it. This is not the Australia of our history.

We of the Never Never


Jeannie Gunn - 1907
    An Australian classic. Depicts the enduring hardships of life in the Australian outback and the battles against sexist and racial prejudices.

Tommy Robinson Enemy of the State


Tommy Robinson - 2015
    

Leadbelly: Inside Australia's Underworld Wars


John Silvester - 2004
    And when you're shot you're shot ... In Melbourne, generations of gangsters have lived and died by the creed ''We catch and kill our own''. But in the last decade the violence bubbling under the surface spilled into open war on the streets. This is the story of the gangsters, the hitmen and the police who deal with them in the deadliest game of all. The book that inspired the smash hit television series "Underbelly".

Canticle Creek


Adrian Hyland - 2021
    One long hot summer. A town that will never be the same.When Adam Lawson’s wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy Baker’s body, the whole town assumes it’s an open and shut case. But Jesse Redpath isn’t from Canticle Creek. Where she comes from, the truth often hides in plain sight, but only if you know where to look. When Jesse starts to ask awkward questions, she uncovers a town full of contradictions and a cast of characters with dark pasts, secrets to hide and even more to lose. As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode.All it needs is one spark.

Paint Your Wife


Lloyd Jones - 2004
    His special favorite was Alice, who returned his attentions. Her husband George came home from the war, and set out to prove his love and reclaim his wife by shifting a hill with a wheelbarrow to improve the view. Now, decades later, Alma's 'in lieu of' payment is revived so that an abandoned mother living in a depressed town can make her way. For the other townspeople looking to escape various corners of despair, drawing classes provide the answer. For when you draw, the only thing that matters is what lies before you.

Truth-Telling: History, sovereignty and the Uluru Statement


Henry Reynolds - 2021
    His work shows exactly why our national war memorial must acknowledge the frontier wars, why we must change the date of our national day, and why treaties are important. Most of all, it makes urgently clear that the Uluru Statement is no rhetorical flourish but carries the weight of history and law and gives us a map for the future.