Hilarious and warm-hearted, Impractical Jokes is both a comic evocation of the Australian larrikin spirit and an ode to a loving father. Don't just read the jacket blurb - buy it!' - Shaun MicallefIn 1986, Charlie Pickering's dad, Ron, was pushed into a pool by his best friend, Richard. What followed was an all-out water pistol ambush in a five-star restaurant and then ten years of tit-for-tat payback and near fatal hijinx that eventually involved the State Emergency Service. When maturity is the first casualty of war, things tend to escalate.Impractical Jokes is the true story of two seemingly responsible, middle-aged men who opted out of having a mid-life crisis and instead gave themselves permission to be silly. It is also the tale of how Charlie finally learnt something from his dad - that being grown-up shouldn't mean losing your sense of humour - a lesson he lives to the full as one of Australia's leading comedians.About Charlie PickeringCharlie Pickering is a comedian, writer and presenter. After throwing away his career as a lawyer, Charlie toured the world performing stand-up from London to Bahrain, earning a nomination for the prestigious Perrier Award for best newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Upon his return to Australia, Charlie and fellow comedian Michael Chamberlin created and starred in The Mansion on The Comedy Channel, before going on to host Toast, a weekend breakfast show on Triple M and rocketing to national popularity on Network Ten's The 7pm Project and Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation. He now lives in Melbourne in a small house with a West Highland Terrier named Waldon and a Scottish Terrier named Kennedy.'Charming company and a natural raconteur' - The Scotsman'Australia's best' - The Adelaide Advertiser 'More than witty - side-shakingly funny' - The Age

    It’s impossible not to let oneself go along for the ride and emerge at the book’s end enlightened, touched, thrilling with laughter.’ – Marieke HardyMeet the Law family – eccentric, endearing and hard to resist. Your guide: Benjamin, the third of five children and a born humorist. Join him as he tries to answer some puzzling questions: Why won’t his Chinese dad wear made-in-China underpants? Why was most of his extended family deported in the 1980s? Will his childhood dreams of Home and Away stardom come to nothing? What are his chances of finding love?Hilarious and moving, The Family Law is a linked series of tales from a wonderful new Australian talent.

    Facebook-worthy baby? Tick. Bikini-body six weeks after giving birth? Um … not so much.Fashion PR exec Ally Bloom got her happy ending. Okay, her marriage might be showing the odd crack, her battleaxe mother-in-law might have come to stay, and she might not be the yummy mummy she'd imagined, but it's nothing a decent night's sleep and a firm commitment to a no-carb diet won't fix.But when Ally returns to work and finds she'll be reporting to a 22-year-old airhead, she decides to turn her back on life as a professional fashionista and embrace her inner earth mama instead.So it's out with the Louboutins and champagne and in with the sensible flats and coffee mornings with the Mummy Mafia. From attending her first grown-up dinner party only to discover that placenta is top of the menu to controlling her monster crush on local playgroup hottie Cameron, Ally must find her feet in the brave new world of the stay-at-home mum.

    How on earth they make horse nostrils and sawdust so damn tasty is a mystery, but hats off to Huttons. From running with a bad crowd in kindergarten to her junk food modus operandi at kids' parties and enduring a 'Yoga Guantanamo' camp, the fabulous anecdotes from Kitty Flanagan's life will take you on a hilarious trip down memory lane. Kitty's observations about relationships, whether it be travelling around South America with a dud boyfriend, her brief affair with a graveyard digger or sussing out potential new dates are highly amusing. And though not a fan of the 'it's not you, it's me' breakup line, she wasn't quite prepared for an ex-boyfriend reciting a hand-written list of her faults when he dumped her. On the career front, Kitty recalls working in a crayfish-factory where she annoyed her boss so much that one day he locked her in a freezer. And she well and truly burnt her bridges at a stand-up venue in Singapore when she responded to her employer's enquiry about her 'moustache'. Confirming her reputation as one of Australia's top comedians, Kitty Flanagan's Bridge Burning and Other Hobbies is a laugh-out loud, entertaining and endearing yarn.

    A divorced mother has a secret love affair with a travelling priest. A widower miraculously finds a three-minute video recorded by his wife before she died. A tree lopper's heart falls in a forest. A working mum contemplates taking the photographs of her late husband down from the fridge. A girl writes her last letter to the man she loves, then sets it on fire. An ageing gigolo regrets the one that got away. A palliative care nurse helps a dying woman converse with the angel at the end of her bed. A renowned 100-year-old scientist ponders the one great earthly puzzle he was never able to solve: 'What is love?'Endless stories. Human stories. Love stories.Inspired by a personal moment of profound love and generosity, bestselling author – and one of Australia's finest journalists – Trent Dalton spent two months in 2021 pounding city pavements, speaking to Australians from all walks of life and asking them one simple and direct question: 'Can you please tell me a love story?' For two straight weeks he sat at a desk with a sky-blue 1960s Olivetti typewriter, on the bustling corner of Adelaide and Albert streets, Brisbane, with a sign saying, 'Sentimental writer collecting love stories. Do you have one to share?'The result is Love Stories – a warm, wise, poignant, funny and moving book about love in all its guises, including stories, observations and reflections on lovers in parks; people in cemeteries, hospital wards, pubs and bingo halls; and newlyweds walking out of registry offices. There will be stories of people falling into love, falling out of love, and never letting go of the loved ones in their hearts. And woven through it all will be remembrances of Trent's own special moments, and of the people whose love stories have made him the man and writer he is today.A heartfelt, deep, funny, wise and tingly tribute to the greatest thing we will never understand and the only thing we will ever really need: love.

    And while there are many resources out there on the "craft" of writing or how to find your creative voice as an "artist," there is little by way of practical advice on how to actually set about writing genre fiction for a career. Fiona McIntosh, one of Australia's most successful commercial authors across a range of genres, is here to set the record straight, and set aspiring novelists on a realistic path. She believes that if you have a tough hide and a philosophical attitude—as well as a damn strong work ethic—anyone can make a living from popular writing. And she's here to show you how.

    When she is offered a position with the Flying Doctor Service, she seizes the opportunity to make a fresh start. Yet once she arrives in remote Mica Ridge she feels like an outsider, unable to connect with her patients and unsure if she'll ever fit in with this outback community.Station owner Soretta Byrnes has grown to love the company and chaos that comes with living in a house filled with boarders. So with tenants moving out and bills piling up, it's a welcome relief to have Tess and new pilot Charlie Fennes arriving in town and looking for somewhere to stay.As they share life's triumphs and challenges, it isn't long before everyone at the station feels like family. But Charlie has yet to reveal his motive for coming to Mica Ridge and his secret will change the life of someone in the house forever ...

    Very, very real. Actor, writer and comedian, Celeste Barber is one very funny woman - not to mention a global social media comedy phenomenon. Amassing over 3 million followers in only 18 months with her hilarious #challengeaccepted pics, she has been dubbed 'Australian Comedy Queen' by ABC Online; voted The Funniest Lady on Instagram; gone on sold-out comedy tours of US and UK; and won herself fans ranging from Tom Ford and Ruby Rose, to Amy Schumer and Dawn French. In the tradition of Tina Fey's Bossypants, Celeste's memoir is part memoir, part comedy routine, part advice manual. Calling out our ridiculous celebrity Instagram culture and the obsession we all seem to have with how we look, Celeste reveals all, including her thoughts on keeping it real and feeling good (instead of worrying about looking good); the secrets to love, friendship, family and marriage (#hothusband); how to deal with life's many challenges, like, well, motherhood, among other things; and how to stay nice in Spanx. Celeste is real, hilarious and the world can't get enough of her.

    Her friend called with a job offer too curious to refuse: a cruisey-gig as a dementia carer for a rich old man in Kenya. All expenses-paid, plenty of free time to travel or do some freelance reporting. There seemed no good reason to say no... so she got on a plane.Only Kirsten's friend hadn't given her the full story. It was only on arrival in Nairobi that she discovered the rich old man's family was fighting a war around him, and that she would be on the frontline. Caught in the crossfire of all kinds of wild accusations, she also had to spy on his wife, keep his daughter placated, rebuff his marriage proposals, hide the car keys and clip his toenails all while trying to retain her own sanity in the colonial time warp of his home.Meanwhile, the Kenyan army was invading Somalia, Al-Shabaab was threatening terror attacks, the East African bodybuilding scene beckoned, and Kirsten discovered she had long-lost cousins running a bar on the other side of the city.I Built No Schools in Kenya is a travelogue-tragedy-farce about race, wealth, love, death, family, nationhood, sanity, benzodiazepines, monkeys and whisky.It is almost entirely true.

    A smart and very funny memoir about the highs and lows of trying to establish a life in a place that values beer and potatoes above everything else!'I'd like to say that my decision to move to Prague permanently was based on something grand and noble - a desire to trace my roots, a sense of adventure, my literary heart yearning to burst into flower in the sweet soil of Old Europe - but I can't. The truth is that I had nothing better to do.'When Rachael Weiss left a good job, Thelma the cat and a normal life in Sydney for the romantic dream of being a writer in Prague she intended to stay forever. She lasted just three years, exasperated by the eccentricities of her ancestral city and the mind-boggling bureaucracy and customs of a country that values beer and potatoes above everything else.In this surprising and generous memoir full of warmth and unstoppable sociability, Rachael attempts to write her great novel, buy an apartment (any apartment!), dodge unscrupulous employers, and perhaps find love. She gets lost in the woods with a Kyrgyzstani software engineer who wants to eat humans, finds herself leading services at the Spanish synagogue with no real idea of what she was doing and spends long nights drinking beer with a colourful cast of crazy, warm and slightly mad locals and expats.Rich in absurdities and gentle humour, The Thing About Pragueis rife with insight, culture clashes, friendships and above all charm.

    The performance becomes so familiar I almost forget that it’s staged.What happens when, aged 30, you understand you’re transgender?This was the question that confronted Yves Rees, a historian whose life was upended by gender transition in 2018. Then known as a woman called Anne, Yves was forced to grapple with the sudden knowledge that they were not, in fact, female at all.But when you’ve lived a lie for so long, how do you discover who you really are? And how do you re-learn to live in the world as a different gender?All About Yves tells their moving journey of re-becoming, at the same time laying bare the messiness of bodies, gender and identity. It shares the challenges and joys of being transgender in Australia today, and reveals how trans experiences like Yves' can teach all of us about what it means to be man or woman.

    Raised in the era of the White Australia policy, Dianne grows up believing her adoptive Irish mother, Val, is her birth mother. Val promises Dianne that one day they will take a trip and she will 'tell her a secret'. But before they get the chance, Val tragically dies.Abandoned by her adoptive father, Dianne is raped at the age of 15, sentenced to Parramatta Girls Home and later forced to marry her rapist in order to keep her baby. She goes on to endure horrific domestic violence at the hands of different partners, alcohol addiction and cruel betrayal by those closest to her. But amazingly her fighting spirit is not extinguished.At the age of 36, while raising six kids on her own, Dianne learns she is Aboriginal and that her great-grandfather was William Cooper, a famous Aboriginal activist. Miraculously she finds a way to forgive her traumatic past and becomes a leader in her own right, vowing to help other stolen people just like her.

    One of Australia's greatest mysteries - two whodunnits, twisted together.Larrimah: hot, barren, a speck of dust in the centre of the nothingness of outback Australia. Where you might find a death adder in the bar and a spider or ten in the toaster. Maybe it's stupid to write a love letter to a town that looks like this, especially when it's someone else's town. A town where there's nothing to see, nothing to buy and the closest thing to an attraction is a weird Pink Panther in a gyrocopter whose head falls off intermittently. A town steeped in ancient superstition and pockmarked with sinkholes. It's Kadaitja country. People go missing in the bush there, the traditional owners say.It's doubly stupid to write a love letter to a town where someone did go missing and one of the remaining residents might be a murderer. A town at the centre of one of the biggest mysteries outback Australia has ever seen - a weird, swirling whodunnit about camel pies and wild donkeys and drug deals and crocodiles, a case that's had police scratching their heads for years, while journalists and filmmakers and Hollywood turn up, from time to time, to ask what the hell happened here.And it makes no sense to fall for a place when the town is crumbling into the dust and it looks a lot like your love letter might end up being a eulogy. But whatever happened in Larrimah, it's strange and precious and surprisingly funny. Journalists Kylie Stevenson and Caroline Graham have spent years trying to pin it down - what happened to Paddy Moriarty and his dog, how they disappeared, how they might take the whole town and something even bigger with them.

    Leaving behind her wildlife rescue work in Oregon, Terri traveled to Australia, and there, at a small wildlife park, she met and fell in love with a tall, blond force of nature named Steve Irwin. They were married in less than a year, and Terri eagerly joined in Steve's conservation work. The footage filmed on their crocodile-trapping honeymoon became the first episode of T"he Crocodile Hunter, " and together, Steve and Terri began to change the world. In "Steve & Me, " Terri recounts the unforgettable adventures they shared -- wrangling venomous snakes, saving deadly crocodiles from poachers, swimming among humpback whales. A uniquely gifted naturalist, Steve was first and foremost a wildlife warrior dedicated to rescuing endangered animals -- especially his beloved crocs -- and educating everyone he could reach about the importance of conservation. In the hit TV shows that continue to be broadcast worldwide, Steve's enthusiasm lives on, bringing little-known and often-feared species to light as he reveals and revels in the wonders of our planet.With grace, wit, and candor, Terri Irwin portrays her husband as he really was -- a devoted family man, a fervently dedicated environmentalist, a modest bloke who spoke to millions on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves. "Steve & Me" is a nonstop adventure, a real-life love story, and a fitting tribute to a man adored by all those whose lives he touched, written by the woman who knew and loved him best of all.

    When the bird refuses to leave Tom's side, the young teacher has no choice but to take it with him and look after it. This is their story.