Download or read book Fortunate Life written by A.B. Facey and published by Fremantle Press. This book was released on 2018-04-21 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Albert Facey’s story is the story of Australia.Born in 1894, and first sent to work at the age of eight, Facey lived the rough frontier life of a labourer and farmer and jackaroo, becoming lost and then rescued by Indigenous trackers, then gaining a hard-won literacy, surviving Gallipoli, raising a family through the Depression, losing a son in the Second World War, and meeting his beloved Evelyn with whom he shared nearly sixty years of marriage.Despite enduring unimaginable hardships, Facey always saw his life as a fortunate one.A true classic of Australian literature, Facey’s simply penned story offers a unique window onto the history of Australian life through the greater part of the twentieth century – the extraordinary journey of an ordinary man.

Download or read book White Gardenia written by Belinda Alexandra and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From internationally bestselling author Belinda Alexandra comes a sweeping, emotional journey that “depicts vividly the powerful lifelong bond between mothers and daughters” (Paullina Simons, author of The Bronze Horseman). In a district of the city of Harbin, a haven for White Russian families since Russia’s Communist Revolution, Alina Kozlova must make a heartbreaking decision if her only child, Anya, is to survive the final days of World War II. White Gardenia sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the austerity of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960s, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia. Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices, but is the price too high? Most importantly of all, will they ever find each other again? Rich in historical detail and reminiscent of stories by Kate Morton and Lucinda Riley, White Gardenia is a compelling and beautifully written tale about yearning, longing, and the lengths a mother will go to protect her child.

Download or read book Their Brilliant Careers written by Ryan O'Neill and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin Literary Award Absurd, original and highly addictive . . . In Their Brilliant Careers, Ryan O'Neill has written a hilarious novel in the guise of sixteen biographies of (invented) Australian writers. Meet Rachel Deverall, who discovered the secret source of the great literature of our time - and paid a terrible price for her discovery. Meet Rand Washington, hugely popular sci-fi author (of Whiteman of Cor) and inveterate racist. Meet Addison Tiller, master of the bush yarn, "The Chekhov of Coolabah", who never travelled outside Sydney. Their Brilliant Careers is a playful set of stories, linked in many ways, which together form a memorable whole. A wonderful comic tapestry of the writing life, this unpredictable and intriguing work takes Australian writing in a whole new direction . . . Shortlisted, 2017 NSW Premier's Literary Awards ‘You have to admire O’Neill’s delicious bravura. He’s been one of the few short fiction writers of recent years willing to play around with the form’s possibilities ... Apart from the fact there are more funny lines in O’Neill’s 288 pages than there are likely to be in the entirety of Australian literature elsewhere this year, the profiles are woven smartly together, as the characters’ fates and careers intertwine.’ —Saturday Paper ‘Ryan O’Neill combines conventions of biography and short story in an exhaustively brazen blend of Australian literary history and plausible yet gloriously bonkers invention.’ —Elke Power, Readings Monthly ‘Their Brilliant Careers ... brims with crackerjack wit. Pressure is subtly built; punchlines are explosive.’ —Australian Book Review ‘Ryan O’Neill has embarked on the task of creating a satirical, funny alternative history to Australian literature, an exercise he has achieved admirably and with brilliance.’ —Writers Bloc ‘[Ryan O'Neill] offers a book that is a piss-take, a celebration, a revisionist history and, perhaps most impressively, exceedingly good fun.’ —Dominic Amerena, the Australian ‘O'Neill has arranged a beautiful board of slain waxwings, no less funny or moving for being, in the final estimate of things, no more than shadows of the never living and the forever dead.’ —Adam Rivett, Sydney Morning Herald Ryan O’Neill is the author of The Weight of a Human Heart. He was born in Glasgow in 1975 and has lived in Africa, Europe and Asia before settling in Newcastle, Australia, with his wife and two daughters. His fiction has appeared in The Best Australian Stories, The Sleepers Almanac, Meanjin, New Australian Stories, Wet Ink, Etchings and Westerly. His work has won the Hal Porter and Roland Robinson awards and been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Steele Rudd Award and the Age Short-Story Prize. He teaches at the University of Newcastle.

Download or read book A Mother s Offering to Her Children written by Lady long resident in New South Wales and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Written when our ancestors had a strong faith in the worth of facts as educative agents, and many educators believed that children's books should not only be morally improving, but should also set an example by offering only plain truth rather than mendacious flights of fancy. It gives a rare and authentic glimpse of life in the early years of Australia using the "catechism" technique which was much used for most of the nineteenth century, particularly in works aiming to disseminate knowledge. Within its limitations, the book does repesent a real attempt to communicate to children some of qualities of the Australian scene, and, within the self-imposed constraints of "truth", to offer relevant stories of high adventure." -- Introduction.

Download or read book Boy Overboard written by Morris Gleitzman and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2002-08-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner - KOALA Children's Choice Awards 2010 - Fiction for Years 7–9 Winner - YABBA Children's Choice Awards 2010 - Fiction for Years 7–9 Winner - COOL Children's Choice Awards 2010 - Fiction for Years 7–9 Longlisted - Family Award for Children's Books 2002 - Prize for Writing for Young Adults Shortlisted - BILBY Children's Choice Awards 2006 - Fiction for Older Readers Shortlisted - REAL Children's Choice Awards 2010 - Younger Readers Jamal and Bibi have a dream. To lead Australia to soccer glory in the next World Cup. But first they must face landmines, pirates, storms and assassins. Can Jamal and his family survive their incredible journey and get to Australia? Sometimes, to save the people you love, you have to go overboard. With its witty humor and powerful themes of courage, determination, and the importance of family, Boy Overboard is sure to leave you laughing, crying, and cheering for Jamal and his journey. Don't miss out on this must-read middle grade book that will have you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. ------------------ PRAISE FOR MORRIS GLEITZMAN ‘Readers can't get enough of him.’ The Independent ‘A brilliantly funny writer’ Sunday Telegraph ‘A virtuoso demonstration of how you can make comedy out of the most unlikely subject’ Sunday Times ‘He is one of the finest examples of a writer who can make humour stem from the things that really matter in life.’ The Guardian

Download or read book Unpolished Gem written by Alice Pung and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-01-27 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Poignant, provocative, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, Pung’s rollicking tale of two worlds is not to be missed.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) After Alice Pung’s family fled to Australia from the killing fields of Cambodia, her father chose Alice as her name because he thought their new country was a Wonderland. In this lyrical, bittersweet debut memoir—already an award-winning bestseller when it was published in Australia—Alice grows up straddling two worlds, East and West, her insular family and the Australia outside. With wisdom beyond her years and a keen eye for comedy in everyday life, she writes of the trials of assimilation and cultural misunderstanding, and of the tender but fraught relationships between three generations of women trying to live the Australian dream without losing themselves. Unpolished Gem is a moving, vivid journey about identity and the ultimate search for acceptance and healing, delivered by a writer possessed of rare empathy, penetrating insight, and undeniable narrative gifts.

Download or read book Australian national bibliography written by and published by National Library Australia. This book was released on 1961 with total page 1818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book See What You Made Me Do written by Jess Hill and published by Black Inc.. This book was released on 2019-06-24 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it? Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience – abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence – not in generations to come, but today. Combining forensic research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes. ‘A shattering book: clear-headed and meticulous, driving always at the truth’—Helen Garner ‘One Australian a week is dying as a result of domestic abuse. If that was terrorism, we’d have armed guards on every corner.’ —Jimmy Barnes ‘Confronting in its honesty this book challenges you to keep reading no matter how uncomfortable it is to face the profound rawness of people’s stories. Such a well written book and so well researched. See What You Made Me Do sheds new light on this complex issue that affects so many of us.’—Rosie Batty

Download or read book A Writing Life written by Bernadette Brennan and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘This is literary critique and biography at its finest. Australian Financial Review Helen Garner is one of Australia’s most important and most admired writers. She is revered for her fearless honesty in the pursuit of her craft. But Garner also courts controversy, not least because she refuses to be constrained by the rules of literary form. She has never been afraid to write herself into her nonfiction, and many of her own experiences help to shape her fiction. But who is the ‘I’ in Helen Garner’s work? Bernadette Brennan’s A Writing Life is the first full-length study of Garner’s forty years of work, a literary portrait that maps all of her books against the different stages of her life. Brennan has had access to previously unavailable papers in Garner’s archive, and she provides a lively and rigorous reading of the books, journals and correspondence of one of Australia’s most beloved women of letters. Dr Bernadette Brennan is an academic and researcher in contemporary Australian writing, literature and ethics. She is the author of a number of publications, including a monograph on Brian Castro and two edited collections: Just Words?: Australian Authors Writing for Justice (UQP 2008), and Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics (Vagabond 2008). She lives in Sydney. Garner has always been a boundary-crosser. Refusing the constrictions of literary genre she has sought to write across and craft her own versions of them. She readily admits to a ‘me’ character in all her work. That character is a carefully constructed self. In her fiction, she unsettles her readers’ assumptions about protagonists by creating ‘Helen’ characters, most blatantly in ‘Little Helen’s Sunday Afternoon’, ‘Habe Dank’ and The Spare Room. In so doing, she demonstrates the complexity of a constructed fictional self. ‘Billed as “the first full-length study of Garner’s 40 years of work, a literary portrait that maps all of her books against the different stages of her life”. Well, who wouldn’t want to read that?’ Australian ‘Bernadette Brennan’s ingenious A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work, which gets around the subject’s resistance to biography by viewing her life through her writing, as Garner herself does.’ Susan Wyndham, Best Books of 2017, Australian Book Review ‘Brennan’s depiction of Garner’s fearless approach to the very difficult subjects of The First Stone, Joe Cinque’s Consolation and This House of Grief is beautifully modulated and a real triumph. She has captured and interpreted an important writer and her work beautifully.’ Books + Publishing ‘Brennan has produced a literary portrait that more than does its subject justice. It is not a biography; Garner was quite clear that she didn’t want that, but because Garner is so often present in her own writing, it’s inevitable that her life is reflected in the discussion of her works. This helps put her works in context, and a picture emerges of an amazing writer...Bernadette Brennan has done us all a great favour in delivering this immensely enjoyable book.’ Mark Rubbo, Readings ‘Brennan is an astute and sensitive reader of Garner’s work.’ Big Issue ‘The writing is clear, measured, and graceful throughout...The readings of the fiction are astute and straightforward, tracing Garner’s development from the allegedly unstructured Monkey Grip, which in fact offers a formal equivalent to the push-me pull-you vagaries of love and junk, through the perfection of The Children’s Bach and the experiments in voice and style in Postcards from Surfers, to the late-style bareness and hardness of The Spare Room.’ Sydney Morning Herald 'This book offers an illuminating discussion of Garner’s boundary crossing work. Its own magic lies in bringing elements of memoir and criticism into an absorbing conversation that begins with a rich contextualisation of Garner’s work, and extends into the literary and ethical questions with which Brennan has long been concerned.’Australian ‘Absorbing, informative and engaging read.’ Conversation ‘Brennan examines both assumptions by tracing Garner’s steps to becoming a full-time writer in a style that is both thoughtful and readable.’ Australian Book Review ‘Bernadette Brennan brings a calm eye and an easy grace to her descriptions of Garner’s life, literature and impact on Australia’s cultural and socio-political landscape...She draws a more complex picture of one of our best known and most skilled writers than we’ve enjoyed in a full-length volume before.’ A Bigger Brighter World ‘Probably my favourite book so far [this year]. A marvellous tribute to one of Australia’s great writers.’ Mark Rubbo, The Best Books We’ve Read This Year (So Far) 2017, Readings ‘Bernadette Brennan’s first full-length study of Helen Garner’s work, A Writing Life, has inspired me to pile Garner’s books on my bedside table, and to look at each of them again with fresh eyes.’ The Best Books We’ve Read This Year (So Far) 2017, Readings ‘A remarkably shrewd study of Garner’s work knitted with a tender representation of her personal life.’ Mascara Literary Review ‘Brennan performs a kind of call for literature, its criticism as well as creation.’ Sydney Review of Books ‘You might also include academic Bernadette Brennan’s superb literary portrait of Garner, A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work, which combines a close analysis of Garner’s work with illuminating insights into her life. Garner gave Brennan unprecedented access to her archives and spent long hours in conversation with her. It shows.’ Sydney Morning Herald, Can’t-Put-Down Titles for Summer ‘A book for those who want to understand Garner’s work more. But, it is also a book which makes clear the significant contribution Garner has made to Australian literature. And, in doing that, it is itself a significant book.’ Whispering Gums

Download or read book Bob Hawke written by Blanche d'Alpuget and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-18 with total page 821 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To mark Bob Hawke’s extraordinary life and legacy, this master work brings together the story of the man in full in a definitive hardback commemorative biography. Bob Hawke began life as a good Christian boy from a teetotal family, became a wild, drinking, womanising student, a Rhodes Scholar, a champion of workers, a folk hero recognised throughout the country, a dynamic politician who was elected four times as Australia’s Prime Minister - and transformed his country. He was our longest serving Labor Prime Minister and considered by many our greatest. By the early 1980s Australia was on the road to becoming ‘the poor white trash of Asia’. Hawke as prime minister, with Paul Keating as treasurer, changed all that. Australia became a forward-looking and humane country whose voice commanded respect on the international stage. Hawke was an environmentalist before it was fashionable, he loathed racism, helped end apartheid in South Africa, sent ministers to end the war in Cambodia, foresaw that China would become a great world power and established the first Chinese investment in an iron ore mine in Australia. His journey from the manse of a small South Australian country town to the palaces of Europe, Asia and the United States is the odyssey of a leader it is hard to imagine we will ever see the like of again - a man of towering passions and commitment to causes, and an unshakeable love of humanity.

Download or read book Don Dunstan written by Angela Woollacott and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2019-08-19 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major biography of Don Dunstan, one of the few state premiers to stride the national stage and make a lasting mark on Australian life. Don Dunstan was one of the most significant political figures of twentieth-century Australia. As Premier of South Australia, he blazed a trail of reform. But his influence reached far beyond his home state. He was seen as the architect of a new kind of Australian society, and his decade in office marked a golden age. This is the first comprehensive biography of a larger than life figure. Angela Woollacott recounts how he battled Adelaide's conservative establishment to win office for Labor, and then pioneered Aboriginal land rights, abolished the death penalty, supported women's rights, relaxed censorship and drinking laws and decriminalised homosexuality. He worked against the White Australia Policy, and was an ardent supporter of the arts and food. Although he was much loved by the public, Dunstan's career was marked by controversy and vilification, with scandal surrounding his personal relationships. Dunstan's life story helps us to appreciate just what a watershed era the 1960s and 1970s were in Australia, and to see how one small state could, for a time, lead a nation. 'A fitting tribute' - Penny Wong 'Whitlam and Dunstan were the Washington and Jefferson of modern Australian Labor politics.' - Mike Rann 'Angela Woollacott's biography captures what was so special about him.' - Maggie Beer

Download or read book Douglas Copland written by Marjorie Harper and published by Melbourne University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Australia the name Copland is one to be conjured with.' The Canadian ambassador to China was addressing the diplomatic corps gathered to farewell Professor Douglas Copland, Australia's second Minister to China. It was early 1948, and Copland was leaving China to become founding Vice-Chancellor of the new Australian National University in Canberra. The compliment was a reference to Copland's outstanding career in Australia as an academic, applied economist, administrator and public intellectual. His academic writings were numerous and timely, his newspaper articles were widely syndicated and he was constantly in demand as a public speaker and broadcaster. Copland's name is perpetuated by a lecture theatre at the University of Melbourne, a building at ANU, a secondary college in the Canberra suburb of Melba and by a series of lectures sponsored by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia."

Download or read book The Idea of Home written by John Hughes and published by Giramondo Publishing. This book was released on 2004-08-15 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Idea of Home is a collection of five autobiographical essays, in which John Hughes reflects on growing up in the Hunter Valley coal-mining town of Cessnock, in a household ruled by memories of the Ukraine, from which his mother’s family fled during the Second World War.

Download or read book Come written by Rita Therese and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bold, brave and darkly funny, COME is the extraordinary story of Melbourne sex worker Rita Therese and the love, sex and death she has experienced in her life so far. Two selves intertwine and it leaves you, in the dance room, making a decision that winged liner is just for work. Because you don't know which self you are looking at right now, which person you are. The song stops and you break out of your trance and ask if he'd like to extend Rita is an escort, one of the best in Australia. It all began on a whim at 18, after she rang the number on a sign looking for nude models. Always the outsider, she quickly learns the sex industry is comprised of many other people just like her and she becomes immersed in this world: the drugs, the late nights, the glamour, being an outcast, the attention and validation from men. Mostly she thrives on how taboo her life has become. Following significant personal tragedy and trauma, the line between Rita's sex worker persona Gia and her real self begins to blur in a seemingly endless loop of grief, work, sex, love and heartbreak. In this achingly honest memoir, Rita learns that death and trauma do not always bring grand transformative experiences. Sometimes, in order to go forward, we have to write our own stories and choose to keep living. Unflinching, compelling and darkly funny, Come announces a fearless new talent in Australian writing.

Download or read book Boy Swallows Universe written by Trent Dalton and published by HarperCollins Australia. This book was released on 2018-07-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade' Sydney Morning Herald 'Astonishing, captivating ... a wild, beautiful, heart-exploding ride' Elizabeth Gilbert The bestselling novel that has taken Australia, and the world, by storm. Winner of Book of the Year at the 2019 Indie Book Awards, winner of a record four Australian Book Industry Awards in 2019, including the prestigious Book of the Year Award, and winner of the 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, NSW Premier's Literary Awards Brisbane, 1985: A lost father, a mute brother, a junkie mum, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli Bell's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart and understand what it means to be a good man, but fate keeps throwing obstacles in his way - not the least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer. But now Eli's life is going to get a whole lot more serious: he's about to meet the father he doesn't remember, break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to rescue his mum, come face to face with the criminals who tore his world apart, and fall in love with the girl of his dreams. A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year. Awards: 2019 ABIA Book of the Year Award, Winner 2019 Indie Book Award, Winner 2019 UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Winner 2019 People's Choice Award, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Winner MUD Literary Prize 2019, Winner 2019 ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, Winner 2019 ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, Winner 2019 ABIA Audiobook of the Year, Winner 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Longlisted 2019 Colin Roderick Award, shortlist Reviews: 'Boy Swallows Universe is a wonderful surprise: sharp as a drawer full of knives in terms of subject matter; unrepentantly joyous in its child's-eye view of the world; the best literary debut in a month of Sundays.' The Australian 'Boy Swallows Universe hypnotizes you with wonder, and then hammers you with heartbreak.' Washington Post 'This thrilling novel' New York Times Book Review 'Marvelously plot-rich ... filled with beautifully lyric prose ...At one point Eli wonders if he is good. The answer is "yes," every bit as good as this exceptional novel.' Booklist 'Dalton's splashy, stellar debut makes the typical coming-of-age novel look bland by comparison ... This is an outstanding debut.' Publisher's Weekly (starred review) 'Extraordinary and beautiful storytelling' Guardian

Download or read book Fortunate Voyager written by Philip Ayres and published by Melbourne University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One life, many roles- soldier, brilliant barrister, High Court judge, Governor-General, Australian diplomat, mediator in Northern Ireland, member of the first war crimes tribunal since Nuremburg and Tokyo, head of UN and Commonwealth missions to crisis zones from Cambodia to Burma to Bangladesh, Sir Ninian Stephen is the recipient of five knighthoods and the most honoured Australian in history--and yet precisely because so much of his work was international it has rarely received the notice it deserves in his home country. In this, the first whole-of-life biography of the subject, Philip Ayres traces Stephen's early life in Scotland, England and around continental Europe, from Edinburgh and the Highlands to the spa towns of France and Germany, from the ski runs above Montreux to the Nuremberg Rally of 1938, including the details of his education at outstanding British and Swiss schools and his highly unorthodox 'family' life as an only child with an absent father, the details of which, like so much here, have never previously been revealed. All this constitutes the unknown Ninian Stephen, and yet so much else in this book is new- the wartime Stephen, the barrister S

Download or read book Cloudstreet written by Tim Winton and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 1998 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning author Tim Winton comes an epic novel that regularly tops the list of best-loved novels in Australia. After two separate catastrophes, two very different families leave the country for the bright lights of Perth. The Lambs are industrious, united, and--until God seems to turn His back on their boy Fish--religious. The Pickleses are gamblers, boozers, fractious, and unlikely landlords. Change, hardship, and the war force them to swallow their dignity and share a great, breathing, shuddering house called Cloudstreet. Over the next twenty years, they struggle and strive, laugh and curse, come apart and pull together under the same roof, and try as they can to make their lives. Winner of the Miles Franklin Award and recognized as one of the greatest works of Australian literature, "Cloudstreet" is Tim Winton's sprawling, comic epic about luck and love, fortitude and forgiveness, and the magic of the everyday.