AustLit

'do you remember the water buffalo at the end of our street?

or the deep-sea diver we found near the underpass?

do you know why dogs bark in the middle of the night?

Shaun Tan, creator of The Arrival, The Lost Thing and The Red Tree, reveals the quiet mysteries of everyday life: homemade pets, dangerous weddings, stranded sea mammals, tiny exchange students and secret rooms filled with darkness and delight.'

Source: Back cover.

'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)

'In 1982, Sally Morgan travelled back to her grandmother's birthplace. What started as a tentative search for information about her family, turned into an overwhelming emotional and spiritual pilgrimage. My Place is a moving account of a search for truth into which a whole family is gradually drawn, finally freeing the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.' Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Mitchell family has run a prosperous sheep farm for generations and the youngest daughter, Sally, has just turned 20. She rides to the hounds and leads an indulged life. That is, until she shocks her parents by becoming involved with an older man. Scandalised, they try to pack her off to England, but Sally doesn't make it. After a wild spree in Sydney she has cashed in her ticket and, hell bent on adventure, takes a job as a governess on a remote cattle station - Barra Creek - in the Gulf country of Cape York. Untamed and crocodile infested, it is a land of deserts, jungles and wide rivers. Then the great stations were run by men who were loners and women who had to cope or leave. Decades later, in 2003, Sally learns a secret that will change many lives - including her own - and leave readers horrified on one hand, and smiling and crying on the other.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Two architects: Andrew Martin, a feted young Australian whose success has come early and Johannes Von Ruhland, an ageing genius whose work has never been realised. When Martin finally meets the mythic Von Ruhland on a trip to Berlin, it is a dream fulfilled, but once that dream is brought back to Australia, it jeopardises his marriage and divides his friends. (Source: Trove)

It's just another year of getting into strife at school and mucking around with his dog at home for Tas - until he meets Enya the new girl at his school. She is different from the others - cool and calm. She becomes a special friend to Tas. But the violence that Enya thought she had left behind in Northern Ireland catches up with her, and this in turn has a devastating effect on Tas. His life will never be the same again.

(Source: Trove)