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This months-long "New York Times" bestseller is "irresistible...seductive...with a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page," ("O, The Oprah Magazine"). <p>After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. </p><p>Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a "gift from God," and against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them. </p><p>M. L. Stedman's "elegantly rendered and heart-wrenching novel" ("USA TODAY"), is "told with the authoritative simplicity of a fable. Stedman's intricate descriptions of the craggy Australian coastline and her easy mastery of an old-time provincial vernacular are engrossing. As the couple at the lighthouse are drawn into an increasingly tragic set of consequences, these remote, strange lives are rendered immediate and familiar" ("The New Yorker").</p>
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“Brooks’ chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling.” —The New York Times Book Review “Horse isn’t just an animal story—it’s a moving narrative about race and art.” —TIMEA discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American historyKentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance. Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse—one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success. Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.
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A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro. She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town. She finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget. Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand - then disappeared, presumed murdered. Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past. With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished? A meditative and deeply moving novel from the Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.
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REISSUED AS A SCEPTRE 30TH CLASSIC, with a new afterword by the author.In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy.
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Bunyip Bluegum would never have met Bill Barnacle, the sailor, his friend Sam Sawnoff, the penguin bold, and Albert, the magic pudding, if it had not been for his Uncle Wattleberry's whiskers. For it was on account of these whiskers that Bunyip decided to leave home and become a travelling gentleman of leisure.
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The Cook's Companion has established itself as the kitchen 'bible' in over 500,000 homes since it was first published in 1996. In 2004, Stephanie Alexander added over 300 new recipes as well as 12 new chapters in an updated edition. This latest revision includes two major new chapters, two expanded chapters, 70 new recipes and a complete revision of the text to reflect changes in the marketplace and new regulations.
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An enchanting and captivating novel, about how our untold stories haunt us - and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family's story. In her early twenties, Alice's life is thrown into upheaval again when she suffers devastating betrayal and loss. Desperate to outrun grief, Alice flees to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man. Spanning two decades, set between sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart follows Alice's unforgettable journey, as she learns that the most powerful story she will ever possess is her own.
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The yield in English is the reaping, the things that man can take from the land. In the language of the Wiradjuri yield is the things you give to, the movement, the space between things- baayanha. Knowing that he will soon die, Albert 'Poppy' Gondiwindi takes pen to paper. His life has been spent on the banks of the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains. Albert is determined to pass on the language of his people and everything that was ever remembered. He finds the words on the wind. August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years when she learns of her grandfather's death. She returns home for his burial, wracked with grief and burdened with all she tried to leave behind. Her homecoming is bittersweet as she confronts the love of her kin and news that Prosperous is to be repossessed by a mining company. Determined to make amends she endeavours to save their land - a quest that leads her to the voice of her grandfather and into the past, the stories of her people, the secrets of the river. Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch's The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity.
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Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you. Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the 'happiest man on earth'. Published as Eddie turns 100, this is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.
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A beautifully illustrated edition of an iconic Australian classic.One of the most famous poems in Australian literature, 'The Man from Snowy River' was first...
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Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger. Wise-cracking Kerry Salter has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend twenty-four hours, tops, over the border. She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble - but then trouble is Kerry's middle name. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seems possible.
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The year I turned eight, Mum and Dad took us on a trip around Australia. Luke, Billy and I missed school for the whole winter term. Join Grace and her family on their adventurous and sometimes funny expedition. A warm, heartfelt story based on an actual journey undertaken by the much-loved, award-winning author and illustrator, Alison Lester.
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Beginning at a love hotel by Japan's Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this genre-defying daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die. At once a love song to his island home and to his parents, this hypnotic melding of dream, history, literature, place and memory is about how reality is never made by realists and how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.
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Fortieth Anniversary edition of the classic study of women in Australian Society by Anne. First published in 1975
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Welcome to Cinnamon Gardens, a home for those who are lost and the stories they treasure. Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney gdash; populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights wdash; a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule. But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents squo; existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to storytelling and how our stories shape who we are.
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Hailed as a "literary sensation" by "The New York Times Book Review," Carpentaria is the luminous award-winning novel by Australian Aboriginal writer and activist Alexis Wright.<p>Alexis Wright employs mysticism, stark reality, and pointed imagination to re-create the land and the Aboriginal people of "Carpentaria."</p><p>In the sparsely populated northern Queensland town of Desperance, loyalties run deep and battle lines have been drawn between the powerful Phantom family, leaders of the Westend Pricklebush people, and Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob, and their disputes with the white officials of neighboring towns. Steeped in myth and magical realism, Wright's hypnotic storytelling exposes the heartbreaking realities of Aboriginal life.</p><p>By turns operatic and everyday, surreal and sensational, the novel teems with extraordinary, larger-than-life characters. From the outcast savior Elias Smith, religious zealot Mossie Fishman, and murderous mayor Bruiser to activist Will Phantom and Normal Phantom, ruler of the family, these unforgettable characters transcend their circumstances and challenge assumptions about the downtrodden "other." Trapped between politics and principle, past and present, the indigenous tribes fight to protect their natural resources, sacred sites, and above all, their people.</p><p>Already an international bestseller, "Carpentaria" has garnered praise from around the world.</p>
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Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is the story of the secret passion between an explorer and a naive young woman. Although they have met only a few times, Voss and Laura are joined by overwhelming, obsessive feelings for each other. Voss sets out to cross the continent, and as hardships, mutiny and betrayal whittle away his power to endure and to lead, his attachment to Laura gradually increases. Laura, waiting in Sydney, moves through the months of separation as if they were a dream and Voss the only reality.
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Clive James is the author of more than thirty books. As well as his memoirs, he has published essays, literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels. As a television performer he has appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. He helped to found the independent television production company Watchmaker and the Internet enterprise Welcome Stranger, one of whose offshoots is a multimedia personal website, www.clivejames.com. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal for literature.
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'We used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come for a holiday' WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ERIC LOMAX Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other women and children whom the Japanese force to walk for miles through the jungle leading to the deaths of many. Due to her courageous spirit, Jean takes on the role of leader of the sorry gaggle of prisoners. While on the march, the group run into an Australian prisoner, Joe Harman, who helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished as a result. Jean's adventures, and her bond with Joe, form the heart of this gripping and moving story.
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She sleeps. She eats. She scratches. She is training humans to become better pets. She is Mothball, a wombat with attitude. Award-winning author Jackie French's love of wombats comes alive in this cheeky observation of Mothball's life, while Bruce Whatley's captivating illustrations of Mothball's antics shows just how entertaining and endearing wombats are to humans. The bestselling daily routine of Mothball the wombat is now in durable board book format for the youngest reader to enjoy.
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Stan Parker, with only a horse and a dog for company journeys to a remote patch of land he has inherited in the Australian hills. Once the land is cleared and a rudimentary house built, he brings his wife Amy to the wilderness. Together they face lives of joy and sorrow as they struggle against the environment.
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Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.
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Winner of the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime NovelIn an isolated country town brought to its knees by endless drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, killing five parishioners before being shot dead himself. A year later, troubled journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend to write a feature on the anniversary of the tragedy. But the stories he hears from the locals about the priest and incidents leading up to the shooting don't fit with the accepted version of events his own newspaper reported in an award-winning investigation. Martin can't ignore his doubts, nor the urgings of some locals to unearth the real reason behind the priest's deadly rampage.Just as Martin believes he is making headway, a shocking new development rocks the town, which becomes the biggest story in Australia. The media descends on Riversend and Martin is now the one in the spotlight. His reasons for investigating the shooting have suddenly become very personal. Wrestling with his own demons, Martin finds himself risking everything to discover a truth that becomes darker and more complex with every twist. But there are powerful forces determined to stop him, and he has no idea how far they will go to make sure the town's secrets stay buried.A compulsive thriller that will haunt you long after you have turned the final page.
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An award-winning epic on the birth of AustraliaIn 1787, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonise Australia.Documenting the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag and was the origin of Australia, The Fatal Shore is the definitive, masterfully written narrative that has given its true history to Australia.'A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens' Times
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What is lost when knowledge is withheld? In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her. When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters' lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back. In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women's eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.
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She hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, 'I need to know where I am.' The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised. He says, almost in sympathy, 'Oh, sweetie. You need to know what you are.' Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of a desert. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other girls, forced to wear strange uniforms, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious armed jailers and a 'nurse'. The girls all have something in common, but what is it? What crime has brought them here from the city? Who is the mysterious security company responsible for this desolate place with its brutal rules, its total isolation from the contemporary world? Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each girl's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue - but when the food starts running out it becomes clear that the jailers have also become the jailed. The girls can only rescue themselves... The Natural Way of Things is a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted. Most of all, it is the story of two friends, their sisterly love and courage... With extraordinary echoes of The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies, The Natural Way of Things is a compulsively readable, scarifying and deeply moving contemporary novel. It confirms Charlotte Wood's position as one of our most thoughtful, provocative and fearless truth-tellers, as she unflinchingly reveals us and our world to ourselves...'As a man, to read it is as unsettling as receiving one piece of bad news after another. It is confronting. Yet anyone who reads it, man or woman, is going to be left with a sense that a long-hidden truth has been revealed to them.
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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING, CWA GOLD DAGGER-WINNING AND NED KELLY AWARD-RECEIVING CRIME POWERHOUSE: read The Broken Shore and become hooked on Peter Temple.'A masterpiece' John Lanchester'Read page one and I challenge you not to finish it' Independent on SundayHaunted by his last case, homicide detective Joe Cashin has fled Melbourne and returned to his hometown, running its one-man police station while his wounds heal and his nightmares fade.But when a local man is attacked and left for dead, Cashin's recovery is put on hold. And in a small town where everyone knows everyone, he finds himself standing alone fighting a battle against corruption and prejudice.Loved The Broken Shore? Then move straight to its award-winning sequel, Truth: 'The Broken Shore was good; Truth is better' Independent
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In the history of Australian literature few books have been so controversial than Frank Hardy's Power Without Glory.This is a tale of corruption stretching from street corner SP bookmaking to the most influential men in the land - and the terrible personal cost of the power such corruption brings.John West rose from a Melbourne slum to dominate Australian politics with bribery, brutality and fear. His attractive wife and their children turned away from him in horror. Friends dropped away. At the peak of his power, surrounded by bootlickers, West faced a hate-filled nation - and the terrible loneliness of his life.Was John West a real figure? For months during the post-war years, an Australian court heard evidence in a sensational libel action brought by businessman John Wren's wife. After a national uproar which rocked the very foundations of the Commonwealth, Frank Hardy was acquitted.This is the novel which provoked such intense uproar and debate across the nation. The questions it poses remain unanswered...Here are a few of the many and varied reactions it's received over the past 50 years:'"This is the foulest libel that was ever written' Mr Galbally, Counsel for the Prosecution against Frank Hardy as quoted by DAILY TELEGRAPH 1950'We have been consulted by Mr and Mrs John Wren and members of their family, and we note that you are selling copies of the book Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy. 'The book is grossly libelous of our clients. 'At this stage we hereby give you notice that our clients will be exercising their legal rights, and to warn you of the consequences of the sale of this book.'LETTER TO MELBOURNE BOOKSELLERS FROM CORR AND CORR SOLICITORS 1951'We will continue selling it'BOOKSELLER REACTION 1951'Lies, lies, lies'JOHN FRANCIS WREN JNR 1951'More than 100 of Australia's best known writers, artists, scientists and members of the professions are petitioning the Victorian Attorney-General for the withdrawl of the case against Power Without Glory author Frank Hardy (in) defence of Australian traditions'DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'[witnesses in the case against Hardy] today identified distinguished Australians with the characters in the book: Among them were: Field Marshall Sir Thomas Blamey (Blaire in the book); James Scullin, a former Prime Minister (Jim Somers); Sir High Devine, eminent surgeon (Dr Devlin); Archbishop Carr (Archbishop Conn); T.J.Ryan, a former Premier of Queensland (T.J.Real); Mr W.P.C.Kennelly, M.L.C. Federal Secretary for the ALP (Teddy Kelleher); and Mr W Barry, MLA, former State Labor Minister for Housing (Bill Brady).'DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'It's Communist propaganda'Bernard Nolan, witness for the prosecution, solicitor and friend of the Wren family, DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'"It was published with intent to cause a breach of the peace," Mr Galbally [counsel for the prosecution] said... "This charge of criminal libel is a rare one - it happens only once every 500 years when you get a case as bad as this one..."SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 1951'I would like to be locked up with the author for 10 minutes. There wouldn't be a man here today answering this charge...I would probably have kicked Hardy to piecesBernard Nolan DAILY TELEGRAPH 1951'Any novel which more than a handful of people remember as much as a year or so after its first publication is a rarity. Yet after ten years hundreds of thousands of Australians still remember Power Without Glory.'THE AGE, 1960'A truly epic work, both in conception and execution...Power Without Glory gives us a picture both of a whole Australian epoch and of a man. It has coherence and unflagging interest, not merely because of the vitality of the incidents, but because West is realised as an individual, caught up in circumstances, fighting to shape them his own way, succeeding and yet defeated. He is depicted as a ruthless man, corrupted and corrupting; and yet we feel sympathy for him...Power Without Glory has a secure place in the pol
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Dante and Johnno are unlikely childhood friends, growing up in the bustle of steamy, wartime Brisbane. Later, as teenagers, they learn about love and life amidst the city's pubs and public libraries, backyards and brothels, Moreton Bay figs and tennis parties. As adults, they make the great pilgrimage overseas and maintain an uneasy friendship as they seek to build their lives.An affectionate and bittersweet portrait, Johnno brilliantly recreates the sleazy, tropical half-city that was Brisbane and captures a generation locked in combat with the elusive Australian dream.
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Scarcely out of print since the early 1870s, For the Term of His Natural Life has provided successive generations with a vivid account of a brutal phase of colonial life. The main focus of this great convict novel is the complex interaction between those in power and those who suffer, made meaningful because of its hero's struggle against his wrongful imprisonment. Elements of romance, incidents of family life and passages of scenic description both relieve and give emphasis to the tragedy that forms its heart.
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We of the Never-Never
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<br>Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book<br> A "New York Times Book Review" Notable Book of the Year <br>On a property in New South Wales, a widower named Holland lives with his daughter, Ellen. Over the years as she grows into a beautiful woman, Holland plants hundreds of different eucalyptus trees on his land, filling the landscape, making a virtual outdoor museum of trees. When Ellen is nineteen, Holland announces that she may only marry the man who can correctly name the species of each and every gum tree on his property. A strange contest begins, and Ellen is left unmoved by her suitors until she chances on a strange young man resting under the Coolibah tree whose stories will amaze and dazzle her. A modern fairy tale, and an unforgettable love story, that bristles with spiky truths and unexpected wisdom about art, feminine beauty, landscape, and language. "Eucalyptus" affirms the seductive power of storytelling itself.
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The 'Wombat Stew Cookbook' is full of delicious 'gooey, brewy, yummy, chewy' recipes children will delight in cooking for their friends and families.
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Gregory David Roberts is now a full-time writer, film producer, and international public speaker. In Bombay he has established a charitable trust to care for the poorest of the poor slum-dwellers. He divides his time between Geneva and Bombay.
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Rosalie Ham was born and raised in the Riverina, in southern NSW, and now lives in Brunswick, Victoria. She studied drama and literature before taking up writing seriously and has written three stage plays and one radio play which were performed in Melbourne. This is her first novel.
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Three brothers. One death. No answers.
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Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature, Sarah Krasnostein's The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster is the fascinating biography of one of the people responsible for tidying up homes in the wake of natural--and unnatural--catastrophes and fatalities. Homicides and suicides, fires and floods, hoarders and addicts. When properties are damaged or neglected, it falls to Sandra Pankhurst, founder of Specialized Trauma Cleaning (STC) Services Pty. Ltd. to sift through the ashes or sweep up the mess of a person's life or death. Her clients include law enforcement, real estate agents, executors of deceased estates, and charitable organizations representing victimized, mentally ill, elderly, and physically disabled people. In houses and buildings that have fallen into disrepair, Sandra airs out residents' smells, throws out their weird porn, their photos, their letters, the last traces of their DNA entombed in soaps and toothbrushes. The remnants and mementoes of these people's lives resonate with Sandra. Before she began professionally cleaning up their traumas, she experienced her own. First, as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home. Then as a husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, and trophy wife. In each role she played, all Sandra wanted to do was belong. The Trauma Cleaner is the extraordinary true story of an extraordinary person dedicated to making order out of chaos with compassion, revealing the common ground Sandra Pankhurst--and everyone--shares with those struck by tragedy.
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An epic novel of determination, survival, and the limits of the human spirit. This is Tim Winton as you've never read him before. Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place - middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They're exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they've seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. Problem is, they're not alone. So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.
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Two extraordinary Indigenous stories set five generations apart. When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Grannie Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives. In this brilliant epic, Melissa Lucashenko torches Queensland' s colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future.
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I don't recall reading Puberty Blues so much as devouring it. I was about thirteen, alone in my bedroom with the door firmly shut. I was fascinated. Kylie Minogue A revolutionary and timeless book. 'By day, we were at school learning logarithms, but by night - in the back of cars, under the bowling alley, on Cronulla Beach, or, if you were lucky, in a bed while someone's parents were out - you paid off your friendship ring.' For Deb and Sue, life is about surfies, panel vans, straight-leg Levis, nicking off from school, getting wasted, friendships and fitting in. But why should guys have all the fun? When Deb and Sue decide to take to the waves on boards, a whole culture is upturned. Puberty Blues is raw, humorous and painfully honest. An Australian classic that has been reimagined in film and on TV and shocking, exercising, empowering and entertaining readers for more than four decades.
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<p align="left">My father says there has been a forest here for over a hundred million years," Jeannie Baker's young protagonist tells us, and we follow him on a visit to this tropical rain forest in North Queensland, Australia.</p><p align="left">We walk with him among the ancient trees as he pretends it is a time long ago, when extinct and rare animals lived in the forest and aboriginal children played there. But for how much longer will the forest still be there, he wonders?</p><p align="left">Jeannie Baker's lifelike collage illustrations take the reader on an extraordinary visual journey to an exotic, primeval wilderness, which like so many others is now being threatened by civilization.</p>
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The story of a death, a policeman, an island and a country. The Tall Man is the story of Palm Island, the tropical paradise where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman and forty minutes later lay dead in a watch-house cell. It is the story of that policeman, the tall, enigmatic Christopher Hurley who chose to work in some of the toughest and wildest places in Australia, and of the struggle to bring him to trial. Above all, it is a story in luminous detail of two worlds clashing – and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget.Selected for 'Best books of the year' lists by Ali Smith, Colm Tóibín, Matt Condon, Peter Carey, Salon.com, The Globe & Mail and Dwight Garner in The New York Times. 'The country's finest work of literature so far this century. A haunting moral maze, described with such intimate observation and exquisite restraint that I kept pausing to take a breath and silently cheer the author ... [I]n her tale of the fatal collision between two 36-year-old males, black Cameron Doomadgee and white Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, Hooper ... has produced an Australian classic.' Robert Drewe, The Age 'Hooper followed the case and its main characters for two and a half years, and she does their complexity a remarkable justice ... Extraordinary.' Alison McCulloch, New York Times Book Review 'A gripping, heart-stopping piece of true-crime reportage ... Deserves the widest possible audience.' Brian Schofield, Sunday Times (UK)
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"The Man Who Loved Children, " an acclaimed twentieth-century classic, is an unforgettable portrait of a magnificently dysfunctional family. The Pollits Sam and Henny and their swarming household of children and animals inhabit an America wracked by the Great Depression, but are even more deeply embedded in a world of their own making. This is an intense, suffocating, theatrical, all-encompassing world, poor in material goods but rich in emotion and language. Manipulative, hyperbolic cheer from the haplessly egotistical father is matched by floods of exuberantly venomous invective from his infuriated wife, while Louie, the mistreated, love-hungry little girl at the heart of the story, is precocious and tenacious in equal measure, an ugly duckling we find ourselves fiercely rooting for. Everything about the Pollits their excesses of energy and indulgence, their closeness, their bitterness, their emotional fireworks is extreme, but the paradoxical marvel of Christina Stead s masterpiece stems from its power to convey out of such extremes an utterly convincing depiction of the central relationships of human experience. (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)"
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An extraordinary work of fiction from one of Australia's best-selling and most admired writers First, in my spare room, I swivelled the bed on to a north-south axis. Isn't that supposed to align the sleeper with the planet's positive energy flow, or something? She would think so. I made it up nicely with a fresh fitted sheet, the pale pink one, since she had a famous feel for colour, and pink is flattering even to skin that has turned yellowish. Helen prepares her spare room for her friend Nicola, who is flying down from Sydney for a three-week visit. But this is no ordinary visit - Nicola has advanced cancer. She is coming to Melbourne to receive treatment she believes will cure her. From the moment Nicola steps off the plane, Helen becomes her nurse, her protector, her guardian angel and her stony judge. The Spare Room tells a story of compassion and rage as the two women - one sceptical, one stubbornly serene - negotiate their way through Nicola's gruelling treatments. Garner's dialogue is pitch perfect, her sense of pacing flawless as this novel draws to its terrible and transcendent finale.
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Winner of the 2017 Stella Prize.'This is a weirdly beautiful book.' David Walsh founder and curator, MONA'Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.' Stella Adler'Art will wake you up. Art will break your heart. There will be glorious days. If you want eternity you must be fearless.' From The Museum of Modern LoveShe watched as the final hours of The Artist is Present passed by, sitter after sitter in a gaze with the woman across the table. Jane felt she had witnessed a thing of inexplicable beauty among humans who had been drawn to this art and had found the reflection of a great mystery. What are we? How should we live?If this was a dream, then he wanted to know when it would end. Maybe it would end if he went to see Lydia. But it was the one thing he was not allowed to do.Arky Levin is a film composer in New York separated from his wife, who has asked him to keep one devastating promise. One day he finds his way to The Atrium at MOMA and sees Marina Abramovic in The Artist is Present. The performance continues for seventy-five days and, as it unfolds, so does Arky. As he watches and meets other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do.This dazzlingly original novel asks beguiling questions about the nature of art, life and love and finds a way to answer them.
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150 dinner recipes. Fail-proof. Delicious. Addictive. The food you want to cook, eat and share, night after night. Through her phenomenally popular online food site, RecipeTin Eats, Nagi Maehashi talks to millions of people a year who tell her about the food they love. Now, in her first cookbook, Nagi brings us the ultimate curation of new and favourite RecipeTin Eats recipes - from comfort food (yes, cheese galore), to fast and easy food for weeknights, Mexican favourites, hearty dinner salads, Asian soups and noodles, and special treats for festive occasions. Featuring a photo and how-to video for every recipe (follow the QR code), readily available ingredients, Nagi's famously helpful notes, and Dozer, Australia's best-loved food tester, this is a kitchen-shelf must have for the novice cook, the expert seeking to perfect technique (straight to the Beef Wellington!), and everyone in between.
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Prussia, 1836 Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature - she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity...until she meets Thea. Ocean, 1838 The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound by God's law and at odds with their King's order for reform. Forced to flee religious persecution the families of Kay board a crowded, disease-riddled ship bound for the new colony of South Australia. In the face of brutal hardship, the beauty of whale song enters Hanne's heart, along with the miracle of her love for Thea. Theirs is a bond that nothing can break. The whale passed. The music faded. South Australia, 1838 A new start in an old land. God, society and nature itself decree Hanne and Thea cannot be together. But within the impossible...is devotion. This long-awaited novel demonstrates Hannah Kent's sublime ability with language that creates an immersive, transformative experience for the reader. Devotion is a book to savour. Praise for Devotion: 'Devotion is utterly original. A glorious, heartbreaking love story of infinite beauty.' - Heather Rose 'Hannah Kent's latest novel is stunning - full of magic and adventure. I fell in love with language again reading it. So beautiful and so raw. Devotion is impossibly good.' - Evie Wyld 'Such a glorious love story. And the poetry of the landscape had, for me, a Whitmanesque sensibility. A mighty impassioned cry to love and the land.' - Sarah Winman 'Devotion is rare and exquisite, both beautiful and muscular in its portrayal of love found and denied. It's a story of love as a radical act, and a celebration of place and persistence. As we've come to expect from Kent, this is masterful storytelling with pull-no-punches stakes. It's taken root in my heart.' - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
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Haunting, original and told entirely through exquisitely imagined black, white and sepia pictures, THE ARRIVAL is the story of one man's encounter with life in a strange new world. It's a timeless, universal story that will resonate with anyone, anywhere who has struggled to start again in a place that is different to the one they have always known. Much loved around the world, THE ARRIVAL has also won numerous awards including the CBCA Book of the Year and 'Best Album' at the Augouleme Festival in France.
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Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton are a creative partnership that began with Just Tricking! in 1997 and now extends to seven Just books and more than a million copies sold, the award-winning The Bad Book, the off-the-wall success of The Cat on the Mat is Flat and the bestselling The Very Bad Book. They are now published all over the world including the US where Andy's Bum books have made the New York Times bestseller lists.
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How do you make a cane toad eat a frog? What happens when Linda copies herself? How do kids get parts in TV shows? What does Rabbit do when he is put on FAST FORWARD? What does it feel like to kiss another teenage actor? How do you write a script? The answers will send you round the twist. Three short stories and the low-down on how the television series was made. Fact, fiction and fun from the fantastic pen of Paul Jennings.
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