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The Book of Puka-Puka: A Lone Trader in the South Pacific
by Robert Dean FrisbieIn 1924, Robert Frisbie arrived on the island of Puka-Puka, one of the most remote in the South Pacific, to run a trading post. Within months he had learned the language and become absorbed into the ways of its ancient, indigenous community – fishing, picnicking, swimming, sleeping and falling in love. Fortunately for us he also had a pitch-perfect ear for stories.Before the book is done, we feel the power of the surf and the coral reefs, hear death chants and witness thirty torch-lit canoes setting out to net flying fish at night. Frisbie’s interest in and love for the culture of this island and its inhabitants are infectious.
The Book of Science and Antiquities: A Novel
by Thomas KeneallyIn a novel of breathtaking reach and inspired imagination, the Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's Ark tells the stories of two men who have much in common. What separates them is 42,000 years.Shade lives with his second wife amid their clan on the shores of a bountiful lake. A peaceable man, he knows that when danger threatens, the Hero ancestors will call on him to kill, or sacrifice himself, to save his people.Over 40,000 years later, Shade's remains are unearthed near the now dry Lake Learned in New South Wales. The sensational discovery fascinates Shelby Apple, a documentary film maker who tracks the controversies it provokes about who the continent's first inhabitants were and where Shade's bones belong.Shelby goes on to follow his own heroes to the battlefields of Eritrea and the Rift Valley where Homo sapiens sprang from. When he, too, faces mortality and looks back on his passions, ideals and sorely tested marriage, Learned Man stands as an enduring spirit, a fellow player in the long, ever-evolving story of humankind.
Boom and Bust: The rise and fall of the mining industry, greed and the impact on everyday Australians
by Royce KurmelovsThis is a cautionary tale. About greed, irresponsibility and failing to learn from the past.Australia's mining boom is still talked about with a sense of awe. This once-in-a-lifetime event capped off 25 straight years of economic growth. Thanks to mining we sidestepped the worst of the Global Financial Crisis. To the rest of the world Australia was an economic miracle. And then the boom ended.Now Australia is grappling with what that means at a time of rising economic inequality and political upheaval. The end of the boom isn't about money - it's about people. Boom and Bust looks at what happens to those who came into vast wealth only to watch it dry up. To those who thought they had a good job for life, but didn't. The bust didn't just happen on stock-market screens - it was lived, and is still being lived right now, in dusty towns and cities all around the country.As he did in his bestselling book The Death of Holden, Royce Kurmelovs reveals the reality behind the headlines. Boom and Bust is a dirt-under-the-nails look at the winners, the losers and the impact of the boom that wasn't meant to end. This is a book all Australians should read.'Brilliant and powerful' Nick Xenophon on Royce Kurmelovs' THE DEATH OF HOLDEN
Bow Down Shadrach
by Joy Cowley** Winner of the New Zealand Children's Book of the Year 1990** A classic junior fiction favourite from multi-award winning New Zealand children's author, Joy Cowley.Shadrach is a very old circus-trained Clydesdale horse, and the favourite family pet. When Hannah discovers that Shadrach has been sold to a dog food factory, she decides to mount a heroic rescue and enlists the help of her two younger brothers. From the beginning their plans go seriously wrong. By the time they've argued with the repulsive Wuff Stuff man, hidden Shadrach in a church and a caravan, and floated him on a mussel barge they're in desperate need of rescuing themselves.
The Boy Behind the Curtain: Notes From an Australian Life
by Tim Winton'Eclectic and impassioned, a collection that affirms the power of the written word' ObserverThe Boy Behind the Curtain is a portrait of a life, a place and a man. In this deeply personal collection of true stories and essays Tim Winton shows how moments from his childhood and life growing up have shaped his views on class, faith, fundamentalism, the environment, and - most pressingly - how all his experiences have made him a writer. From unexpected links between car crashes and faith, surfing and writing, to the story of his upbringing in the changing Australian landscape, The Boy Behind the Curtain is an impassioned, funny, joyous, astonishing collection of memories, and Winton's most personal book to date.
Boy on Fire: The Young Nick Cave
by Mark MordueAn intensely beautiful, profound and poetic biography of the formative years of the dark prince of rock 'n' roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave's creation story, a portrait of the artist first as a boy, then as a young man. A deeply insightful work which charts his family, friends, influences, milieu and, most of all, his music, it reveals how Nick Cave shaped himself into the extraordinary artist he would become.A powerful account of a singular, uncompromising artist, Boy on Fire is also a vivid and evocative rendering of a time and place, from the fast-running dark rivers and ghost gums of country-town Australia to the torn wallpaper, sticky carpet and manic energy of the nascent punk scene which hit staid 1970s Melbourne like an atom bomb. Boy on Fire is a stunning biographical achievement.
Breaker Morant: The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet, murderer or hero?
by Peter FitzSimonsThe epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero?Most people have heard of the Boer War and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. But Morant was a complicated man. Born in England and immigrating to Queensland in 1883, he established a reputation as a rider, polo player and poet who submitted ballads to The Bulletin and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. Travelling on his wits and the goodwill of others, Morant was quick to act when appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa. He joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers.The adventure would not go as Breaker planned. In October 1901 Lieutenant Harry Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902 as the Boer War was in its closing stages, but the debate over their convictions continues to this day.With his masterful command of story, Peter FitzSimons takes us to the harsh landscape of southern Africa and into the bloody action of war against an unpredictable force using modern commando tactics. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'the Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and finally we will know if the Breaker was a hero, a cad, a scapegoat or a criminal.
The Breath of Night
by Michael ArdittiPhilip Seward travels to the Philippines to investigate the case of a missionary priest imprisoned for murder, where he is drawn into a labyrinth of vice, violence, and corruption where nothing and nobody are what they seem.'Part Conrad, part Waugh, part Greene, and pure genius' Independent on Sunday'This is Arditti's most dazzling novel to date because of the scale of his ambition and his triumph in pulling it off' Peter Stanford, Daily TelegraphWhile working as a missionary priest in the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship, Julian Tremayne championed the Communist rebels and found himself imprisoned for murder. Now, three decades later, following Julian's death, a cult develops around him, even calling for sainthood. When Philip Seward goes to investigate on behalf of Julian's family, he is drawn into a labyrinth of vice, violence, and corruption where nothing and nobody are what they seem. Enriched by a gallery of engaging characters ranging from priests to prostitutes, GIs to gangsters, and street children to Imelda Marcos, this outstanding novel is at once a gripping psychological thriller, a challenging moral mystery, and an unforgettable voyage into a dark and exotic landscape.
Breathing Under Water
by Sophie HardcastleAn evocative and emotionally powerful debut novel of life, death and learning to breathe in between.Sophie is an emerging Australian writer who is already receiving critical acclaim and has been named one of Triple j's '25 Under 25 who are nailing it!'. If you love stories by John Green, Rainbow Rowell or Melina Marchetta you will love this story. Nineteen minutes and eleven seconds separated us at birth. On the official documentation, he is older . . . Although it really has nothing to do with age. What it really means is that I am, and have always been, second.Ben and Grace Walker are twins. Growing up in a sleepy coastal town it was inevitable they'd surf. Always close, they hung out more than most brothers and sisters, surfing together for hours as the sun melted into the sea. At seventeen, Ben is a rising surf star, the golden son and the boy all the girls fall in love with. Beside him, Grace feels like she is a mere reflection of his light. In their last year of school, the world beckons, full of possibility. For Grace, finishing exams and kissing Harley Matthews is just the beginning. Then, one day, the unthinkable. The sun sets at noon and suddenly everything that was safe and predictable is lost. And everything unravels. Breathing Under Water is a lyrical and emotionally powerful novel about life, death and learning to breathe in between.
Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the Challenge of the United States, 1939–46: A Study in International History (Studies in Military and Strategic History)
by P. OrdersThis book relates the development of Anglo-Australian-New Zealand relations during and immediately after the second world war to the role of the United States in the South-west Pacific. Based on the results of comprehensive multi-archival research, the book highlights the extent of American-Commonwealth rivalry in the region and following the crisis of late 1941 and early 1942 demonstrates how the reforging of imperial links was shaped by the expansion of American power in Pacific areas south of the equator. It provides an important and timely reassessment of the economic, political and strategic factors that led Britain, Australia and New Zealand to conclude that the postwar affairs of the South-west Pacific should be dominated by the British Empire.
British Female Emigration Societies and the New World, 1860-1914
by Marie RuizThis book focuses on the departure of Britain’s 'surplus' women to Australia and New Zealand organised by Victorian British female emigration societies. Starting with an analysis of the surplus of women question, it then explores the philanthropic nature of the organisations (the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, the Women’s Emigration Society, the British Women’s Emigration Association, and the Church Emigration Society). The study of the strict selection of distressed gentlewomen emigrants is followed by an analysis of their marketing value, and an appraisal of women’s imperialism. Finally, this work shows that the female emigrants under study partook in the consolidation of the colonial middle-class.
British Female Emigration Societies and the New World, 1860-1914
by Marie RuizThis book focuses on the departure of Britain’s 'surplus' women to Australia and New Zealand organised by Victorian British female emigration societies. Starting with an analysis of the surplus of women question, it then explores the philanthropic nature of the organisations (the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, the Women’s Emigration Society, the British Women’s Emigration Association, and the Church Emigration Society). The study of the strict selection of distressed gentlewomen emigrants is followed by an analysis of their marketing value, and an appraisal of women’s imperialism. Finally, this work shows that the female emigrants under study partook in the consolidation of the colonial middle-class.
The British World and an Australian National Identity: Anglo-Australian Cricket, 1860–1901 (Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics)
by Jared Van DuinenThis book explores the dynamics of Anglo-Australian cricketing relations within the ‘British World’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It explores what these interactions can tell us about broader Anglo-Australian relations during this period and, in particular, the evolution of an Australian national identity. Sport was, and is, a key aspect of Australian culture. Jared van Duinen demonstrates how sport was used to rehearse an identity that would then emerge in broader cultural and political terms. Using cricket as a case study, this book contributes to the ongoing historiographical debate about the nature and evolution of an Australian national identity.
Bronte's Big Sister Problem: Surf Riders Club Book 2 (Surf Riders Club #2)
by Mary Van ReykThe Surf Riders Club is back! And Bronte has a problem - a big sister problem! How's Bronte supposed to catch waves when she keeps fighting with her big sister? She always wanted to be just like Carrie, but now they are growing apart. Bronte wants to do her own thing, but Carrie thinks Surf Riders Club is lame.Now Bronte is torn between her friends and her sister. Will she get it together in time for the Beachcrest Carnival surf comp? Ava, Alex, Bronte, Janani and Molly formed Surf Riders Club to help each other practise, but it has quickly become much more than that. Whether it's learning how to get barrelled, problem parents or annoying boys, Surf Riders Club are there for each other, no matter what. Officially endorsed by Surfing Australia and includes a special message from Tyler Wright, 2016 WSL Women's World Surfing Champion.'kicks off in a very promising manner . . . Highly recommended for upper primary/early secondary readers.'- Just So Stories on SURF RIDERS CLUB 1: AVA'S BIG MOVE
Building Predicates: The View from Palauan (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory #92)
by Justin NugerThis volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the syntax of Palauan that will appeal to anyone interested in Austronesian languages or formal syntactic and morphological theory. This volume proposes that words in Palauan are not drawn directly from a mental lexicon, but are instead composed at least partially in the syntax. Using original data from syntactic constructions not previously explored in the language, the author entertains several competing theories of word formation and highlights the compatible and incompatible aspects of each, through an exploration into new corners of Palauan syntax and morphology.
The Bulldog Track: A grandson's story of an ordinary man's war and survival on the other Kokoda trail
by Peter PhelpsThis is the story of Tom Phelps and the 'other Kokoda Track'. Seventy-five years later, Tom's grandson, award-winning actor and writer Peter Phelps, is sharing this inspiring tale of resilience and survival.March 1942: The world is at war. Too old to fight and with jobs scarce at home, Tom Phelps found work as a carpenter in the goldfields of the New Guinea Highlands. No one expected the Japanese to attack in the Pacific. But they did.Tom and his mates weren't going to hang around and wait to be killed. With escape routes bombed by the Japanese, their only option was to try to reach safety by foot, through some of the most rugged terrain on Earth - the Bulldog Track.Back home in Sydney, Rose Phelps, their son, George, and three daughters, Joy, Shirley and Ann, waited for news of Tom's fate. George watched the horrors of war unfold on newsreels knowing his dad was 'over there'.Travelling by foot, raft, canoe, schooner, train, luck and courage, Tom Phelps, half-starved and suffering malaria, would eventually make it home. His stories of New Guinea would lead his son and grandson to their own experiences with the country. The Bulldog Track is a grandson's story of an ordinary man's war. It is an incredible tale of survival and the indomitable Aussie spirit.
Bumper: The Life And Times Of Frank 'bumper' Farrell
by Larry WriterThe sprawling saga of legendary Australian cop, Bumper Farrell, the most feared and revered policeman in Australia's history.Frank 'Bumper' Farrell was the roughest, toughest street cop and vice-squad leader Australia has ever seen. Strong as a bull, with cauliflowered ears and fists like hams, Bumper's beat from 1938 to 1976 was the most lawless in the land - the mean streets of Kings Cross and inner Sydney. His adversaries were such notorious criminals as Abe Saffron, Lennie McPherson, Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh and their gangs as well as the hooligans, sly groggers, SP bookies, pimps and spivs.Criminals knew just where they stood: he would catch them, he would hurt them, and then he would lock them away. He was a legendary Rugby League player for Newtown, and represented Australia against England and New Zealand.Here's Bumper Farrell in brutal, passionate and hilarious action . . . saving Ita Buttrose from a stalker; sparking a national scandal when accused of biting off a rival player's ear; beating Lennie McPherson so severely the hard man cried; single-handedly fighting a mob of gangsters in Kings Cross and winning; terrorising the hoons who harassed the prostitutes in the brothel lanes by driving over the top of them; commandeering the police launch to take him home to his beach home, diving overboard in full uniform and catching a wave to shore; dispensing kindness and charity to the poor.Bumper Farrell: lawman, sportsman, larrikin . . . legend.'fascinating . . . [a] fine biography' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Burke and Wills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Australia's Most Famous Explorers
by Peter FitzSimons'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago.'MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke, a brave man totally lacking in the bush skills necessary for his task; surveyor and meteorologist William Wills; and 17 others, the expedition took 20 tons of equipment carried on six wagons, 23 horses and 26camels.Almost immediately plagued by disputes and sackings, the expeditioners battled the extremes of the Australian landscape and weather: its deserts, the boggy mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the searing heat and flooding rains. Food ran short and, unable to live off the land, the men nevertheless mostly spurned the offers of help from the local Indigenous people.In desperation, leaving the rest of the party at the expedition's depot on Coopers Creek, Burke, Wills and John King made a dash for the Gulf in December 1860. Bad luck and bad management would see them miss by just hours a rendezvous back at Coopers Creek, leaving them stranded in the wilderness with practically no supplies. Only King survived to tell the tale.Yet, despite their tragic fates, the names of Burke and Wills have become synonymous with perseverance and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They live on in Australia's history - and their story remains immediate and compelling.
Castaway: The remarkable true story of the French cabin boy abandoned in nineteenth-century Australia
by Robert Macklin'A truly remarkable account drawing upon a version Pelletier gave when he eventually returned to his native France and also on anthropological studies of the Daintree people.' Piers Akerman, Daily Telegraph, Sydney 'An unforgettable tale of transformation and upheaval.'Stuart McLean, Daily Telegraph, SydneyA young boy abandoned in an alien landscape thousands of miles from home is adopted by local people and becomes one of them, welcomed into their community, marrying a wife and raising a child. After seventeen years, he is stolen back to his 'real' life, where he has another family, but dreams constantly of what he has left behind.This is the remarkable true story of a French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier who, after disembarking from his ship the Saint-Paul with the rest of its crew in search of drinking water, found himself separated from his shipmates and in the end abandoned on the north coast of Queensland, Australia. Narcisse was adopted by an Aboriginal group who welcomed him as one of their own for seventeen years, during which time he had a family of his own. In 1875, though, he was kidnapped by the brig John Bell and was returned eventually to his family in Saint-Gilles, France, where he became a lighthouse keeper. Robert Macklin makes skilful use of Narcisse's own memoir Chez les sauvages along with new research to tell this extraordinary story.Robert is a Queenslander so knows the terrain and the people of the area in which Narcisse was left behind. Through Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute, he has arranged to meet descendants of the people who took the French cabin boy in and who know the stories of his time in Australia. Robert has also had access to a great deal of material on the early history of the Cape through the Australian National Library. He has drawn on the significant resources of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra on Aboriginal culture and history in Queensland and the Cape. In addition, he has made use of Narcisse Pelletier's own writings, including his account of his time in Australia, as well as several contemporaneous accounts of the Kennedy expedition to the area, including one from a member of the party. The author has made several trips to Cape York and one to Saint-Gilles and Saint-Nazaire in France.
The Catalpa Rescue: The gripping story of the most dramatic and successful prison story in Australian and Irish history
by Peter FitzSimonsThe incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history.New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael - agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote prison in the British Empire, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale hunt, Captain Anthony sets sail on the Catalpa to rescue the men from the stone walls of this hell on Earth known to the inmates as a 'living tomb'. What follows is one of history's most stirring sagas that splices Irish, American, British and Australian history together in its climactic moment.For Ireland, who had suffered English occupation for 700 years, a successful escape was an inspirational call to arms. For America, it was a chance to slap back at Britain for their support of the South in the Civil War; for England, a humiliation. And for a young Australia, still not sure if it was Great Britain in the South Seas or worthy of being an independent country in its own right, it was proof that Great Britain was not unbeatable.Told with FitzSimons' trademark combination of arresting history and storytelling verve, The Catalpa Rescue is a tale of courage and cunning, the fight for independence and the triumph of good men, against all odds.
The Changi Brownlow: An Inspirational Story Of The Aussie Spirit (Hachette Military Collec Ser.)
by Roland PerryThis is the moving, powerful and surprising story of a group of Australian POWs who organise an Australian Rules Football competition under the worst conditions imaginable - inside Changi prison.After Singapore falls to the Japanese early in 1942, 70 000 prisoners including 15 000 Australians, are held as POWs at the notorious Changi prison, Singapore. To amuse themselves and fellow inmates, a group of sportsmen led by the indefatigable and popular ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn, created an Australian Football League, complete with tribunal, selection panel, umpires and coaches. The final game of the one and only season was between ‘Victoria’ and the ‘Rest of Australia’, which attracted 10 000 spectators, and a unique Brownlow Medal was awarded in this unlikely setting under the curious gaze of Japanese prison guards.Meet the main characters behind this spectacle: Peter Chitty, the farm hand from Snowy River country with unfathomable physical and mental fortitude, and one of eight in his immediate family who volunteered to fight and serve in WW2; ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn, the Brownlow-medal winning little man with the huge heart; and ‘Weary’ Dunlop, the courageous doctor, who cares for the POWs as they endure malnutrition, disease and often inhuman treatment.Changi Brownlow is a story of courage and the invincibility of the human spirit, and highlights not only the Australian love of sport, but its power to offer consolation in times of extreme hardship.
Child of the Sea
by Doina CornellA Child of the Sea is the true story of Jimmy Cornell's daughter sailing around the world on the family's small yacht from the age of 7 to 14, based on Doina's diaries, letters and memories. From 1975 to 1981 the Cornell family visited 54 countries, sailed more than 68,000 miles, and travelled about the same distance overland. The story is told from Doina's point of view, although the main part of the book focuses on the family's three-year stay in the Pacific when she is aged between 10 and 13.Child of the Sea is unusual in that it gives a glimpse into a life that most young children couldn't imagine, swimming, diving and playing the days away in deserted anchorages; visiting some of the most beautiful islands in the world; falling in love with the sea in all its ever-changing moods, from balmy trade wind ocean passages to the treacherous breakers that crash onto tropical reefs, and taking a full part in sailing and handling the yacht on passage. The book also tells the story of a girl's coming of age in the South Pacific, understanding different cultures and values, and experiencing at first-hand how people judge each other depending on the colour of their skin - from the time on Easter Island when tourists mistake Doina for a Polynesian girl, to her and her brother's hostile prejudiced reception back in an English school at the end of their journey.What do children need to grow up happy and healthy? Security with their family; an element of risk; freedom to explore the world; openness to other peoples and cultures; closeness with nature and the elements and an appreciation of the environment and our finite resources. The sailing life offers all this and more, and this book captures it all.
Child of the Sea: A Memoir Of A Sailing Childhood
by Doina CornellA Child of the Sea is the true story of Jimmy Cornell's daughter sailing around the world on the family's small yacht from the age of 7 to 14, based on Doina's diaries, letters and memories. From 1975 to 1981 the Cornell family visited 54 countries, sailed more than 68,000 miles, and travelled about the same distance overland. The story is told from Doina's point of view, although the main part of the book focuses on the family's three-year stay in the Pacific when she is aged between 10 and 13. Child of the Sea is unusual in that it gives a glimpse into a life that most young children couldn't imagine, swimming, diving and playing the days away in deserted anchorages; visiting some of the most beautiful islands in the world; falling in love with the sea in all its ever-changing moods, from balmy trade wind ocean passages to the treacherous breakers that crash onto tropical reefs, and taking a full part in sailing and handling the yacht on passage. The book also tells the story of a girl's coming of age in the South Pacific, understanding different cultures and values, and experiencing at first-hand how people judge each other depending on the colour of their skin - from the time on Easter Island when tourists mistake Doina for a Polynesian girl, to her and her brother's hostile prejudiced reception back in an English school at the end of their journey. What do children need to grow up happy and healthy? Security with their family; an element of risk; freedom to explore the world; openness to other peoples and cultures; closeness with nature and the elements and an appreciation of the environment and our finite resources. The sailing life offers all this and more, and this book captures it all.
Child Witnesses in Twentieth Century Australian Courtrooms (Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice)
by Robyn BlewerThis book considers the law, policy and procedure for child witnesses in Australian criminal courts across the twentieth century. It uses the stories and experiences of over 200 children, in many cases using their own words from press reports, to highlight how the relevant law was – or was not - applied throughout this period. The law was sympathetic to the plight of child witnesses and exhibited a significant degree of pragmatism to receive the evidence of children but was equally fearful of innocent men being wrongly convicted. The book highlights the impact ‘safeguards’ like corroboration and closed court rules had on the outcome of many cases and the extent to which fear – of children, of lies (or the truth) and of reform – influenced the criminal justice process. Over a century of children giving evidence in court it is `clear that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same’.
