Download or read book The Rules of Backyard Cricket written by Jock Serong and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It starts in a suburban backyard with Darren Keefe and his older brother, sons of a fierce and gutsy single mother. The endless glow of summer, the bottomless fury of contest. All the love and hatred in two small bodies poured into the rules of a made-up game. Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. No surprise that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety—one of those men who’s always got away with things and just keeps getting. Until the day we meet him, middle aged, in the boot of a car. Gagged, cable-tied, a bullet in his knee. Everything pointing towards a shallow grave. The Rules of Backyard Cricket is a novel of suspense in the tradition of Peter Temple’s Truth. With glorious writing harnessed to a gripping narrative, it observes celebrity, masculinity—humanity—with clear-eyed lyricism and exhilarating narrative drive. Jock Serong’s first novel, Quota, won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. The Rules of Backyard Cricket was shortlisted for the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards and the 2017 Indie Book Awards. On the Java Ridge won the Colin Roderick Award and the international Staunch Book Prize in 2018. Jock lives with his family on Victoria’s far west coast. ‘The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong, while classified as ‘crime’, is a compelling literary novel dissecting toxic sporting culture and its fallout.’ Paddy O’Reilly, Australian Book Review, 2016 Books of the Year ‘The Rules of Backyard Cricket got the thumbs up from everyone.’ Favourite Fiction for 2016, Avenue Bookstore ‘My favourite reading experience of the year (and I don’t even like cricket).’ Heather Taylor Johnson, Sydney Morning Herald’s Year in Reading ‘Blow me down if I didn’t hang on every word.’ Clare Wright, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘One of the great novels written about sport...Delicious. It’s the top read of the summer.’ Stuff NZ ‘A deeply interesting novel about sibling rivalry, family, masculinity, and the game of cricket...Serong is a talented storyteller, and he brings this unusual world to life.’ Booklist ‘Merges my childhood dreamscape of hot days and sporting ambition with a page-turning thriller set within the rot of professional sport. Beautifully Melbourne. Get on it!’ Tony Wilson ‘Readers who have fallen in love with Australian mysteries, thrillers and crime novels have a whole world to discover with fantastic authors bringing the southern hemisphere to life...As in the UK, cricket is a national passion in Australia and Jock Serong delves into the murky world of professional sportsmen.’ Jane Harper, Daily Mail

Download or read book Preservation written by Jock Serong and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-29 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preservation, based on the true story of the wreck of the Sydney Cove, sees master storyteller Jock Serong turn his talents to historical narrative.

Download or read book The Burning Island written by Jock Serong and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A father’s obsession, a daughter's quest

Download or read book On the Java Ridge by Jock Serong written by Fay Helfenbaum and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Quota written by Jock Serong and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-04 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HIS HONOUR: Mr Jardim, withdraw that comment immediately. MR JARDIM: Your Honour, I'm not withdrawing it because it's got nothing to do with the merits of this case, just as your small-minded treatment of my client has got nothing to do with the merits of the case. I mean, could you have cocked this thing up any worse? Bloody helpless kid and you know she's back out on the street now. You're known throughout the state as a heartless old prick and a drunk, and seeing I've gone this far, your daughter-in-law's appointment to the court is widely viewed as a grubby political payoff. Today's pretty much the lowest I've seen you stoop but it's been a rich field of excrem— HIS HONOUR: Senior, will you have Mr Jardim removed? Charlie Jardim has just trashed his legal career in a spectacular courtroom meltdown, and his girlfriend has finally left him. So when a charitable colleague slings him a prosecution brief that will take him to the remote coastal town of Dauphin, Charlie reluctantly agrees that the sea air might be good for him. The case is a murder. The victim was involved in the illegal abalone trade and the even more illegal drug trade. And the witnesses aren't talking. And as Dauphin closes ranks around him, Charlie is about to find his interest in the law powerfully reignited.

Download or read book On the Java Ridge written by Jock Serong and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Colin Roderick Award, 2018 Winner, Staunch Book Prize, 2018 On the Java Ridge, skipper Isi Natoli and a group of Australian surf tourists are anchored off the Indonesian island of Dana. In the Canberra office of Cassius Calvert, Minister for Border Integrity, a federal election looms and a hardline new policy on asylum-seekers is being rolled out. Not far from Dana, the Takalar is having engine trouble. Among the passengers on board fleeing from persecution are Roya and her mother, and Roya's unborn sister. The storm now closing in on the Takalar and the Java Ridge will mean catastrophe for them all. Jock Serong’s first novel, Quota, won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. The Rules of Backyard Cricket was shortlisted for the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards and the 2017 Indie Book Awards. On the Java Ridge won the Colin Roderick Award and the international Staunch Book Prize in 2018. Jock lives with his family on Victoria’s far west coast. ‘Terrifying, compelling.’ Australian Book Review ‘Taut and impressive.’ Age ‘You might want to clear the decks before you start Jock Serong’s third thriller, because the odds are you won’t be able to put it down.’ SA Weekend ‘With this book, Serong cements his growing reputation as the thinking person’s adventure writer. On the Java Ridge is such a strong piece of writing on so many levels. Andrew Bolt would hate it!’ Readings ‘Expertly written, vast in scope...A compelling literary political thriller and a must-read commentary on the Australian political environment and its treatment of refugees.’ Better Read Than Dead ‘This is the mastery of Serong’s novel, understanding that fictional dystopias are at their most profound when they take the everyday and tilt it towards the darkness...it is a deeply considered novel that steers us to the logical conclusion of an entrenched system rooted equally in brutality and silence.’ Monthly ‘The best surf-related fiction I have read in a long, long time, possibly ever—Jock Serong’s riveting On the Java Ridge.’ Swell Net ‘On the Java Ridge cements Serong’s place as one of Australia’s most innovative and ambitious crime writers.’ NZ Listener ‘The rescue and the scenes that follow it are the real heart of the book, and they are exceptional. Serong invests the chaos and confusion of the wreck and its bloody aftermath with a visceral power that makes for confronting but exhilarating reading.’ Australian ‘Serong exhibits impressive control, leaping between three vastly different viewpoints and delivering a fevered crescendo as compassion competes with political survival.’ NZ Listener ‘Devastatingly brilliant...an emotionally grueling mix of high-octane action, life-and-death political maneuvering and, at its heart, an anguishing portrayal of worldwide refugee crises...Beautiful, mournful, infuriating and brimming with tension, On the Java Ridge is utterly incomparable.’ Shelf Awareness

Download or read book The Idea of Perfection written by Kate Grenville and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-10-28 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harley Savage is a plain woman, a part-time museum curator and quilting expert with three failed marriages and a heart condition. Douglas Cheeseman is a shy, gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, one marriage gone sour, and a crippling lack of physical courage. They meet in the little Australian town of Karakarook, where Harley has arrived to help the town build a heritage museum and Douglas to demolish the quaint old Bent Bridge. From the beginning they are on a collision course until the unexpected sets them both free. Elegantly and compassionately told, The Idea of Perfection is reminiscent of the work of Carol Shields and Annie Proulx and reveals Kate Grenville as "a writer of extraordinary talent" (The New York Times Book Review).

Download or read book The Trauma Cleaner written by Sarah Krasnostein and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Great Deep written by James Hamilton-Paterson and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1992 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the islands, coasts, reefs, abyssal depths, and ways the oceans work in people's imagination.

Download or read book Surfing with Sartre written by Aaron James and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Assholes: A Theory, a book that—in the tradition of Shopclass as Soulcraft, Barbarian Days and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—uses the experience and the ethos of surfing to explore key concepts in philosophy. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once declared "the ideal limit of aquatic sports . . . is waterskiing." The avid surfer and lavishly credentialed academic philosopher Aaron James vigorously disagrees, and in Surfing with Sartre he intends to expound the thinking surfer's view of the matter, in the process elucidating such philosophical categories as freedom, being, phenomenology, morality, epistemology, and even the emerging values of what he terms "leisure capitalism." In developing his unique surfer-philosophical worldview, he draws from his own experience of surfing and from surf culture and lingo, and includes many relevant details from the lives of the philosophers, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, with whose thought he engages. In the process, he'll speak to readers in search of personal and social meaning in our current anxious moment, by way of doing real, authentic philosophy.

Download or read book From The Wreck written by Jane Rawson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘This strange story of love and loneliness, which explores how we all long to belong, is simply wonderful.’ Daily Mail When, in 1859, George Hills is pulled from the wreck of the steamship Admella, he carries with him the uneasy memory of a fellow survivor. Someone else – or something else – kept him warm as he lay dying, half-submerged in the freezing Southern Ocean, kept him bound to life. As George adapts to his life back on land, he can’t quite escape the feeling that he wasn’t alone when he emerged from the ocean that day, that a familiar presence has been watching him ever since. What the creature might want from him – his life? His first-born? Simply to return to its home? – will pursue him, and call him back to the water, where it all began. ‘[A] singular novel . . . [From the Wreck] movingly explores themes of loss, loneliness and guilt.’ Guardian ‘An absorbing, disturbing read, full of deep currents and lurking fears.’ Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of The Children of Time

Download or read book The Silent Listener written by Lyn Yeowart and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Silent Listener is simply unforgettable.' Sydney Morning Herald 'A tale of suspense and revenge, beautifully written.' The Age 'A deftly wrought suspense novel from a remarkable new literary talent . . . A book that should be atop of everyone's reading list.' J. P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie Propelling the reader back and forth between the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s, The Silent Listener is an unforgettable literary suspense novel set in the dark, gothic heart of rural Australia. In the cold, wet summer of 1960, 11-year-old Joy Henderson lives in constant fear of her father. She tries to make him happy but, as he keeps reminding her, she is nothing but a filthy sinner destined for Hell . . . Yet, decades later, she returns to the family’s farm to nurse him on his death bed. To her surprise, her ‘perfect’ sister Ruth is also there, whispering dark words, urging revenge. Then the day after their father finally confesses to a despicable crime, Joy finds him dead - with a belt pulled tight around his neck . . . For Senior Constable Alex Shepherd, investigating George’s murder revives memories of an unsolved case still haunting him since that strange summer of 1960: the disappearance of nine-year-old Wendy Boscombe. As seemingly impossible facts surface about the Hendersons – from the past and the present – Shepherd suspects that Joy is pulling him into an intricate web of lies and that Wendy’s disappearance is the key to the bizarre truth. **** 'A book that should be atop of everyone's reading list. The prose is spectacular, and the characters so richly imagined. This is a novel about inherited violence and redemption packaged as a cracking psychological thriller.' J. P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie 'Intense, intricate, emotionally devastating. This is proper Australian gothica.' Liam Pieper, author of Sweetness and Light 'Totally addictive.' Books+Publishing 'A cracking thriller with heart. It intrigues, it twists and turns, it deftly combines the muddy domestic details of life on a Victorian farm with a black, Gothic sensibility of lies and violence and the heartbreaking fantasy world of a young child.' Jane Sullivan 'A heartbreaking, terrifying and stunningly accomplished novel that had me holding my breath. Yeowart instantly pulled me into the life of a rural family dominated by an angry, insecure despot from its unnerving beginnings to its shocking end.' Kirsten Alexander, author of Half Moon Lake 'Steeped in atmosphere and with taut, intricate plotting, The Silent Listener, contrary to its title, had me audibly gasping throughout.' Benjamin Stevenson, author of Either Side of Midnight 'An ingenious form of storytelling archaeology: down through layers of family trauma, the truths are finally brought to light.' Jock Serong, author of The Rules of Backyard Cricket

Download or read book Word Hunters written by Nick Earls and published by Univ. of Queensland Press. This book was released on 2012-08 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lexi and Al Hunter are twins with almost nothing in common aside fromtheir parents and their birthday. At school Lexi hangs with her friends in the cool crowd, while Al hides in the library reading about history, battles, and faraway places. When the twins stumble upon an old dictionary, their world as they know it changes. They are blasted into history to hunt down the words that threaten to vanish from our past and present. Their lives and the future of the world are at stake. Can they find a way back home? Or will they be trapped in the past forever? Now more than ever, they need to depend on each other if they want to survive. Amysterious, action-packed series for the word nerd in us all."

Download or read book East of Hounslow Jay Qasim Book 1 written by Khurrum Rahman and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2020-01-17 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet Jay. Small-time dealer. Accidental jihadist. The one man who can save us all?

Download or read book In Search of Captain Zero written by Allan Weisbecker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-09-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996, Allan Weisbecker sold his home and his possessions, loaded his dog and surfboards into his truck, and set off in search of his long-time surfing companion, Patrick, who had vanished into the depths of Central America. In this rollicking memoir of his quest from Mexico to Costa Rica to unravel the circumstances of Patrick's disappearance, Weisbecker intimately describes the people he befriended, the bandits he evaded, the waves he caught and lost en route to finding his friend. In Search of Captain Zero is, according to Outside magazine, "A subtly affecting tale of friendship and duty. [It] deserves a spot on the microbus dashboard as a hell of a cautionary tale about finding paradise and smoking it away." In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road is a Booksense 76 Top Ten selection for September/October.

Download or read book Dyschronia written by Jennifer Mills and published by Picador Australia. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD 2019 "There is a poetry in Mills's writing that shimmers like desert air - and in her storytelling, in the way she captures the moods of time, there is something mystical. Daring, original and ambitious." The Australian An electrifying novel about an oracle. A small town. And the end of the world as we know it... One morning, the residents of a small coastal town somewhere in Australia wake to discover the sea has disappeared. One among them has been plagued by troubling visions of this cataclysm for years. Is she a prophet? Does she have a disorder that skews her perception of time? Or is she a gifted and compulsive liar? Oscillating between the future and the past, Dyschronia is a novel that tantalises and dazzles, as one woman's prescient nightmares become entangled with her town's uncertain fate. Blazing with questions of consciousness, trust, and destiny, this is a wildly imaginative and extraordinary novel from award-winning author Jennifer Mills. AUREALIS AWARDS 2018 FINALIST FOR THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL PRAISE FOR DYSCHRONIA "Shockingly good." The Saturday Paper "A writer of extraordinary range and imagination" Cate Kennedy, author of The World Beneath "...Mills draws on the arsenal of social realism, as what follows is a finely drawn study of a small town struggling to survive." Sydney Review of Books "In recent years, a number of Australian authors have turned their attention to the interrelated effects of climate change... borrowing elements from fantasy and science-fiction to write about an increasingly surreal reality. Jennifer Mill's Dyschronia adds a new voice to this growing chorus." Readings "Dyschronia is the best (and perhaps most terrifying) kind of dystopian fiction." Lifted Brow "clear, well-crafted, and unique" Kill Your Darlings

Download or read book Sex and the City and Us written by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of Seinfeldia offers a fascinating retrospective of the iconic and award-winning television series, Sex and the City, in a “bubbly, yet fierce cultural dissection of the groundbreaking show” (Chicago Tribune). This is the story of how a columnist, two gay men, and a writers’ room full of women used their own poignant, hilarious, and humiliating stories to launch a cultural phenomenon. They endured shock, slut-shaming, and a slew of nasty reviews on their way to eventual—if still often begrudging—respect. The show wasn’t perfect, but it revolutionized television for women. When Candace Bushnell began writing for the New York Observer, she didn’t think anyone beyond the Upper East Side would care about her adventures among the Hamptons-hopping media elite. But her struggles with singlehood struck a chord. Beverly Hills, 90210 creator Darren Star brought her vision to an even wider audience when he adapted the column for HBO. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha launched a barrage of trends, forever branded the actresses that took on the roles, redefined women’s relationship to sex and elevated the perception of singlehood. Featuring exclusive new interviews with the cast and writers, including star Sarah Jessica Parker, creator Darren Star, executive producer Michael Patrick King, and author Candace Bushnell, “Jennifer Keishin Armstrong brings readers inside the writers’ room and into the scribes’ lives…The writing is fizzy and funny, but she still manages an in-depth look at a show that’s been analyzed for decades, giving readers a retrospective as enjoyable as a $20 pink cocktail” (The Washington Post). Sex and the City and Us is both a critical and nostalgic behind-the-scenes look at a television series that changed the way women see themselves.