Book picks similar to
Wild Figments: First Edition by Michael Leunig
art
australian
humour
myread
Crows, Papua New Guinea, and Boats: A new collection of irreverence.
David Thorne - 2018
Featuring all new, never before published material, Crows, Papua New Guinea, and Boats is the latest release by David Thorne, author of The Internet is a Playground and 27bslash6.com
A Gorgeous Sense of Hope: A Love Fable
Emma Magenta - 2006
Determined to save her love, she sets out on a love expedition, where she learns that the road to love can be rocky and full of twists and turns, but if we have the courage to stick with it, or perhaps even to forge our own path, it might just lead us to exhilarating heights and astonishing synchronicity in love. Through all the seasons of the heart, this beautifully illustrated book candidly relates the "exquisite bubble" of new love, followed by the perils of "the insidious zone of complacency" where the shower of passion dries up and silence ensues. Finally, the girl realizes that the only guarantee of keeping the love she wants is to create the map for it herself.A Gorgeous Sense of Hope is a quirky and profound keepsake for new, promising relationships, for tired, troubled relationships, and for anyone who appreciates the fragility of love. It's for everyone who has been in love and those who might be, someday. After all, couldn't everyone use a gorgeous sense of hope?
The Curious Story of Malcolm Turnbull, the Incredible Shrinking Man in the Top Hat
Andrew P. Street - 2016
You know, again.
Into The Rip
Damien Cave - 2021
Having covered the war in Iraq and moved to Mexico City with two babies in nappies, he and his wife Diana thought they understood something about the subject.But when they arrived in Sydney so that Cave could establish The New York Times's Australia Bureau, life near the ocean confronted them with new ideas and questions, at odds with their American mindset that risk was a matter of individual choices. Surf-lifesaving and Nippers showed that perhaps it could be managed together, by communities. And instead of being either eliminated or romanticised, it might instead be respected and even embraced.And so Cave set out to understand how our current attitude to risk developed - and why it's not necessarily good for us.Into the Rip is partly the story of this New York family learning to live better by living with the sea and it is partly the story of how humans manage the idea of risk. Interviewing experts and everyday heroes, Cave asks critical questions like: Is safety overrated? Why do we miscalculate risk so often and how can we improve? Is it selfish to take risks or can more exposure make for stronger families, citizens and nations? And how do we factor in legitimate fears and major disasters like Cave has covered in his time here: the Black Summer fires; the Christchurch massacre; and, of course, Covid?The result is Grit meets Phosphorescence and Any Ordinary Day - a book that will change the way you and your family think about facing the world's hazards.
Almost Sincerely
Zoe Norton Lodge - 2015
God’s country. Heartland of the Inner West. Because of its location an always fertile mix of working-class, migrant, genteel, intellectual and eccentric residents. As she got older she noticed Annandale was changing, and she started hearing new words like ‘architect’ and ‘labradoodle’, and eventually entire weeks would go by with no backyard bomb explosions.These stories about neighbourhood warfare, wacky relatives, quashed dreams and facial disfigurement are told with Norton Lodge’s characteristic comic verve and eye for absurdity and menace, inspired by her family, friends, acquaintances and nemeses. Their highlights include Greek grandparents who have lived in mutual resentment for decades and beat each other up with colanders, children who dabble in amateur porn and are sent to school with cat-food sandwiches, ‘distressed’ furniture, rampaging eczema, flying babies and other suburban wonders.
Tex
Tex Perkins - 2017
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.
Who Stole My Spandex?: Life in the Hot Flash Lane
Marcia Kester Doyle - 2016
Who Stole My Spandex? is a witty selection of stories from Doyle’s madcap world of menopausal pitfalls, wardrobe malfunctions, and a family full of pranksters. This clever compilation includes laugh-out-loud pieces like "Queen of Klutz,” "One Size Fits None," and "Hands off my Egg Roll!" From couples' colonoscopies to nightmare holidays to disappearing spandex, no topic—no matter how crazy or unimaginable—is too taboo. With a heavy dose of self-deprecating humor, and a dash of sentiment, this marvelous collection of anecdotes will resonate with anyone who’s ever felt the call of nature at exactly the wrong time. Welcome to the nuthouse that Marcia Kester Doyle calls home.
Survival of the Dumbest
Wil Anderson - 2006
Now I don't want to seem callous, but to me that's not a tragedy - that's natural selection.'In SURVIVAL OF THE DUMBEST, Wil Anderson turns his sharp gaze and wicked wit to the stupid, strange and perplexing quandaries of popular culture. Wil spares no-one, not even himself, as he delivers an almighty forehead slap to the modern world. And let's face it: between TV, politics, oversexed sports stars, advertising and automatic phone-banking systems - there are a lot of foreheads that need one.Wil Anderson caused cornflake snorting incidents as a breakfast announcer on Triple J, hosts ABC TV's ever-popular The Glass House and continues to thrill audiences at just about every comedy festival known to man. Now Wil has set down some of his funniest rants and observations in this book. Let's just hope there are enough people left who can read…
Johnathan Thurston: The Autobiography
Johnathan Thurston - 2018
This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.
A Sunburnt Childhood
Toni Tapp Coutts - 2016
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.
Dear Fran, Love Dulcie: Life and Death in the Hills and Hollows of Bygone Australia
Victoria Twead - 2021
Both are newly-weds; Dulcie has a baby girl and Fran is expecting a baby. But there the similarities end.Fran is a Detroit city girl enjoying modern conveniences. Dulcie is a pineapple farmer’s wife enduring the extremes of Australia. Bushfires, floods, cyclones, droughts, dingo attacks and accidents are all too common. Regardless, Dulcie’s optimism shines through, revealing her love of the land and fascination for the wild creatures that share her corner of Queensland.Each book purchased will help support Careflight, an Australian aero-medical charity that attends emergencies, however remote.
You're Not Helping...
Ryan Patricks - 2014
His book, You’re Not Helping… is a collection of short comedy articles that guide you through his delightful, inventive, and often nonsensical take on everything from attention-seeking dolphins to home invasions by the The Barenaked Ladies. You’re Not Helping… blends both humor and heart in what literary critics around the world are describing as “technically a book.” Join the 10s of readers worldwide enchanted by Ryan’s unique brand of wit.Ryan Patricks lives in San Francisco via Philadelphia. He is an aspiring comedy writer and once saw John Cusack at a Jamba Juice. You can follow him on Twitter @Ryan_Patricks or you can choose not to, it’s totally up to you.
The Mud House
Richard Glover - 2009
Like a house. We could just buy a block of land, you know, the four of us, and have a go.' It was just an idea. then it started to take shape. In this frank, funny and thought-provoking memoir, Richard Glover describes how he and his friend Philip and their partners built a house in the bush on weekends. It was a huge and exhausting undertaking ... not least because they decided to use mudbricks. 'Imagine this - with mudbrick you have a building that is made out of the very earth it stands on ... there is another thing: the stuff is free. Once we buy the land we'll have no money left. this way we can get started as soon as we have the block.' In the end it took three years simply to make the bricks. As for the house itself ... But the process gave Richard the opportunity to examine things he had never quite reconciled to himself - big things like what it means to be a man, the nature of male relationships, fatherhood - and to challenge himself in the kind of blokey environment he had rejected. Above all, the mud house proved that even if it 'wasn't the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel' there is nothing like the satisfaction of making something with your own hands.
Past the Headlands
Garry Disher - 2001
The fall of Malaya and Singapore and the bombing of Darwin—what looked like the invasion of Australia—ebb and crash over a man’s long search to find a home and a woman’s determination to keep hers, connected by old memories and new betrayals. It is a thriller and a romance, a story of earth and water, air and metal—an unforgettable ride through the most precarious time in our region's recent history. Garry Disher writes: ‘Past the Headlands came from the same World War 2 research as The Stencil Man. I was struck by the power of two documents. The first was a letter written by a woman alone on a cattle station near Broome in 1942, at the time the Japanese were overrunning Malaya and Singapore and bombing areas of northern Australia. One day she found herself giving shelter to Dutch colonial officers and their families, who were fleeing Sumatra and Java ahead of the Japanese advance (many people like them lost their lives when Japanese planes shot up their waiting seaplanes in Broome Harbour in March, 1942). This woman stuck in my head (the isolation, the danger, the efforts to communicate, her bravery, etc). The second document was a war diary written by an Australian army surgeon who escaped Singapore ahead of the Japanese and was stuck in Sumatra, trying to get out. Here he treated many of the civilians (and Australian Army deserters) fleeing from Singapore. He was captured by the Japanese, but survived the war. But his last few diary entries detail how he and a mate were waiting for a plane or a ship to take them out, then one day he wrote, “Davis [his mate] left last night without telling me”. So much for mateship. I spent years trying to find my way into their stories. At one stage I spent a year writing 40,000 words before realising it wouldn’t work. I put it aside, then realised one subplot didn’t belong, so extracted it and turned it into a separate novel The Divine Wind, which has sold 100,000 copies around the world, won a major award and been published as both a young adult and a general market novel. But cutting it out like that freed me up to write about the woman and the man betrayed by his mate, in Past the Headlands.’
A Thoroughly Unhelpful History of Australian Sport
Titus O'Reily - 2017
Completely, irrationally insane. It’s the closest thing we have to a culture. From Don Bradman’s singular focus to Steven Bradbury’s heroic not falling over, sport has shaped our sense of self.But how did we get here? Part history, part social commentary and a lot of nonsense, Titus O’Reily, Australia’s least insightful sports writer, explains.Covering Australian Rules, League, Union, soccer, cricket, the Olympics and much more, Titus tackles the big topics, like:· How not to cheat the salary cap· The importance of kicking people in the shins· The many shortcomings of the EnglishTitus takes you through the characters, the pub meetings, the endless acronyms, the corruption and the alarming number of footballers caught urinating in public. Sport is important – gloriously stupid, but important. To understand Australia you must understand its sporting history. With this guide you sort of, kind of, will.