AustLit

'Every man and his dog has heard of La Trobe. But just who was Charles Joseph La Trobe? He is at once a household name and a mystery man. A man vilified by his opponents, and misunderstood by his modern admirers.

'This lavishly illustrated biography uncovers the man behind the public name, as not only an important colonial figure but an author and artist. Traces his globetrotting early years and struggles as Governor in Victoria during the goldrush to his eventual blindness in old age. Filled with interesting colonial illustrations and his personal correspondence. ' (Publication Summary)

'At 8 o’clock on Monday morning, 13 June 1887, Ellen Thomson was hanged at Her Majesty’s Brisbane Gaol for the murder of her husband. She is the only woman to be executed under Queensland law.

'But did she receive a fair trial, and did she deserve the ultimate punishment?

'Author Vashti Farrer’s latest book reveals a tropical Queensland alive with goldrush excitement, and the hard lives of pioneering communities in Port Douglas, from English immigrants to Chinese settlers, all looking to make a better life.

'Into this world stepped a young widow, Ellen Thomson, who married an older farmer, Billy Thomson. After many years of working the farm on the Mossman River together, on the night of 22 October 1886, Billy Thomson was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head.

'What happened?

'The book outlines events of that fateful night, the subsequent trial and executions and gives a fascinating insight into life at the time.

'It also raises the question, was Ellen Thomson guilty beyond reasonable doubt?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

First hand accounts from the wives of Australian diplomats.

'With this book thousands of Australians will relive the thrill of overland travels through the Middle East, Central Asia, India and Africa. Until unrest and warfare shut them down in the late 70s, adventure bus journeys were all the rage with young travellers, headed to or from Europe and Britain. Penn Overland, Indianman and other companies ran trips lasting many weeks over terrible roads, through deserts and across mountain ranges, via ancient cities and spectacular ruins. In this splendid illustrated book, Gerald Davis recreates a time that lives on in exciting memories.' (Publisher's blurb)

'If this book was a cake you wouldn’t know where to start - although we’d suggest the first chapter - because with each mouthful humour, wisdom, vulnerability and landscape would explode in your taste buds like a psychedelic fruit cake.

'The Electronic Swagman is a raw memoir of a complex life, a search for home, a eulogy to lonely souls buried in outback graves and, as much as anything, an ode to a beautiful dog.

'It moves like a willy willy from inner city Surry Hills to the centre of Australia, sucking the past, the present and the future into the moment. The present is the journey of man, Raymond and dog, Tommie, from Surry Hills into the Walls of China, to the Silver City and up the Oodnadatta Track. To camp by Lake Eyre bursting with birds and the Pink Roadhouse with hope. To a desert lake full of mud and a Painted Desert full of colour. The past is Raymond’s memoir revealed with tales of counter culture, drugs, rock and roll, a solo trek along the Great Divide, an owl impersonator, strap-happy Jesuit priests, surprising encounters with Aborigines, con-men, opera, recovery and even solace in an Irish nun’s breasts. Invited into that personal history are the dead, exhumed on walks in lonely cemeteries: an Afghan cameleer, a French prostitute, a Jewish Dunera Boy, Mungo Man and Mungo Woman, an Irish-Aboriginal wife of a Chinese market gardener, their various lives fertilising the landscape in which they struggled and through which we travel.

'The future is always the search for Home.

'Wherever and whatever that may be. (Publication abstract)

An anthology of 100 years of writing by Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, writers.

The anthology is an official publication of the National Year of Reading 2012 and the Centenary of Canberra 2013.

Sacred Waters : The Story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners is the moving story of the Aboriginal people in a unique and beautiful part of a Australia- the Burragorang Valley, now profoundly changed by the flooding of the valley in the 1950's by Warragambah Dam, the dam that provides Sydney's water supply. It is the story of the valley's Gundungurra people, and the Darug people of the lower Hawkesbury. Source: Publishers note (Sighted 27/05/2009)