An account of life as a sheep-shearer.
Birmingham drills beneath the cover story of a successful multicultural metropolis and melts the boundaries between past and present to reveal a ghost city beneath the surface of concrete and glass. Combining intensive research with the pace of a techno thriller, this is a history for the Tarantino generation.
<b>In 1787, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonize AustraliaÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂïÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÿÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂý</b> An epic description of 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 Gu... read more
For 40,000 years the Central NSW area of Wellington was Aboriginal - Wiradjuri - land. Following the arrival of white men, it became a penal settlement, mission station, gold-mining town and farming centre with a history of white comfort and black marginalisation. In the late 20th century, it was also the subject of the first post-Mabo Native Title claim, bringing new hope - and new controversy - to the area and its people. Wiradjuri land is also where author Patti Miller was born and, mid-life, it begins to exert a compelling emot... read more
'Sydney may look golden, but this is the sunniness of Mozart, whose bright notes, especially at their most joyous, seem to cast themselves out across a great abyss'. Sydney has always been the sexiest and most gaudy of our cities. In this book, the third in a series in which leading Australian authors write about their hometowns, novelist Delia Falconer conjures up its sandstone, humidity, and jacarandas. But she goes beyond these to find a far more complex city: beautiful, violent, half-wild, and at times deeply spiritual. It is a... read more
Australians are generally uncomfortable in the global spotlight - outside of sports stadiums. But after seeing us negotiate the Asian financial crisis, the tech wreck and the Global Financial Crisis that bred the Great Recession, the world is now turning to us, the 'miracle economy', for guidance. This is the page-turning story of our nation's remarkable transformation since the '70s. One of our most respected journalists, George Megalogenis, traces the key economic reforms and brilliant moments of collective instinct that opened o... read more
Moondyne Joe was colonial Australia's ultimate escape artist. His daring and repeated breakouts drove the Governor to build him a special cell. And when Moondyne Joe escaped again, he drove the Governor mad. Moondyne Joe himself died a pauper in Fremantle Lunatic Asylum but not before he gained notoriety as a lawbreaker, the husband of a brothel madam, a bushman who befriended local Indigenous people, and as a folk hero who championed the underdog. Written by John Kinsella, one of Australia's best known poets, and Niall Lucy, a cau... read more
After his father, brother and he were incarcerated and tortured in Saddam's Abu Ghraib, Ali al Jenabi escaped from Iraq first to work with the anti-Saddam resistance in Iran and then to help his family out of the country all together. When Saddam's forces advance towards their refugee camp, Ali helps his family flee into Iran before going on in an attempt to get to Australia - a country they know nothing about but understand to be safe, free and compassionate. When Ali reaches Indonesia he is betrayed by a people smuggler - a commo... read more
At the NSW state election in 2011, the media reported that the public was waiting with baseball bats to remove the 16 year old Labor government.
Japanese World War II POW camps conjure up a notorious picture of deprivation and brutality. The idea that sport, of all things, flourished in such hellish conditions is hard to envisage but the truth is, it did. Captives played Aussie Rules football and rugby at the infamous Changi prisoner-of-war camp, and tennis on the Burmese side of the BurmaThailand Railway. They played soccer, cricket, baseball or basketball, and sometimes their prison guards even joined in for a game. There were many elite sportsmen in these ranks intent o... read more
Time poverty is a problem for many Australian households and work is the main culprit. Australians start work young, and we are working more, and longer into old age. While maximising our productivity and enhancing our professional skills, we must also raise our children well, care for our aged, be involved in our community and shrink our carbon footprint a footprint shaped by the patterns and habits of our work, social obligations and households. What is it costing Australians to try and do it all? And what is it costing our fami... read more
The siege of Glenrowan is more than just an Australian legend. The 41 hours when the Kelly Gang took over Ann Jones' Glenrowan Inn and held the police at bay have become a part of the Australian psyche.
Most people know the bare bones of the story, but few know the names and actions of some of those who literally made history over those two days. In this impeccably researched work and vivid retelling, Ian Shaw brings the characters to life through their own words and the observations of those who were there. The real he... read more
From the true-blue Crocodile Hunter to the blue humour of Stiffy and Mo, from the Beaconsfield miners to The Sentimental Bloke, Australia has often been said to possess a 'larrikin streak'. Today, being a larrikin has positive connotations and we think of it as the key to unlocking the Australian identity: a bloke who refuses to stand on ceremony and is a bit of scally wag. When it first emerged around 1870, however, larrikin was a term of abuse, used to describe teenage, working-class hell-raisers who populated dance halls and che... read more
Good drinkers, bad swimmers and unlikely heroes. Since the nation's birth in 1901, twenty-seven politicians have sat in Australia's driving seat. Their time at the top has ranged from eight days for Frank Forde to eighteen years for Bob Menzies. Whatever the length of their term, each prime minister has a story worth sharing. Edmund Barton united the bickering states in a federation; Billy Hughes knocked US president Woodrow Wilson down a peg or two. The unlucky Jimmy Scullin took office days before Wall Street crashed into the Gre... read more
For the first time in two hundred years, here is a full and authentic account of the beginnings of modern Australia. We all know the conventional story. Established as a dumping ground for Britain's criminals, Australia owes its existence simply to over-crowded jails and a daunting remoteness from everywhere else. In Botany Bay: The Real Story, Alan Frost goes beyond these cliches to shed new light on the decision to settle New South Wales. He examines the hopes and fears of the politicians who took the decision, and the larger com... read more
"I do not hesitate to declare that the natives of New South Wales possess a considerable portion of that acumen, or sharpness of intellect, which bespeaks genius." In 1788 Watkin Tench stepped ashore at Sydney Cove with the First Fleet. This curious young captain of the marines was a natural storyteller. His account of the infant colony is the first classic of Australian literature.
"I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or english landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police..." Outlaw, murderer, self-proclaimed victim, Ned Kelly is an Australian icon. But who was he? Kelly's extraordi... read more
"The vast interior of this new continent was wrapped in total obscurity; and excited, perhaps on that very account, full as much curiosity as did the forms of the shores." First published in two volumes in 1814, this is the enthralling account of the circumnavigation of Australia, by the man who gave our country its name. Edited and introduced by Tim Flannery, Terra Australis is a vital step toward a new understanding of our own history. Flinders tells of meeting and communicating with Aborigines, of the scrub and wilderness. His d... read more
