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Tracks: One Woman's Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback (Vintage Departures Ser.)
by Robyn DavidsonThe incredible true story of one woman&’s solo adventure across the Australian outback, accompanied by her faithful dog and four unpredictable camels.I arrived in the Alice at five a.m. with a dog, six dollars and a small suitcase full of inappropriate clothes. . . . There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns. For Robyn Davidson, one of these moments comes at age twenty-seven in Alice Springs, a dodgy town at the frontier of the vast Australian desert. Davidson is intent on walking the 1,700 miles of desolate landscape between Alice Springs and the Indian Ocean, a personal pilgrimage with her dog—and four camels. Tracks is the beautifully written, compelling true story of the author&’s journey and the love/hate relationships she develops along the way: with the Red Centre of Australia; with aboriginal culture; with a handsome photographer; and especially with her lovable and cranky camels, Bub, Dookie, Goliath, and Zeleika. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, Tracks is an unforgettable story that proves that anything is possible. Perfect for fans of Cheryl Strayed&’s Wild.
Hope at Sea
by Teresa ShewryAs far back as Thomas More's Utopia and Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, the Pacific Ocean has inspired literary creations of promising worlds. Hope at Sea asks how literary writers have more recently conceived the future of ocean living. In doing so, it provides a new perspective on art and imagination in the face of enormous environmental change.Drawing together ecocriticism, theories of hope, and literary analysis, this book explores how literary writers evoke hope in engaging with environmental upheavals that are reshaping life in the Pacific Ocean. Teresa Shewry considers contemporary poetry, short stories, novels, art, and journalistic pieces from Australia, New Zealand, Hawai'i, and other ocean sites, examining their imaginative accounts of present life and future living in places where humans coexist with environmental loss: rivers that no longer reach the sea, dwindling populations of ocean life, the effects of nuclear weapons testing, and more. These works are connected by their views of a future that includes hope.Until now, hope has never been theorized in a direct, sustained way in ecocriticism. Hope at Sea makes an argument for hope as a lens for creative and critical confrontation with environmental disruptions and the resulting sense of loss. It also reflects on the critical approaches that hope as an analytic category opens up for the study of environmental literature.With hope as a critical perspective, Shewry develops a method for reading environmental literature: literary writers create new ways to apprehend existing environmental realities and craft stories about seas, forests, cities, and rivers that could be--not as literal plans but as ways of imagining promising lives in the present world and in the world to come.
The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance
by Margaret MahyWhen her little brother seems to become possessed by an evil spirit, fourteen-year-old Laura seeks the help of the strangely compelling older boy at school who she is convinced has supernatural powers.
The Catalogue of the Universe
by Margaret MahyConfident Angela and intellectual Tycho seem an unlikely pair. They share a passion for deciphering the universe outside their own personal struggles. To Angela and Tycho, it seems the universe can be ordered; their own lives cannot. As their family struggles swirl around them, they are suddenly desperate to discover where they fit in.
The Diggers of Colditz: The classic Australian POW story about escape from the impossible
by Jack Champ Colin BurgessColditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to escape from the massive floodlit stronghold, by any means necessary. In this riveting account – by turns humorous, heartfelt and tragic – historian Colin Burgess and Lieutenant Jack Champ, from the point of view of the prisoners themselves, tell the story of the twenty Australians who made this castle their ‘home’, and the plans they made that were so crazy that some even achieved the seemingly impossible – escape! ‘A stirring testimony of mateship . . . We are often on tenterhooks, always impressed by their determination, industry and courage’ Australian Book Review
An Institutionalist Guide to Economics and Public Policy
by Marc R. ToolThis narrative recounts the 18th and 19th century "shipping out" of Pacific islanders aboard European and American vessels, a kind of "counter-exploring", that echoed the ancient voyages of settlement of their island ancestors.
Quilt: A Collection of Prose
by Finola MoorheadAward-winning author, Finola Moorhead stitches together essays, reviews and short stories that make an incisive comment of the process of writing.
The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding (Harvill Panther Ser.)
by Robert HughesThe history of the birth of Australia which came out of the suffereing and brutality of England's infamous convict transportation system. With 16 pages of illustrations and 3 maps.From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Fire Raiser
by Maurice GeeThe night Dargie's stables burns down, Kitty Wix is knocked tumbling to the ground by strange, loping man fleeing the scene. Who is the fire-raiser who has been terrorizing the small town? Kitty and her friend Irene begin to have their suspicions as to who has been committing the crimes, as do Kitty's brother Noel and his friend Phil. Their curiosity leads them to reluctantly join forces to try and track down the arsonist. The children know they will have to act fast and catch the fire-raiser in the act for anyone to believe them. While Noel and Phil keep watch, the fire-raiser a madman with fires constantly burning in his head, strikes again -- and this time there are lives at stake....
My Place for Younger Readers: My Place For Young Readers - Part 3
by Sally MorganSince its publication in 1987, Sally Morgan's My Place has sold more than half a million copies in Australia, been translated and read all over the world, and been reprinted dozens of times. Sally's rich, zesty and moving work is perhaps the best loved biography of Aboriginal Australia ever written. My Place for Younger Readers is an abridged edition that retains all the charm and power of the original.
One for the Road: An Outback Adventure
by Tony Horwitz"A high-spirited, comic ramble into the savage Outback populated by irreverent, beer-guzzling frontiersmen." --Chicago Tribune"A fascinating insight into what we're all about on the highways and byways along the outback track." --The Telegraph (Sydney)Swept off to live in Sydney by his Australian bride, American writer Tony Horwitz longs to explore the exotic reaches of his adopted land. So one day, armed only with a backpack and fantasies of the open road, he hitchhikes off into the awesome emptiness of Australia's outback. What follows is a hilarious, hair-raising ride into the hot red center of a continent so desolate that civilization dwindles to a gas pump and a pub. While the outback's terrain is inhospitable, its scattered inhabitants are anything but. Horwitz entrusts himself to Aborigines, opal diggers, jackeroos, card sharks, and sunstruck wanderers who measure distance in the number of beers consumed en route. Along the way, Horwitz discovers that the outback is as treacherous as it is colorful. Bug-bitten, sunblasted, dust-choked, and bloodied by a near-fatal accident, Horwitz endures seven thousand miles of the world's most forbidding real estate, and some very bizarre personal encounters, as he winds his way to Queensland, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin--and a hundred bush pubs in between. Horwitz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of two national bestsellers, Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map, is the ideal tour guide for anyone who has ever dreamed of a genuine Australian adventure."Lively, fast-paced and amusing . . . a consistently interesting and entertaining account." --Kirkus Reviews"Ironical, perceptive and subtle . . . will have readers getting out their maps and itching to follow Horwitz's tracks. . . . The internal journey is his finest achievement; he allows the reader into his heart, to go travelling with him there, sharing his adventures of the spirit." --Sunday Times (London)From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Songlines (Picador Bks.)
by Bruce ChatwinBruce Chatwin, author of In Patagonia, ventures into the desolate land of Outback Australia to learn the meaning of the Aboriginals' ancient "Dreaming-tracks." Along these timeless paths, amongst the fortune hunters and redneck Australians, racist policemen and mysterious Aboriginal holy men, he discovers a wondrous vision of man's place in the world. A blend of travelogue, memoir, history, philosophy, science, meditation, and commonplace book... Chatwin's astonishing style captures the metamorphoses of his own 'Walkabout' He takes the travel genre beyond exoticism and the simple picturesque into the metaphysical.
Whale Rider
by Witi IhimaeraEight-year-old Kahu, a member of the Maori tribe of Whangara, New Zealand, fights to prove her love, her leadership, and her destiny. Her people claim descent from Kahutia Te Rangi, the legendary "whale rider." In every generation since Kahutia, a male heir has inherited the title of chief. But now there is no male heir, and the aging chief is desperate to find a successor. Kahu is his only great-grandchild--and Maori tradition has no use for a girl. But when hundreds of whales beach themselves and threaten the future of the Maori tribe, it is Kahu who saves the tribe when she reveals that she has the whale rider's ancient gift of communicating with whales.
By the Line
by Thomas KeneallySchoolboy narrator Daniel Jordan, growing up in working-class Sydney during the Second World War, is confused by a world in which the religious dogma of his school conflicts with the communism of his family's terrifying neighbour, the 'Comrade'. Refreshingly unsentimental, this is the funny, ultimately tragic story of a boy struggling to understand a world in which concepts like innocence and guilt, good and evil are clearly open to interpretation.
The Making of the Aborigines
by Bain AttwoodBefore 1788, the peoples of this continent did not consider themselves 'Aboriginal'. They only became 'Aborigines' in the wake of the British invasion. In this startling and original study, Bain Attwood reveals how relationships between black Australians and European colonisers determined the hearts and minds of the indigenous peoples, making them anew as Aboriginals.In examining the period after the 'killing times', this young historian provides new perspectives on racial ideology, government policy, and the rule of law. In examining European domination, he unravels the patterns of associations which were woven between European and Aborigine, and shows the complex meanings and significance these relationships held for both groups.In this book, the dispossessed are not cast as merely passive victims; they appear as real characters, men and women who adapted to European colonisation in accordance with their own historical and cultural experience. Out of this exchange the colonised created a new consciousness and began to forge a common identity for themselves.A story of cultural change and continuity both poignant and disturbing in its telling, this important book is sure to provoke controversy about what it means to be Aboriginal.'This intelligent and impeccably researched book seeks to advance our understanding of the story of white/Aboriginal contact. It will be required reading for anyone working in the field.' - Henry Reynolds'Colonisation is both destructive and creative of peoples. Recent historians have revealed the extensive destruction of black Australians and their cultures. But now Bain Attwood, in this finely crafted and highly original series of case studies. plots the complex human relations and historical forces that re-made these indigenous people into the Aborigines.' - Richard Broome
A Question of Commitment: Australian literature in the twenty years after the war
by Susan LeverIn the years since the Second World War, Australia has seen a period of literary creativity which outshines any earlier period in the nation's literary history. This creativity has its beginnings in the arguments and alignments which emerged at the end of the War, and the changes in perceptions of art and society which occurred during the fifties and early sixties.A Question of Commitment examines the attitudes of writers as diverse as James McAuley, Frank Hardy, Judith Wright, Patrick White and A. D. Hope, as they responded to a changing Australian society during the postwar years. Through their work and that of many others, it considers the debates about literary nationalism, the artistic politics of the Cold War, the threat of technology to art in the Atomic Age, and the nature of the writer's role in the new society. It documents the way in which the political commitments of some writers and the resistance to commitment of others were challenged by political and social changes of the late fifties.Susan McKernan's lively exploration of Australia's writers in a time of innovation provides the reader with the context needed to understand the creative choices they made and, in so doing, introduces wider intellectual and cultural issues which remain relevant to this day.
Strange Objects
by Gary CrewAfter discovering valuable relics from a seventeenth-century shipwreck, a sixteen-year-old Australian disappears under mysterious circumstances.
Misery Guts
by Morris GleitzmanThe adventures of twelve-year-old Keith as he tries to cheer up his parents in many different ways include painting their shop in bright colors and convincing them to move from gloomy England to a place called Paradise.
Outback Station (Outback Saga #2)
by Aaron FletcherThe Convict: David Kerrick is a man with nothing left to lose. Betrayed by the woman he adores, deported to Australia for murdering her lover, he has lost the will to live until the lure of the outback claims his soul. Captivated by the sweeping wild beauty of the land, its freedom and mystery, he sets out to make a piece of it his own. Battling drought and dingoes, bushfires and bushrangers, he lives for the moment until the past comes back to haunt him... The Colonist: Wealthy and beautiful, Alexandra Hammond has every reason to disdain the penniless convict who has killed her cousin. But Alexandra is a woman with the strength to judge the truth for herself, and the determination to forge her own destiny. Together, they will take on the vast outback, burying the bitterness of the past and planting the seeds of a shining future.
Worry Warts
by Morris GleitzmanWorried because his parents' constant fighting has been aggravated by their financial troubles, twelve-year-old Keith decides to solve the problem by running away to pick up a fortune in the Australian opal fields.
Blabber Mouth
by Morris GleitzmanSet in Australia, this humorous and touching story of the misadventures of a clever girl who cannot speak and her social misfit of a father will delight readers.
Culture Shock! Australia
by Ilsa SharpIn addition to explaining Australia to newcomers and visitors in the hope of bridging culture gaps and improving the chances of mutual empathy and friendship, it is the author's wish that Australians will, through this book, see themselves through outsiders' eyes.
Transit of Venus
by Julian EvansJulian Evans won a host of awards for this smart, funny, and thoughtful travelogue through the South Pacific islands. Evans was raised in Australia, but moved to England as a teenager, and forever longed to return to the Pacific of his childhood. He sails on a freighter from Australia to cross the Pacific, stopping at a series of ever more remote islands. Along the way he discusses the politics, history, and culture of the Pacific Islanders and the Europeans with whom they so uneasily co-exist. English, not American, spelling and punctuation; also dialect here and there
Translations from the Natural World
by Les MurrayThe centerpiece of this collection of poems is "Presence," a sequence of forty "translations from the natural world" about a variety of settings and their amazing denizens. Lyre birds, honeycombs, sea lions, possums, all act as spurs for Murray's protean talent for description and imitation.