Download or read book The Thorn Birds written by Colleen McCullough and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most beloved novels of all time, Colleen McCullough's magnificent saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian outback has enthralled readers the world over. The Thorn Birds is a chronicle of three generations of Clearys—an indomitable clan of ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys' only daughter, Meggie, and the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart—and the intense joining of two hearts and souls over a lifetime, a relationship that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.

Download or read book Case history of a film score written by Henry Mancini and published by Alfred Music Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text, designed as a tool for the college classroom, gives the reader insight into the creative process used by master film composer Henry Mancini. Edited by Roy Phillippe, the book provides 16 musical examples and includes a CD with recordings from the original soundtrack. The text provides detailed analysis of the ideology and technique behind Mancini's creation of music to be paired with the film's storyline and its images. A must for any aspiring film composer, film music buff, or Mancini fan!

Download or read book The Touch written by Colleen McCullough and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003-11-25 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not since The Thorn Birds has Colleen McCullough written a novel of such broad appeal about a family and the Australian experience as The Touch. At its center is Alexander Kinross, remembered as a young man in his native Scotland only as a shiftless boilermaker's apprentice and a godless rebel. But when, years later, he writes from Australia to summon his bride, his Scottish relatives quickly realize that he has made a fortune in the gold fields and is now a man to be reckoned with. Arriving in Sydney after a difficult voyage, the sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Drummond meets her husband-to-be and discovers to her dismay that he frightens and repels her. Offered no choice, she marries him and is whisked at once across a wild, uninhabited countryside to Alexander's own town, named Kinross after himself. In the crags above it lies the world's richest gold mine. Isolated in Alexander's great house, with no company save Chinese servants, Elizabeth finds that the intimacies of marriage do not prompt her husband to enlighten her about his past life -- or even his present one. She has no idea that he still has a mistress, the sensual, tough, outspoken Ruby Costevan, whom Alexander has established in his town, nor that he has also made Ruby a partner in his company, rapidly expanding its interests far beyond gold. Ruby has a son, Lee, whose father is the head of the beleaguered Chinese community; the boy becomes dear to Alexander, who fosters his education as a gentleman. Captured by the very different natures of Elizabeth and Ruby, Alexander resolves to have both of them. Why should he not? He has the fabled "Midas Touch" -- a combination of curiosity, boldness and intelligence that he applies to every situation, and which fails him only when it comes to these two women. Although Ruby loves Alexander desperately, Elizabeth does not. Elizabeth bears him two daughters: the brilliant Nell, so much like her father; and the beautiful, haunting Anna, who is to present her father with a torment out of which for once he cannot buy his way. Thwarted in his desire for a son, Alexander turns to Ruby's boy as a possible heir to his empire, unaware that by keeping Lee with him, he is courting disaster. The stories of the lives of Alexander, Elizabeth and Ruby are intermingled with those of a rich cast of characters, and, after many twists and turns, come to a stunning and shocking climax. Like The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough's new novel is at once a love story and a family saga, replete with tragedy, pathos, history and passion. As few other novelists can, she conveys a sense of place: the desperate need of her characters, men and women, rootless in a strange land, to create new beginnings.

Download or read book The Moon Sisters written by Therese Walsh and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This mesmerizing coming-of-age novel, with its sheen of near-magical realism, is a moving tale of family and the power of stories. After their mother's probable suicide, sisters Olivia and Jazz take steps to move on with their lives. Jazz, logical and forward-thinking, decides to get a new job, but spirited, strong-willed Olivia—who can see sounds, taste words, and smell sights—is determined to travel to the remote setting of their mother's unfinished novel to lay her spirit properly to rest. Already resentful of Olivia’s foolish quest and her family’s insistence upon her involvement, Jazz is further aggravated when they run into trouble along the way and Olivia latches to a worldly train-hopper who warns he shouldn’t be trusted. As they near their destination, the tension builds between the two sisters, each hiding something from the other, until they are finally forced to face everything between them and decide what is really important.

Download or read book Morgan s Run written by Colleen McCullough and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000-08-29 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colleen McCullough captivated millions with her beloved worldwide bestseller The Thorn Birds. Now she takes readers to the birth of modern Australia with a breathtaking saga brimming with drama, history, and passion. Following the disappearance of his only son and the death of his beloved wife, Richard Morgan is falsely imprisoned and exiled to the penal colonies of eighteenth-century Australia. His life is shattered but Morgan refuses to surrender, overcoming all obstacles to find unexpected contentment and happiness in the harsh early days of Australia's settlement. From England's shores to Botany Bay and the rugged frontier of a hostile new world, Morgan's Run is the epic tale of love lost and found, and the man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.

Download or read book How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference written by Rebecca Huntley and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The antidote to climate anxiety is action. Make your first action reading this book.' OSHER GUNSBERG 'Rebecca Huntley has given us a great gift: an essential guide to understanding ourselves and each other as we face the climate crisis. Let's take down the walls that divide us. Collectively, with compassion and courage, we can make real change happen.' KYLIE KWONG 'Explains whether and how we will choose to solve the climate problem. Immensely important analysis in a great read.' PROFESSOR ROSS GARNAUT Why is it so hard to talk about climate change? While scientists double down on the shocking figures, we still find ourselves unable to discuss climate change meaningfully among friends and neighbours - or even to grapple with it ourselves. The key to progress on climate change is in the psychology of human attitudes and our ability to change. Whether you're already alarmed and engaged with the issue, concerned but disengaged, a passive skeptic or an active denier, understanding our emotional reactions to climate change - why it makes us anxious, fearful, angry or detached - is critical to coping on an individual level and convincing each other to act. This book is about understanding why people who aren't like you feel the way they do and learning to talk to them effectively. What we need are thousands - millions - of everyday conversations about the climate to enlarge the ranks of the concerned, engage the disengaged and persuade the cautious of the need for action.

Download or read book A Creed for the Third Millennium written by Colleen McCullough and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tomorrow's America is a cold and ravaged place, a nation devastated by despair and enduring winter. In a small New England city, senior government official Dr. Judith Carriol finds the man she has been seeking: a deliverer of hope in a hopeless time who can revive the dreams of a shattered people; a magnetic, compassionate idealist whom Judith can mold, manipulate and carry to undreamed-of heights; a healer who must ultimately face damnation through the destructive power of love.

Download or read book Tim written by Colleen McCullough and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Horton is content with her comfortable, solitary existence . . . until she meets Tim. A beautiful young man with the mind of a child -- a gentle outcast in a cruel, unbending world -- he illuminates the darkness of Mary's days with his boyish innocence. And he will shatter the lonely, middle-aged spinster's respectable, ordered life with a forbidden promise of a very special love.

Download or read book Finding North written by George Michelsen Foy and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Navigation is the key human skill. It's something we do everywhere, whether feeling our way through a bedroom in the dark, or charting a ship's course. But how does navigation affect our brains, our memory, ourselves? Blending scientific research and memoir, and written in beautiful prose, Finding North starts with a quest by the author to understand this most basic of human skills---and why it's in mortal peril. In 1844, Foy's great-great grandfather, captain of a Norwegian cargo ship, perished at sea after getting lost in a snowstorm. Foy decides to unravel the mystery surrounding Halvor Michelsen's death---and the roots of his own obsession with navigation---by re-creating his ancestor's trip using only period instruments. Beforehand, he meets a colorful cast of characters to learn whether men really have better directional skills than women, how cells, eels, and spaceships navigate; and how tragedy results from GPS glitches. He interviews a cabby who has memorized every street in London, sails on a Haitian cargo sloop, and visits the site of a secret navigational cult in Greece. At the heart of Foy's story is this fact: navigation and the brain's memory centers are inextricably linked. As Foy unravels the secret behind Halvor's death, he also discovers why forsaking our navigation skills in favor of GPS may lead not only to Alzheimers and other diseases of memory, but to losing a key part of what makes us human.

Download or read book The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club written by Sophie Green and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***THE TOP TEN AUSTRALIAN BESTSELLER*** 'The perfect novel to curl up with on a cosy night in' Hello 'The story of these resilient women is tender and intimate . . . As heartwarming, fulfilling and Australian as a lamb roast and full-bodied shiraz' Australian Women's Weekly LONGLISTED FOR THE INDIE BOOK AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS 2018: General Fiction Book of the Year and LONGLISTED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS 2018: Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year Books bring them together - but friendship will transform all of their lives. An epic saga of five very different women who come together in the Northern Territory of the 1970s. In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect. Sybil, the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe, misses her eldest son, Lachlan. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother's place, while Kate, Sybil's English daughter-in-law, is thousands of miles away from home and finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale. Rita, Sybil's oldest friend, is now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Sallyanne, mother of three, dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband. And Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land, needs some purpose in her life. Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship: they all love to read, and she starts a book club. If you loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul and The Little Paris Bookshop, you will devour this story of five different women united by one need: to overcome the vast distances of Australia's Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love. 'An absolute gem of a novel, with the most evocative sense of place . . . A definite treat for any book club' BETTER READING 'This close-knit Australian saga has rightly earned comparisons to THE THORN BIRDS' iBOOKS EDITOR 'A delightful novel... Sophie Green's beautiful mingling of the book club members' lives down through the years is a testament to her clever storytelling... She provides vivid descriptions of both the triumphs and hardships of life in the outback so readers can empathise with all the joys and heartaches experienced by each one' STARTS AT SIXTY **Includes bonus extract from Sophie's heartwarming new novel Thursdays at Orange Blossom House**

Download or read book The First Man in Rome written by Colleen McCullough and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 1152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With extraordinary narrative power, New York Times bestselling author Colleen McCullough sweeps the reader into a whirlpool of pageantry and passion, bringing to vivid life the most glorious epoch in human history. When the world cowered before the legions of Rome, two extraordinary men dreamed of personal glory: the military genius and wealthy rural "upstart" Marius, and Sulla, penniless and debauched but of aristocratic birth. Men of exceptional vision, courage, cunning, and ruthless ambition, separately they faced the insurmountable opposition of powerful, vindictive foes. Yet allied they could answer the treachery of rivals, lovers, enemy generals, and senatorial vipers with intricate and merciless machinations of their own—to achieve in the end a bloody and splendid foretold destiny . . . and win the most coveted honor the Republic could bestow.

Download or read book An Indecent Obsession written by Colleen McCullough and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Indecent Obsession has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Download or read book The Thorn Queen written by Elise Holland and published by SparkPress. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Glendoch! Hidden to most, this glacial world once crackled with alchemy. Now it waits for war—divided and bound by strict rules. So when twelve-year-old Meylyne falls from a tree onto Glendoch’s sickly prince, she must flee or face imprisonment in the Shadow-Cellars. The only way she may return home is with a cure for the prince’s peculiar disease. Convinced she will perish, Meylyne and her companions embark on their journey—and before they know it, they are knee-deep in a plot to sink Glendoch into shadow, like other worlds before it. Poisoned guardians, cursed wizards, and cunning witch-spirits bound into wands are just some of the dangers that dot the way of their travels. And behind it all is the Thorn Queen. Mysteriously magnetic (or murderously vengeful, depending on whose side you’re on), she is always one step ahead of them . . .

Download or read book Bittersweet written by Colleen McCullough and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colleen McCullough’s new, romantic Australian novel about four unforgettable sisters taking their places in life during the tumultuous years after World War I is “just as epic as her ultra-romantic classic, The Thorn Birds” (Marie Claire). Because they are two sets of twins, the four Latimer sisters are as close as can be. Yet each of these vivacious young women has her own dream for herself: Edda wants to be a doctor, Grace wants to marry, Tufts wants never to marry, and Kitty wishes to be known for something other than her beauty. They are famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit, and ambition, but as they step into womanhood at the beginning of the twentieth century, life holds limited prospects for them. Together they decide to enroll in a training program for nurses—a new option for women of their time. As the Latimer sisters become immersed in hospital life and the demands of their training, each must make weighty decisions about love, career, and what she values most. The results are sometimes happy, sometimes heartbreaking, but always…bittersweet. Set against the background of a young and largely untamed nation, “filled with humor, insight, and captivating historical detail, McCullough’s latest is a wise and warm tribute to family, female empowerment, and her native land” (People).

Download or read book Ladies of Missalonghi written by Colleen McCullough and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1988-04-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes fairy toles can come true-even for plain,shy spinsters like Missy Wright. Neither as pretty as cousin Alicianor as domineering as mother Drusilla, she seems doomed to aquiet life of near poverty at Missalonghi, her family's pitifullysmall homestead in Australia's Blue Mountains. But It's a brandnew century-the twentieth-a time for new thoughts and boldnew actions. And Missy Wright is about to set every self-righteous tongue in the town of Byron wagging. Because she hasjust set her sights on a mysterious, mistrusted and unsuspectingstranger ... who just might be Prince-Charming in disguise.

Download or read book The Linnet Bird written by Linda Holeman and published by Crown. This book was released on 2005-05-17 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “For you, I will write of it all—part truth, part memory, part nightmare—my life, the one that started so long ago, in a place so far from here . . .” India, 1839: Linny Ingram, the respectable young wife of a British colonial officer, settles down to write her life story. In the claustrophobic, mannered world of British India, Linny seems the perfect society wife: pretty, gracious, subservient. But appearances can be deceptive. Linny Ingram was born Linny Gow, an orphan raised in the cold, gray slums of Liverpool. Sold into prostitution by her stepfather when she was only eleven, Linny is a born survivor and an accomplished chameleon and manipulator. Through a stroke of luck and considerable scheming, she manages to re-create herself as a proper Victorian young lady, middle-class and seemingly respectable. By befriending a merchant’s daughter, Linny secures a place with her new companion on a ship bound for India, where they will join “the fishing fleet”—young women of good birth but no fortune who sail to India in search of a husband. India, with its exotic colors, sights, and smells, is a world away from the cold back alleys of Linny’s childhood. But even there, she is haunted by her past, and by the constant threat of discovery. To secure her place in society, she marries Somers Ingram, a wealthy British officer with secrets of his own. Soon Linny discovers that respectability and marriage bring a new kind of imprisonment, as well as the same menace and violence that she thought she had escaped. But Linny is not about to surrender easily. In the lush tropics of India she finds not only the means for rebellion but also the love and freedom she never had in England. We had been at sea almost four months. Swallows swooped near the railings, indicating land nearby. Mrs. Cavendish likened these busy, twittering creatures to the dove with its olive branch. She was right, and within another day villages were spotted along the coast. The water became noisy with dozens of tiny rocking boatloads of Indians. Bumboat men, Mrs. Cavendish called them, shouting to be heard over the cries of the villagers as they boasted of their merchandise, hoping to sell coconuts, bananas, or tamarinds. I hung over the railing, watching as the natives threw ropes with baskets attached over the ship’s side. Some of the crew called down to them in a strange tongue that I couldn’t identify, putting coins into the baskets. The baskets were lowered, and then came up again, filled with whatever the sailors had requested. I longed to try the strange-looking fruit, but Mrs. Cavendish, with a slight shake of her head, indicated that it would be beneath us to purchase anything in this way. During the last few days, as we grew ever closer to our destination, excitement grew in me. At first I attributed it to the beauty of the water and sun, the flying fish sending little droplets of water onto the smooth sea, but then realized it was something else. I detected a difference in the atmosphere, and whether it was the air itself or the degree of heat I couldn’t say. Perhaps the smells carried in the wind contributed to the unexplained breathlessness I experienced. My nose filled with the strange smells of an unfamiliar populace, the scents of unknown vegetation. I felt as heady as I had when twirled in my first quadrille. —from The Linnet Bird

Download or read book The Stillness The Dancing written by Wendy Perriam and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-05-31 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abandoned by God and her husband, twin totems of her life to date, Morna Gordon embarks on a voyage of discovery, travelling first to California where she undergoes a series of extraordinary experiences, ending up in Disneyland, ‘the happiest place on earth’ – though not for her. Shaken, she flees to a near-deserted island in the Hebrides where David, historian and researcher, is working on the Life of a seventh-century saint. Morna, translator by profession, has to learn, through David and his saint, a new interpretation of the world. Her contribution to his work helps forge a powerful bond between them, and slowly, movingly, and despite the still smarting slap-down of the Catholic Church, they discover body as well as soul. The novel also explores the lives of Morna’s mother and daughter, charting Bea’s private crisis of faith and Chris’s stormy journey to maturity. Complex ties and tensions bind these three generations of women, all of whom suffer a ‘sea-change’. The Stillness The Dancing juxtaposes youth with age, the rational with the numinous, subatomic physics with ancient pagan ritual, the grab-all twentieth century with the hair-shirt idealism of the Age of the Saints. It is a novel full of contrasts – switching boldly from humour to tragedy and broaching vital themes of faith and doubt, sham and self-delusion, while losing nothing of the uninhibited exuberance for which Wendy Perriam is known. ‘Unashamedly sexual, yet profoundly spiritual . . . a remarkable novel. It must be read.’ Fay Weldon