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The Ice Age: a journey into crystal-meth addiction


Luke Williams - 2016
    Over the next three months, he was seduced by the drug and descended into psychosis.This confronting and illuminating story charts Luke's recovery from the drug, and his investigation into its usage and prevalence in Australia and the western world. In examining what led to his addiction, Luke also explores the social problems that surround ice, scrutinising whether its abuse is in fact an epidemic, with what we're experiencing now merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg, or yet another moral panic about the underclass. Luke traces the history of methamphetamine from its legal usage in the early 20th century to its contemporary relevance as one of the most foreboding and talked-about illicit drugs in the world. His search for answers sees him exploring meth labs, interviewing addicts and law-enforcement officials, and witnessing firsthand the effects of the drug on individuals, families, and the healthcare system.Combining memoir with reportage, The Ice Age is a vital, compelling first-person account, and an investigation into a drug that is fast becoming the subject of national discussion throughout the western world.

Gravity Falls: The second summer (Gravity Falls Fan-Fiction | A Second Summer Book 1)


Colin Cabana - 2017
    Will Dipper and Mabel's summer be ruined? Find out in this fan novel as well as Mystery #1, The Axolotl, a demon who wants to revive Bill Cipher!

Girt


David Hunt - 2013
    No word could better capture the essence of Australia...In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia’s past, from megafauna to Macquarie – the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of “felony of sock”, and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia. It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia’s only military coup.Our nation’s beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us.Not to read it would be un-Australian.

The Tome of Bill Series: Books 5-8 - a Horror Comedy Collection


Rick Gualtieri - 2017
    Bill Ryder STILL isn’t one of them.This omnibus edition contains the FINAL FOUR books of the bestselling Tome of Bill series - over 2000 pages of kick-ass action and geeky humor. A supernatural war, an ancient goddess, and a prophecy stating he’s destined to kill the woman he loves. Geek turned vampire Bill Ryder really doesn’t need this shit right now. Too bad that fate says otherwise. Now he’s got to become the hero he never wanted to be because otherwise the world and everyone in it will be royally screwed.Includes: GODDAMNED FREAKY MONSTERS (Book 5) Three months have passed since Bill Ryder mysteriously disappeared. Now he’s back and just in time because civilization is teetering on the brink of chaos. An ancient evil, the last remnant of a cult thought long dead, is about to cut a swath of destruction through the world not seen since biblical times. Bill’s only chance is to muster his friends and every last bit of attitude he can – because if he fails, Hell on Earth will become far more than just a corny saying. HALF A PRAYER (Book 6) An unstoppable terror has awoken deep beneath the Earth and it’s headed Bill’s way. To make matters worse, he’s been deemed a traitor by those he thought to be his allies. Now he finds himself fighting off enemies from all sides while warring with his feelings for the woman he loves. Talk about lousy timing for introspection. As the world crumbles around him, Bill must rise to the destiny he’s been trying to deny – because if he doesn’t, his love life will be the least of his worries. THE WICKED DEAD (Book 7) Bill Ryder has a powerful destiny. He just never expected it to involve an amnesiac bloodsucker, a bunch of D&D dorks, and a hormonal witch. Ordered to storm the vampire stronghold in Boston, Bill must approach the doorstep of the invincible undead warlord he’s destined to face. If he stands tall and faces his fate, the world might just have a chance of surviving. If he fails, an unquenchable evil will destroy everything he knows and loves. Why can’t the end of the world ever be easy? THE LAST COVEN (Book 8) A goddess returned, a war between primal powers, and a prophecy to fulfill. That’s a lot of crap to heap on anyone’s plate, but that’s exactly what Bill Ryder has to deal with. It’s finally time for him to master his powers, sort out his relationship woes, and figure out how to survive his date with destiny. Because if he can’t get his act together, the curtain will fall and mankind will be forever plunged into everlasting darkness. Join Bill in these tales full of monsters, mayhem, and foul-mouthed laughs. If you enjoy Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearne, or K.F. Breene then you're in for a bloody good time. Click BUY NOW and dive into the complete series today.

Scummy Mummies


Ellie Gibson - 2017
    It’s about how bringing up kids can be a tough business, but we’re all going through the same things, and it’s easier if we can have a good laugh about it. The book covers a range of themes relevant to modern parents, from pregnancy and potty training to school, sex, and nits. There are fun features like Sex Positions For Parents, quizzes such as Did Our Husbands Really Say That?, and Scummy Mummy Life Hacks.

If I Should Lose You


Natasha Lester - 2012
    Here is a story that resonates long after reading.’ — Andrea Goldsmith‘I was captivated by this honest, beautiful story that fuses love and art with the most profound challenges of motherhood. Written with extraordinary emotional wisdom and intelligence.’ — Liz ByrskiCamille is a nurse specialising in supporting families through the difficult decision to donate the organs of their dying loved ones. Camille’s mother is a gifted but uncompromising transplant surgeon determined to make it in a man’s world until her own life falls apart. And Camille herself is a mother to Addie – five years old, critically ill and in desperate need of the very organs her mother and grandmother work with.

The Death of Bunny Munro


Nick Cave - 2009
    An epic chronicle of one man's judgement and death, "The Death of Bunny Munro" is an achingly tender portrait of the relationship between father and son.

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.’

The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village


Joanna Nell - 2018
    Her week revolves around aqua aerobics and appointments with her doctor. The highlight of Peggy's day is watching her neighbour Brian head out for his morning swim.Peggy dreams of inviting the handsome widower - treasurer of the Residents' Committee and one of the few eligible men in the village - to an intimate dinner. But why would an educated man like Brian, a chartered accountant no less, look twice at Peggy? As a woman of a certain age, she fears she has become invisible, even to men in their eighties.But a chance encounter with an old school friend she hasn't seen in five decades - the glamorous fashionista Angie Valentine - sets Peggy on an unexpected journey of self-discovery. Can she channel her 'inner Helen Mirren' and find love and friendship in her twilight years?

The Application of Pressure


Rachael Mead - 2020
    They maintain their sanity through a friendship built on black humour, but as the constant exposure to trauma takes its toll, both, in different ways, must fight to preserve their mental health and relationships – even with one another. How much pressure can they handle, and what will happen when they finally crack?With each chapter revolving around an emergency – some frightening, some moving, some simply funny –Rachael Mead digs beneath the surface of gore and grit to lay bare the humanity of emergency services personnel and their patients. This breathtaking novel reveals not only the trauma of a life lived on the front line of medicine, but also the essential, binding friendships that make such a life possible.

1787: The Lost Chapters of Australia's Beginnings


Nick Brodie - 2016
    The time before the First Fleet is usually treated as a preface to the main story, a brief interlude that starts 50,000 years before the present and ends as sails are seen on an eastern horizon. But in 1787 the peoples of Australia were not simply living in a timeless ‘Dreamtime’, following the seasons, and waiting for colonisation by Britain in 1788.In 1787, Nick Brodie uses the sailors, writers, scientists, and other visitors to our shores to reassess neglected chapters of Australia’s early history, and place Australia and its peoples into the great story of human history. He turns the narratives of ‘exploration’ and ‘discovery’ around to take a closer look at the Indigenous peoples, the broader regional scene, and what these encounters collectively tell. 1787 does not stand for a year—it stands for an idea. This is the sweeping story of Greater Australasia and its peoples, a long-overdue challenge to the myth that Australia’s story started in 1788.Dr Nick Brodie is an historian, archaeologist, and writer. Nick’s previous book Kin was published to critical acclaim in 2015.

Underbelly: True Crime Stories


John Silvester - 1997
    This book delves into the crimes that police have to deal with day after day. Murderers, hitmen, kidnappers, and drug dealers all feature in this collection of true crime stories. Take the drug dealer who walked out of a restaurant bragging that he's killed a man—unaware that his fellow diner was an undercover policeman. Or the young mother, whose death was written off as suicide, but which subsequent investigation proved to be something much more sinister.

Barefoot in the Bindis


Angela Wales - 2019
    What he lacked in experience and expertise, he made up for in enthusiasm. Or so he hoped.When the family arrived on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they had no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make that tangle of bush their home. From Angela Wales, eldest of the five kids, comes this extraordinarily vivid and evocative account of the next ten years as they tried to tame six thousand acres and navigate the challenges of country life.Filled with drama and hilarity, joy and back-breaking toil, Barefoot in the Bindis portrays a childhood spent in the bush, and is a sensational picture of Australia past.

On Mutiny


David Speers - 2018
    If we really do get the government we deserve, On Mutiny might provoke a civilian rebellion.

The Land Before Avocado


Richard Glover - 2018
    A funny and frank look at the way Australia used to be - and just how far we have come. "It was simpler time". We had more fun back then". "Everyone could afford a house". There's plenty of nostalgia right now for the Australia of the past, but what was it really like? In The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover takes a journey to an almost unrecognisable Australia. It's a vivid portrait of a quite peculiar land: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and, now and then, surprisingly appealing. It's the Australia of his childhood. The Australia of the late '60s and early '70s. Let's break the news now: they didn't have avocado. It's a place of funny clothing and food that was appalling, but amusingly so. It also the land of staggeringly awful attitudes - often enshrined in law - towards anybody who didn't fit in. The Land Before Avocado will make you laugh and cry, be angry and inspired. And leave you wondering how bizarre things were, not so long ago. Most of all it will make you realise how far we've come - and how much further we can go.