AustLit

'Eliza travels to Sydney to deal with the estate of her Aunt Dodge, and finds Maxine, a hitherto unknown cousin, occupying Dodge's apartment. When legal complications derail plans to live it up on their inheritance, the women's lives become consumed by absurd attempts to deal with Australian tax law, as well their own mounting boredom and squalor. The most astonishing debut novel of the decade, Dodge Rose calls to mind Henry Green in its skewed use of colloquial speech, Joyce in its love of inventories, and William Gaddis in its virtuoso lampooning of law, high finance, and national myth.' (Publication summary)

'On her first day of school, Lily Struthers meets Eva, one of the daughters of the infamous avant-garde artist Evan Trentham. He and his wife are attempting to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like-minded artists to live and work with them at their family home. As Lily’s friendship with Eva grows, she becomes infatuated with this artist colony, longing to truly belong to this makeshift family.

'Looking back on those years later in life, Lily realises that this utopian circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.

'The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.'

Source: Publisher's blurb. (Sighted: 30/1/2014)

'The Reckoning destroyed civilisation and humanity has had to rise from the ashes. But there are now people with abilities - Flyers, Firestarters, Rumblers - and society is scared of them. The government calls them Illegals. Ashala Wolf protects a group of Illegals. They hide together in the Firstwood and she'll do anything to keep them safe. When Ashala is captured, she realises she has been betrayed by someone she trusted. Now she only has herself. But when Neville starts digging in her memories for information, she doubts she can protect her people forever...will the Tribe survive the interrogation of Ashala Wolf?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A searingly honest and achingly funny story about love and sex amid the hotbed of university colleges by the award-winning author of Raw Blue.

'Jess Gordon is out for revenge. Last year the jocks from Knights College tried to shame her best friend. This year she and a hand-picked college girl gang are going to get even.

'The lesson: don't mess with Unity girls.

'The target: Blondie, a typical Knights stud, arrogant, cold . . . and smart enough to keep up with Jess.

'A neo-riot grrl with a penchant for fanning the flames meets a rugby-playing sexist pig - sworn enemies or two people who happen to find each other when they're at their most vulnerable?

'It's all Girl meets Boy, Girl steals from Boy, seduces Boy, ties Boy to a chair and burns Boy's stuff. Just your typical love story.' (Publication summary)

'The Reckoning destroyed civilisation and humanity has had to rise from the ashes. But there are now people with abilities - Flyers, Firestarters, Rumblers - and society is scared of them. The government calls them Illegals. Ashala Wolf protects a group of Illegals. They hide together in the Firstwood and she'll do anything to keep them safe. When Ashala is captured, she realises she has been betrayed by someone she trusted. Now she only has herself. But when Neville starts digging in her memories for information, she doubts she can protect her people forever...will the Tribe survive the interrogation of Ashala Wolf?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Secrets, lies, murder and betrayal.

'Micah Wilkins is a liar. But when her boyfriend, Zach, dies under brutal circumstances, the shock might be enough to set her straight. Or maybe not. Especially when lying comes as naturally to her as breathing. Was Micah dating Zach? Did they kiss? Did she see him the night he died? And is she really hiding a family secret? Where does the actual truth lie?

'Liar is a breathtaking roller-coaster read that will have you up all night, desperately seeking for something true.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In this beautiful photographic book for young children, Bob Randall explains, in a simple but effective way, the Anangu people's relationship to all that is around them, and why we must learn to care for the earth, its plants and its creatures.' (Source: ABC Shop website)

'Without doubt Judy was the worst of the seven, probably because she was the cleverest.'

'Her father, Captain Woolcot, found his vivacious, cheeky daughter impossible – but seven children were really too much for him and most of the time they ran wild at their rambling riverside home, Misrule.

'Step inside and meet them all – dreamy Meg, and Pip, daring Judy, naughty Bunty, Nell, Baby and the youngest, 'the General'. Come and share in their lives, their laughter and their tears.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Two Mates is the true story of the special mateship between two young boys who have grown up together in the coastal town of Broome in Australia's north-west.

'The Weekly Poem has been primarily designed with teachers and students of poetry in mind. It contains exercises using 52 different concepts and forms, all of which have been developed to inspire and expand poetic practice. Each exercise is accompanied by one or more poems—sourced from around the world, with a main focus on Australia—which provide guidance, depth and an invigorating sense of possibility.

'The Weekly Poem represents an invaluable resource for all poets—emerging or established—and may be of benefit both in the classroom or at the private desk.' (Publication summary)

'She hears her own thick voice deep inside her ears when she says, 'I need to know where I am.' The man stands there, tall and narrow, hand still on the doorknob, surprised. He says, almost in sympathy, 'Oh, sweetie. You need to know what you are.'

'Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of a desert. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other girls, forced to wear strange uniforms, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious armed jailers and a 'nurse'. The girls all have something in common, but what is it? What crime has brought them here from the city? Who is the mysterious security company responsible for this desolate place with its brutal rules, its total isolation from the contemporary world? Doing hard labour under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each girl's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue - but when the food starts running out it becomes clear that the jailers have also become the jailed. The girls can only rescue themselves.

'The Natural Way of Things is a gripping, starkly imaginative exploration of contemporary misogyny and corporate control, and of what it means to hunt and be hunted. Most of all, it is the story of two friends, their sisterly love and courage.

'With extraordinary echoes of The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies, The Natural Way of Things is a compulsively readable, scarifying and deeply moving contemporary novel. It confirms Charlotte Wood's position as one of our most thoughtful, provocative and fearless truth-tellers, as she unflinchingly reveals us and our world to ourselves.' (Publication summary)

'From the subtropical lushness of Queensland’s Tamborine Rainforest to the claustrophobic bedroom of a Boston physicist, Janette Turner Hospital’s characters breathe an atmosphere of passion and suspense. Charade Ryan, an enigmatic story-spinning Scheherazade, searches for a way to unravel the long-held secrets of her family origins. As the narrative flits between the present and the past, and truth becomes increasingly subjective, Charade weaves a rich and textural tale out of the myths of her past. This vibrant, superbly crafted novel explores the elusive boundaries between existence and imagination, memory and truth.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (UQP, 2015 ed.)

'My Brilliant Career was written by Stella Franklin (1879-1954) when she was just nineteen years old. The novel struggled to find an Australian publisher, but was published in London and Edinburgh in 1901 after receiving an endorsement from Henry Lawson. Although Franklin wrote under the pseudonym 'Miles Franklin', Lawson’s preface makes it clear that Franklin is, as Lawson puts it 'a girl.'

'The novel relates the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a strong-willed young woman of the 1890s growing up in the Goulburn area of New South Wales and longing to be a writer.' (Publication summary)

'From the outside, Josh's life looks pretty much perfect. He's in a band, he has a gorgeous girlfriend and he does well at school. But Josh's family has been slowly falling apart since his older brother disappeared two years before. Then Josh comes across a clue to Michael's whereabouts in the Lost Property Office where he's working for the holidays. Determined to put his family back together, and without a word to anyone, Josh too leaves Sydney in a desperate bid to bring his brother home.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In The Best Australian Essays 2014, Robert Manne assembles his picks of contemporary non-fiction writing. Tim Winton reflects on the impact of landscape on the Australian character; Helen Garner remembers her mother with a raw and stirring poignancy; Christos Tsiolkas wonders how the Left forgot their origins; Tim Flannery traces the history of the Great Barrier Reef and fears its destruction. With essays traversing madness, liberty under the rule of Tony Abbott, the enslaving of horses and the legacy of Doris Lessing, this sharp collection offers lucid insight, shrewd understanding and heartbreaking empathy.' (Publication summary)

'On her first day of school, Lily Struthers meets Eva, one of the daughters of the infamous avant-garde artist Evan Trentham. He and his wife are attempting to escape the stifling conservatism of 1930s Australia by inviting other like-minded artists to live and work with them at their family home. As Lily’s friendship with Eva grows, she becomes infatuated with this artist colony, longing to truly belong to this makeshift family.

'Looking back on those years later in life, Lily realises that this utopian circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.

'The Strays is an engrossing story of ambition, sacrifice and compromised loyalties from an exciting new talent.'

Source: Publisher's blurb. (Sighted: 30/1/2014)

Look Who's Morphing is a collection of bizarre, funny, often menacing stories in which, along with his extended family, the central character undergoes a series of transformations, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, music clips and video games, porn flicks and comics. He is Godzilla, a Muppet, and Whitney Houston's bodyguard; the Fonz, a robot, a Ford Bronco 4x4 - and, as a climax, a Gulliver-sized cock rock singer, played upon by an adoring troupe of sexy Lilliputians in short skirts and sailor suits and cheerleader outfits. Within these fantasies there is a deep intellectual and emotional engagement, a fundamental questioning of the nature of identity, and the way it constructs itself in a world dominated by the images of popular culture. – From the publisher's website.

'The Reckoning destroyed civilisation and humanity has had to rise from the ashes. But there are now people with abilities - Flyers, Firestarters, Rumblers - and society is scared of them. The government calls them Illegals. Ashala Wolf protects a group of Illegals. They hide together in the Firstwood and she'll do anything to keep them safe. When Ashala is captured, she realises she has been betrayed by someone she trusted. Now she only has herself. But when Neville starts digging in her memories for information, she doubts she can protect her people forever...will the Tribe survive the interrogation of Ashala Wolf?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Secrets, lies, murder and betrayal.

'Micah Wilkins is a liar. But when her boyfriend, Zach, dies under brutal circumstances, the shock might be enough to set her straight. Or maybe not. Especially when lying comes as naturally to her as breathing. Was Micah dating Zach? Did they kiss? Did she see him the night he died? And is she really hiding a family secret? Where does the actual truth lie?

'Liar is a breathtaking roller-coaster read that will have you up all night, desperately seeking for something true.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Without doubt Judy was the worst of the seven, probably because she was the cleverest.'

'Her father, Captain Woolcot, found his vivacious, cheeky daughter impossible – but seven children were really too much for him and most of the time they ran wild at their rambling riverside home, Misrule.

'Step inside and meet them all – dreamy Meg, and Pip, daring Judy, naughty Bunty, Nell, Baby and the youngest, 'the General'. Come and share in their lives, their laughter and their tears.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Two Mates is the true story of the special mateship between two young boys who have grown up together in the coastal town of Broome in Australia's north-west.

'From a master storyteller, this book links personal discovery to a sense of nature. It restores us to a wisdom that is at once powerful and fresh. Includes reproductions of bark paintings and artworks. ' (Publication summary)

'Laklak Burarrwanga and family invite you to their Country, centred on a beautiful beach in Arnhem Land. Its crystal waters are full of fish, turtle, crab and stingray, to hunt; the land behind has bush fruits, pandanus for weaving, wood for spears, all kinds of useful things. This country is also rich with meaning. 'We can go anywhere and see a river, hill, tree, rock telling a story.' Here too is Laklak's own history, from her long walk across Arnhem Land as a child to her people's fight for land rights and for a say in their children's schooling. She and her family stand tall, a proud and successful Indigenous community.'

Source: Bookseller's website

'The Beautiful Anxiety continually breaks across boundaries of the intimate and the global in an invigorating and unsettling mix of materialist and speculative writing on the interconnectedness of life amidst the environmental and cultural turmoil of the 21st century. The poems are in turn provocative, tender, impatient, playful, and swerve through the world, awake to its lostness as well as its ‘flesh and spark’.' (Publisher's blurb)

Look Who's Morphing is a collection of bizarre, funny, often menacing stories in which, along with his extended family, the central character undergoes a series of transformations, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, music clips and video games, porn flicks and comics. He is Godzilla, a Muppet, and Whitney Houston's bodyguard; the Fonz, a robot, a Ford Bronco 4x4 - and, as a climax, a Gulliver-sized cock rock singer, played upon by an adoring troupe of sexy Lilliputians in short skirts and sailor suits and cheerleader outfits. Within these fantasies there is a deep intellectual and emotional engagement, a fundamental questioning of the nature of identity, and the way it constructs itself in a world dominated by the images of popular culture. – From the publisher's website.

'This book tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians - those who lost most in our country's early colonial struggle for power. Surveying two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, it reveals what white Australia lost through unremitting colonial invasion and tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation. It traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of colonial society to a more central place in modern Australia.".

'Since its first appearance in 1982 and revision in 1994, Richard Broome's Aboriginal Australians has won a wide readership as a classic text on the history of race relations in Australia. Now fully updated to 2001, this new edition explains the land rights struggle since Mabo, the Hindmarsh Island affair, debates over the 'stolen generation', 'sorry' and reconciliation, and the recent experience of Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Australians remains the only concise and up-to-date survey of Aboriginal history since 1788.' (Taken from book jacket of 2002 edition.)

'In 1975 Anne Summers set out to describe the way in which Australia's history and culture had limited women's participation in our own society. The result was a devastating and totally original view of Australia that had a profound effect on a generation of women, a book that stands beside the best of feminist literature and Australian history.' (Publication summary)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

'A powerful story of love and loss, secrets and revelations - and making sense of a past that once seemed perfect.

'For Tom Brennan, life is about rugby, mates and family - until a night of celebration changes his life forever. Tom's world explodes as his brother Daniel is sent to jail and the Brennans are forced to leave the small town Tom's lived in his whole life. Tom is a survivor, but he needs a ticket out of the past just as much as Daniel. He will find it in many forms . . .' (Publication summary)

'What makes us Australian? Fifty years ago, the laconic bush worker was indisputably the typical Australian, and any Australian schoolchild could have quoted at least the first verse of Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River. Now at the beginning of the 21st century, waves of immigration and a highly cosmopolitan urban culture make it more difficult to see what it is that unites us on this dry brown land. This collection of some of the best Australian writing old and new, from across the continent, reminds us of our heritage and shows we have much to be proud of.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Peta Tully has found her Mr Right. The only trouble is, she's not sure she's ready to settle down. Not just yet, anyway - so when she's offered a twelve-month contract interstate which just might win her the job of her dreams, she puts her Sydney life on hold, packs her bags and jumps on a plane, leaving her doting boyfriend behind.

'Peta takes a voluntary vow of celibacy, but sticking to it proves harder than she imagines.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Landscape of Farewell ... is the story of Max Otto, an elderly German academic. After the death of his much-loved wife and his recognition that he will never write the great study of history that was to be his life's crowning work, Max believes his life is all but over. Everything changes, though, when his valedictory lecture is challenged by Professor Vita McLelland, a feisty young Australian Aboriginal academic visiting Germany. Their meeting and growing friendship sets Max on a journey that would have seemed unthinkable just a few short weeks earlier.

'When, at Vita's invitation, Max travels to Australia, he forms a deep friendship with her uncle, Aboriginal elder Dougald Gnapun. It is a friendship that not only gives new meaning and purpose to Max, but which teaches him the profound importance of truth-telling in reconciliation with his own and his country's past.' (Publisher's blurb)

Look Who's Morphing is a collection of bizarre, funny, often menacing stories in which, along with his extended family, the central character undergoes a series of transformations, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, music clips and video games, porn flicks and comics. He is Godzilla, a Muppet, and Whitney Houston's bodyguard; the Fonz, a robot, a Ford Bronco 4x4 - and, as a climax, a Gulliver-sized cock rock singer, played upon by an adoring troupe of sexy Lilliputians in short skirts and sailor suits and cheerleader outfits. Within these fantasies there is a deep intellectual and emotional engagement, a fundamental questioning of the nature of identity, and the way it constructs itself in a world dominated by the images of popular culture. – From the publisher's website.

'Dumped in the River Charon, hunted by an acursed river creature and betrayed by the wicked Matron Pluckrose, Tensy Farlow is in mortal danger. She has no parents. Worse still, she has no guardian angel.

'When she is thrown into the Home for Mislaid Children - a gloomy orphanage where ravens attack, Watchers hover over your bed, and even the angels cannot be trusted - it seems that all hope is lost.

'Yet could it be that a plucky, flame-haired orphan with a mysterious past is precisely what this dark world needs?' (From the publisher's website.)

'Without doubt Judy was the worst of the seven, probably because she was the cleverest.'

'Her father, Captain Woolcot, found his vivacious, cheeky daughter impossible – but seven children were really too much for him and most of the time they ran wild at their rambling riverside home, Misrule.

'Step inside and meet them all – dreamy Meg, and Pip, daring Judy, naughty Bunty, Nell, Baby and the youngest, 'the General'. Come and share in their lives, their laughter and their tears.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Two Mates is the true story of the special mateship between two young boys who have grown up together in the coastal town of Broome in Australia's north-west.

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

'An authoritative survey of Australian Aboriginal writing over two centuries, across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Including some of the most distinctive writing produced in Australia, it offers rich insights into Aboriginal culture and experience...

'The anthology includes journalism, petitions and political letters from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as major works that reflect the blossoming of Aboriginal poetry, prose and drama from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Literature has been used as a powerful political tool by Aboriginal people in a political system which renders them largely voiceless. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Alice Aigner is successful, independent and a confirmed serial dater - but at her ten-year school reunion she has a sudden change of heart. Bored rigid by her married, mortgaged and motherly former classmates, Alice decides to prove that a woman can have it all: a man, marriage, career, kids and a mind of her own.

'She sets herself a goal: meet the perfect man and marry him before her thirtieth birthday, just under two years away. Together with her best friends Dannie, Liza and Peta, Alice draws up a ten-point plan. Then, with a little help from her mum, her dad, her brothers, her colleagues and her neighbour across the hall, she sets out to find Mr Right. Unfortunately for Alice, it's not quite as easy as she imagines.

'Who could not fall in love with our Koori heroine as she dates (among others): Renan, whose career goal is to be the world's best moonwalker and male hula dancer; Tufu the commitment-phobic Samoan football player; scary Simon the one-night stand; and Paul - Mr Dreamboat, but perhaps too good to be true. All the while, Alice skilfully avoids dating Cliff, son of her mum's friend, a confirmed bachelor who isn't likely to settle down with a woman anytime soon.' (Publisher's blurb)

Marcia Langton analyses the making and watching of films, videos and TV programs by Aboriginal people in remote and settled Australia. She introduces theoretical perspectives to investigate concepts of Aboriginality and presents case studies of films such as Jedda, Tracey Moffat's Night Cries, Brian Syron's Jindalee Lady and Ned Lander and Rachel Perkin's film of the Warlpiri Fire Ceremony Jardiwarnpa. The central requirement is to develop a body of knowledge on representation of Aboriginal people and their concerns in art, film, television or other media and a critical perspective to do with aesthetics and politics, drawing from Aboriginal world views, from western traditions and from history.

'In 1975 Anne Summers set out to describe the way in which Australia's history and culture had limited women's participation in our own society. The result was a devastating and totally original view of Australia that had a profound effect on a generation of women, a book that stands beside the best of feminist literature and Australian history.' (Publication summary)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Without doubt Judy was the worst of the seven, probably because she was the cleverest.'

'Her father, Captain Woolcot, found his vivacious, cheeky daughter impossible – but seven children were really too much for him and most of the time they ran wild at their rambling riverside home, Misrule.

'Step inside and meet them all – dreamy Meg, and Pip, daring Judy, naughty Bunty, Nell, Baby and the youngest, 'the General'. Come and share in their lives, their laughter and their tears.' (From the publisher's website.)

'An authoritative survey of Australian Aboriginal writing over two centuries, across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Including some of the most distinctive writing produced in Australia, it offers rich insights into Aboriginal culture and experience...

'The anthology includes journalism, petitions and political letters from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as major works that reflect the blossoming of Aboriginal poetry, prose and drama from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Literature has been used as a powerful political tool by Aboriginal people in a political system which renders them largely voiceless. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Alice Aigner is successful, independent and a confirmed serial dater - but at her ten-year school reunion she has a sudden change of heart. Bored rigid by her married, mortgaged and motherly former classmates, Alice decides to prove that a woman can have it all: a man, marriage, career, kids and a mind of her own.

'She sets herself a goal: meet the perfect man and marry him before her thirtieth birthday, just under two years away. Together with her best friends Dannie, Liza and Peta, Alice draws up a ten-point plan. Then, with a little help from her mum, her dad, her brothers, her colleagues and her neighbour across the hall, she sets out to find Mr Right. Unfortunately for Alice, it's not quite as easy as she imagines.

'Who could not fall in love with our Koori heroine as she dates (among others): Renan, whose career goal is to be the world's best moonwalker and male hula dancer; Tufu the commitment-phobic Samoan football player; scary Simon the one-night stand; and Paul - Mr Dreamboat, but perhaps too good to be true. All the while, Alice skilfully avoids dating Cliff, son of her mum's friend, a confirmed bachelor who isn't likely to settle down with a woman anytime soon.' (Publisher's blurb)

Marcia Langton analyses the making and watching of films, videos and TV programs by Aboriginal people in remote and settled Australia. She introduces theoretical perspectives to investigate concepts of Aboriginality and presents case studies of films such as Jedda, Tracey Moffat's Night Cries, Brian Syron's Jindalee Lady and Ned Lander and Rachel Perkin's film of the Warlpiri Fire Ceremony Jardiwarnpa. The central requirement is to develop a body of knowledge on representation of Aboriginal people and their concerns in art, film, television or other media and a critical perspective to do with aesthetics and politics, drawing from Aboriginal world views, from western traditions and from history.

'Intimate Archives explores the issues involved in using archival material to research the personal lives of public people, in this case of Australian writers Marjorie Barnard (1897-1987), Alieen Palmer (1915-1988) and Lesbia Harford (1891-1927). The book gives an insight into the romantic experiences of the three female writers, based on their private letters, diaries and notebooks held in the National Library of Australia and other public institutions.

Maryanne Dever, Ann Vickery and Sally Newman consider the ethical dilemmas of researching private material and discovering the "truths" revealed within. In this sense, the book is both an introverted contemplation of private affairs and an extroverted meditation on the right to acquire and assume intimate knowledge.' (Publisher's blurb)

'My Brilliant Career was written by Stella Franklin (1879-1954) when she was just nineteen years old. The novel struggled to find an Australian publisher, but was published in London and Edinburgh in 1901 after receiving an endorsement from Henry Lawson. Although Franklin wrote under the pseudonym 'Miles Franklin', Lawson’s preface makes it clear that Franklin is, as Lawson puts it 'a girl.'

'The novel relates the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a strong-willed young woman of the 1890s growing up in the Goulburn area of New South Wales and longing to be a writer.' (Publication summary)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In 1806 William Thornhill, a man of quick temper and deep feelings, is transported from the slums of London to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and their children he arrives in a harsh land he cannot understand.

'But the colony can turn a convict into a free man. Eight years later Thornhill sails up the Hawkesbury to claim a hundred acres for himself.

'Aboriginal people already live on that river. And other recent arrivals - Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs Herring - are finding their own ways to respond to them.

'Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, soon has to make the most difficult choice of his life.

'Inspired by research into her own family history, Kate Grenville vividly creates the reality of settler life, its longings, dangers and dilemmas. The Secret River is a brilliantly written book, a groundbreaking story about identity, belonging and ownership.' (From the publisher's website.)

'What makes us Australian? Fifty years ago, the laconic bush worker was indisputably the typical Australian, and any Australian schoolchild could have quoted at least the first verse of Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River. Now at the beginning of the 21st century, waves of immigration and a highly cosmopolitan urban culture make it more difficult to see what it is that unites us on this dry brown land. This collection of some of the best Australian writing old and new, from across the continent, reminds us of our heritage and shows we have much to be proud of.' (Publisher's blurb)

"The rabbits came many grandparents ago.

They build houses, made roads, had children.

They cut down trees.

A whole continent of rabbits..." (back cover)

An allegorical story using rabbits, an introduced species, to represent the arrival of Europeans in Australia and the subsequent widespread environmental destruction.

'Without doubt Judy was the worst of the seven, probably because she was the cleverest.'

'Her father, Captain Woolcot, found his vivacious, cheeky daughter impossible – but seven children were really too much for him and most of the time they ran wild at their rambling riverside home, Misrule.

'Step inside and meet them all – dreamy Meg, and Pip, daring Judy, naughty Bunty, Nell, Baby and the youngest, 'the General'. Come and share in their lives, their laughter and their tears.' (From the publisher's website.)

'An authoritative survey of Australian Aboriginal writing over two centuries, across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Including some of the most distinctive writing produced in Australia, it offers rich insights into Aboriginal culture and experience...

'The anthology includes journalism, petitions and political letters from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as major works that reflect the blossoming of Aboriginal poetry, prose and drama from the mid-twentieth century onwards. Literature has been used as a powerful political tool by Aboriginal people in a political system which renders them largely voiceless. These works chronicle the ongoing suffering of dispossession, but also the resilience of Aboriginal people across the country, and the hope and joy in their lives.' (Publisher's blurb)

'This book tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians - those who lost most in our country's early colonial struggle for power. Surveying two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, it reveals what white Australia lost through unremitting colonial invasion and tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation. It traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of colonial society to a more central place in modern Australia.".

'Since its first appearance in 1982 and revision in 1994, Richard Broome's Aboriginal Australians has won a wide readership as a classic text on the history of race relations in Australia. Now fully updated to 2001, this new edition explains the land rights struggle since Mabo, the Hindmarsh Island affair, debates over the 'stolen generation', 'sorry' and reconciliation, and the recent experience of Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Australians remains the only concise and up-to-date survey of Aboriginal history since 1788.' (Taken from book jacket of 2002 edition.)