Download or read book Australia s Most Unbelievable True Stories written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2016-11-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000...emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost? From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific tellers of yarns and bush tales, comes this ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten, the surprising, the truly weird and the completely inexplicable. Told with a refreshing understatement, Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories vividly evokes a vanishing Australia when anything was possible, when characters were larger than life and the bizarre and strange were normal.

Download or read book Adventurers Pioneers and Misfits written by Jim Haynes (Australian author and entertainer) and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories.

Download or read book World War Bloody Timor written by Peter O’Hanlon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-30 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War Bloody Timor gives a revealing insight into the extraordinary life of the everyday digger and service in a conflict that was far from ordinary. My name is Peter O’Hanlon, but everyone in the military, from the lowest digger to the highest officer, has always called me ‘Irish’. You won't see me, or the service men and women like me, featured in the latest blockbuster, but our service lives include drama, laughs and accounts of deep turmoil that are worth telling. I was a member of the Australian Army for 11 years and during my deployment as part of the INTERFET force, serviced three very impacting tours of East Timor. What was it like, as a 19 year to land at the Dilli Airport in Australia’s largest deployment since Vietnam? What are the little-known battles and obstacles that cause unseen scars through a deployment? What are the impacts on re-integrating into the civilian community? This is my story, an ordinary soldier; the juicy yarns, the laughs, the battles, the devastating lows, the soaring highs, the blood, sweat and tears we give in service every day. It will make you laugh and may make you cry. It's the cold hard truth about the impact of a different type of war fought by many who deployed to Timor.

Download or read book Adventurers Pioneers and Misfits written by Jim Haynes and published by . This book was released on 2021-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories

Download or read book Great Australian Rascals Rogues and Ratbags written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incredible collection of true crime characters from Australia's master storyteller. The bold, the bad, and the slightly mad... Criminality, some say, is part of Australia's national identity, and in Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags Jim Haynes profiles fifteen larger-than-life Aussie rogues - some of our greatest ne'er-do-wells from colonial times to the modern era. These stories uncover the truth and expose the myths about characters ranging from the most despicable examples of humanity, to those whose courage has to be admired and whose so-called 'crimes' were unjustly punished. This fascinating collection features felons who have sprung from Australia's underbelly since 1788, such as the infamous Kate Leigh of the razor gangs; the convict Mary Bryant, who in 1791 escaped from the Sydney penal settlement and somehow made it back to England; James Hardy Vaux, who was sent to Australia no less than three times; Henry James O'Farrell, the madman who attempted to murder Prince Alfred in Sydney in 1868; and John Leak, who was repeatedly charged with insolence, disobedience and being absent without leave in World War I - and awarded the Victoria Cross. Told with Jim's inimitable combination of history and humour, Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags is packed with murders, mystery and miscreants: true stories of true criminals from Australia's past. 'entertaining . . . highly readable . . . you will find some genuinely amazing new facts and insights.' ArtsHub

Download or read book Adventurers Pioneers and Misfits written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The petty thief . . . who escaped Van Diemen's Land, twice, stole the government brig and set sail for Japan, where, by the Shogun's decree, all foreigners were to be executed. The world's best cricketer . . . a champion of Aboriginal people who 'invented' Aussie Rules, survived the worst massacre of white settlers in Australia's history and killed himself with a pair of scissors. The eccentric musical genius . . . who played in the greatest concert halls in the world but pushed his favourite piano stool between venues in a wheelbarrow. Over the many years Jim Haynes has spent exploring and writing about the quirkier events and people in Australia's history, he has discovered characters who have amazed, surprised and simply ba?ed him. This is a book about some of those men and women and their remarkable, out-of-the-ordinary and almost unbelievable lives. As he always does, Jim has discovered that there is more to the story than ?rst meets the eye. Who knew that the ?rst man hanged in Australia made an artefact now valued at over one million dollars? Or that an Australian swimmer was the highest-paid act on the American vaudeville circuit and the star of the ?rst million-dollar movie ever made? And that the father of the ?rst Australian woman to serve in parliament was hanged for murder? With a light touch, a wry eye and his gifts as a master storyteller, Jim shares the tales and adventures of a group of heroic, feisty, ?awed and pioneering characters who have shaped our nation and introduced Australia to the world.

Download or read book Australia s Serial Killers written by Paul B. Kidd and published by Macmillan Publishers Aus.. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its first publication in 2000, Australia's Serial Killers has become a true crime classic. This edition is fully updated, bringing all the cases covered up to the minute. A recognised authority on Australia's most notorious criminals, Paul B. Kidd covers in unwavering detail 33 true stories of serial murder. In this gallery of infamy are world renowned killers the likes of the Night Caller, The Granny Killer, Ivan Milat, Kathleen Folbigg and the Snowtown murderers. Sixteen years in the researching, this comprehensive and ambitious work includes psychological opinions, court-room trials, detailed confessions, and exclusive prison interviews with three of Australia's most infamous serial killers.

Download or read book Police Stories written by Vikki Petraitis and published by Lake Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bizarre to the brutal to the unbelievable, truth is often stranger than fiction, as these fascinating stories testify. Vikki Petraitis has spent hundreds of hours interviewing police - sometimes even accompanying them on active duty - to complete this collection of stories from the frontline of policing. Police officers from many fields have shared some of their best stories: the ones that were out of the ordinary, the ones they'll never forget. The result is this riveting collection of real-life Australian dramas. They include: - a 'black widow' who reported her husband missing after an argument - the perilous body retrieval of a drowned diver from a sunken submarine - the capture and conviction of a man who drugged his unsuspecting victims by spiking their drinks - the disappearance of Sarah MacDiarmid. In each case the police concerned have achieved results through dedication and teamwork, and sometimes at great personal risk. We thank them for their service and understand that sometimes, the toll was too high. Vikki Petraitis is a Melbourne author who has been writing true crime since the early 1990s. Her bestselling book about Frankston serial killer Paul Denyer, The Frankston Murders, is a classic in the true crime genre.

Download or read book Great Australian Stories written by Graham Seal and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Folklore.

Download or read book Heroes Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2023-10-31 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Australia's most amazing characters of the convict age. 'Aussies love a good story and entertainer Jim Haynes has been telling them for decades' —Courier-Mail In Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia, our master storyteller Jim Haynes has collected a fascinating cast of characters who embody the resourcefulness, bravery, defiance, successes and tragedies of the convict era, the men and women who forged the nation we would one day become. There's Joseph Banks, the true founder of the colony; Surgeon John White, the saviour of the First Fleet; Pemulwuy, the Bidjigal freedom fighter; Mary Reiby, the horse thief who made good; Sapy Lovell, the Eora gypsy convict; John Donohue, the wild colonial boy; Lady Jane Franklin, the true leader of Van Diemen's Land – and many more! Why did transportation occur, why did it end, and what was it like living in Australia from 1788 to 1870? Skilfully researched and told in Jim's warm and witty style, Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia answers these questions and brings to life well-known and unknown figures from Australia's history as a penal settlement. This is the true story of the colonisation of Australia. 'In a year when we could all use a different perspective Jim Haynes came to the rescue with his latest sojourn into history . . . a cast of colourful characters.' —Spectator

Download or read book Great Furphies of Australian History written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jim Haynes upturns some of the long-held myths of Australian history with surprising results. With all the skills of the master storyteller that he is, Jim Haynes exposes some of the great myths of Australian history. Did you know that Portuguese and Spanish explorers probably found the east coast of Australia before Captain Cook, and that the Rum Rebellion was not caused by rum? And what about Banjo Paterson writing Waltzing Matilda? As for Ned Kelly being a brave freedom-fighting rebel, in truth he was a thief, a thug and a murderer. The Ashes have nothing to do with cricket, the Ghan is not named after Afghan cameleers and Hargraves lied about discovering gold in New South Wales. Surprising, confounding, revealing and fun, Jim Haynes takes us on another great journey through Australian history and folklore.

Download or read book Great Australian Scams Cons and Rorts written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2017-10-25 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Australian history is...so curious and strange, that it...does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies... It is full of surprises, and adventures, and incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened.' - Mark Twain Australia is the birthplace and setting of some of the wildest, craziest and least-likely-to-succeed cons and rorts in history. From the cleverest double-crosses to the most unlikely and maddest schemes, master storyteller Jim Haynes reminds us that we've never been shy of pulling a trick or two. So how did a clever bushman who 'couldn't lie straight in bed' steal a thousand head of cattle and get away with it even though he was caught 'red handed'? And what about the disappearing work of art that suddenly dissolved only to reappear at an auction years later? Or how about the butcher from Wagga who passed himself off as a French-born English duke to inherit a small fortune. And then there was the small matter of a horse, a tin of paint and a million dollar double-cross that became known as the Fine Cotton Affair. In only the way he can, Jim Haynes has collected a veritable 'Gullible's Tales' of unexpected and surprising true stories that may seem hard to believe!

Download or read book Joe Cinque s Consolation written by Helen Garner and published by Picador Australia. This book was released on 2007-11-10 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A true story of death, grief and the law from the 2019 winner of the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. In October 1997 a clever young law student at ANU made a bizarre plan to murder her devoted boyfriend after a dinner party at their house. Some of the dinner guests-most of them university students-had heard rumours of the plan. Nobody warned Joe Cinque. He died one Sunday, in his own bed, of a massive dose of rohypnol and heroin. His girlfriend and her best friend were charged with murder. Helen Garner followed the trials in the ACT Supreme Court. Compassionate but unflinching, this is a book about how and why Joe Cinque died. It probes the gap between ethics and the law; examines the helplessness of the courts in the face of what we think of as 'evil'; and explores conscience, culpability, and the battered ideal of duty of care. It is a masterwork from one of Australia's greatest writers. Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime 2005 Winner of the ABIA Book of the Year 2004 PRAISE FOR JOE CINQUE'S CONSOLATION "Garner's book is a writer's profound response to a tragedy and to questions about human responsibility over time as well as at precise moments" The Age "This is a work of great passion and of countervailing humanity - a book of witness..." Australian Book Review

Download or read book Best Australian Drinking Stories written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2018-11-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It seemed like a good idea...at the time.' - the lament of many a morning after Rum, beer, scotch, wine, beer and more beer. For nearly 250 years Australian history has been punctuated with stories of booze and boozing. From Cook's voyages and the First Fleet to the Rum Rebellion, the mutiny of the 99th Regiment, the soldiers' riot of 1916, six o'clock closing and beyond, we've been a nation that likes a drink. With the eye of the master storyteller that he is, Jim Haynes has collected the best yarns, verses, stories and anecdotes of our boozy history. He uncovers the good and the bad of our national character and its relationship with grog. He celebrates the social gift of alcohol and riotous moments of mateship and camaraderie, but he also offers salutary tales of its consequences - the hangovers, the suffering, the recriminations and the grave occasions subverted by drink. Amusing, wry, tragic and surprising, Best Australian Drinking Stories asks you to grab a glass of your favourite beverage, get comfy and enjoy this fascinating collection of stories about Australia's love affair with booze.

Download or read book The Best Australian Yarns written by Jim Haynes and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An omnibus from Jim Haynes about the true essence of what makes us Australians - our yarns, collected from every walk of life. Best Australian Yarns is a substantial and definitive collection of factual and fanciful Aussie stories, humour and anecdotes--the result of decades of researching popular Aussie culture and history and yarning to mates and other colourful characters from all parts of Australia and all walks of life. This collection includes tall stories from the bush, reminiscences from the racetrack and shearing shed, railway yarns, stories from the world of show business, Aboriginal legends and humour, digger yarns from both world wars, ghost stories, monsters, bunyips and yowies. and many things you never knew about our amazing history and the characters who made it--the pioneers, heroes, convicts, bushrangers, eccentrics and brave and forgotten men and women whose fascinating lives and achievements created the Aussie spirit that we all love. While the stories range from poignant to hilarious, many simply describe unusual coincidences, strange occurrences or simple everyday humorous events with a refreshing understatement that vividly evokes a vanishing Australia where looking for a good laugh was a key component of a cheekier national character and a simpler lifestyle.

Download or read book Central Station written by Jane Sale and published by HarperCollins Australia. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet the men and women who live and work on some of Australia's most remote cattle stations, as they share their stories. Have you ever wondered what it's like living a day's drive from the nearest supermarket? Or having a million-acre backyard, with your next-door neighbours a two-hour drive away? These compelling true stories from the popular Central Station blog will open your eyes to what outback life is really like - and why many wouldn't live anywhere else. There are yarns from bosses, station cooks, ringers, single mums, kids, governesses, chopper pilots and more, told with humour, self-deprecation - and pride in a job well done. There are tales of mustering, stock camps, working dogs, rogue cattle and hard bloody yakka, but also the fun of a bush wedding or kicking back at a campdraft. There's the simple wonder of living in an amazing landscape, but also the downside: the ravages of flood, fire and drought. And always there's the inherent danger of isolation - times when the Flying Doctor came to the rescue, but also times when lives have been tragically cut short. A vivid, honest picture of outback life: the good, the bad - and the dusty!

Download or read book The War Within written by Don Tate and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2012-05-31 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ...a memoir that is at once dramatic, disturbing, sexually charged, and often very funny, but ultimately a moving portrait of a man who has found the inner strength to overcome.... - Paul Ham, international journalist and author This is a complex, virtuoso analysis of an Australian life written by an unabashed and unrepentant authoran acidic dissection of the role that genes and environment have in developing a persons character, as well as a sauntering chronicle of social analysis. In turn, we follow the life of the author as he comes to terms with being a disaffected youth, a patriotic but naive infantryman in the Vietnam War, and an alienated, disabled veteran struggling with male status anxietyapparently inexhaustible in its capacity to cause suffering. Along the way, Tate examines the dark crevices of the male psyche as he battles inner demons and the unconditional love of his beautiful Christian wife, Carole. Above all, this memoir is a celebration of the human condition and of a man with a can-do, cavalier attitude to life and his desire to rise above mediocrity. An outstanding contribution to Australias rich heritage of memoir.