Hearing Maud - A Journey for a Voice by Jessica C. White

$27.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

Hearing Maud: a Journey for a Voice is a work of creative non-fiction that details the author's experiences of deafness after losing most of her hearing at age four. It charts how, as she grew up, she was estranged from people and turned to reading and writing for solace, eventually establishing a caree r as a writer. Central to her narrative is the story of Maud Praed, the deaf daughter of 19th century Queensland expatriate novelist Rosa Praed. Although Maud was deaf from infancy, she was educated at a school which taught her to speak rather than sign, a mode difficult for someone with little hearing. The breakup of Maud's family destabilised her mental health and at age twenty-eight she was admitted to an asylum, where she stayed until she died almost forty years later. It was through uncovering Maud's story that the author began to understand her own experiences of deafness and how they contributed to her emotional landscape, relationships and career. ...Show more

Outback Railwaymen: Life on the Commonwealth Railways by Nick Anchen

$35.00 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

CENTRAL AUSTRALIA RAILWAY - NORTH AUSTRALIA RAILWAY - TRANS-AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY "Outback Railwaymen - Life on the Commonwealth Railways" explores the life and times of three extraordinary railways, through the recollections and humorous stories of a selection of retired railwaymen and women. These were t he hardy souls who kept the trains running through some of the harshest and most forbidding landscapes on Earth - the railways in the great 'Back of Beyond.' They endured appalling climatic conditions, with scorching summer temperatures, howling dust storms and raging floodwaters, along with the ever-present danger of accidents and derailments, and the overwhelming isolation and loneliness that is the Australian Outback. 3 x 12 page colour photo sections ...Show more

Australianama: The South Asian Odyssey in Australia by Samia Khatun

$34.95 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

Australian deserts remain dotted with the ruins of old mosques. Beginning with a Bengali poetry collection discovered in a nineteenth-century mosque in the town of Broken Hill, Samia Khatun weaves together the stories of various peoples colonised by the British Empire to chart a history of South Asian d iaspora. Australianama(The Book of Australia) composes a history of Muslims in Australia through Sufi poetry, Urdu travel tales, Persian dream texts and Arabic concepts, as well as Wangkangurru song-poetry, Arabunna women's stories and Kuyani histories, leading readers through the rich worlds of non-white peoples that are missing from historical records. Khatun challenges a central idea that powerfully shapes history books across the Anglophone world- that European knowledge traditions are superior to the epistemologies of the colonised. Arguing that Aboriginal and South Asian language sources are keys to the vast, complex libraries that belie colonised geographies, Australianamashows that stories in colonised tongues can transform the very ground from which we view past, present and future. ...Show more

The Making of Mona by Franklin Adrian

$59.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

Hailed as the most important addition to the Australian cultural landscape since the opening of the Sydney Opera House, MONA has shaken up the art world by breathing life and delight back into the museum experience. Visitors are flocking to MONA, but what is it about MONA that makes it such a transforma tive experience? And how on earth did an amateur private collector manage to set up one of the world's great art destinations on the edge of a remote island city? This is the inside story of how MONA came to be. With a degree of access rarely granted to others, sociologist and design expert Adrian Franklin takes readers deep behind the scenes to reveal how MONA became what it is today: from its origins on the banks of the Derwent River, to the architectural and building process, to the branding and curation. Part modern art history, part biography of a place, The Making of MONA is for readers who are as fascinated by the MONA building and experience as they are by the collection and the man behind it all. This is an extraordinary tribute to an extraordinary place, one that will allow the MONA effect to resonate for years to come. ...Show more

Storytime: Growing up with Books by Jane Sullivan

$26.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

What was it exactly? Wonder, rapture delight, surprised recognition, laughter - but also darker feelings that made my heart beat fast and my stomach turn over, and sometimes a frantic urge to close the book before whatever it was sucked me in and destroyed me. But always, I read on.   In Storytime , author and literary critic Jane Sullivan takes us from Wonderland to Narnia, Moomintroll to Mr Toad and from Winnie the Pooh to the Magic Pudding, to find out why her favourite childhood books were so vitally important, and how they shaped the woman she is today.   This intimate, intense and emotional adventure down memory lane is much, much more than nostalgia. It is a surprising and sometimes disturbing voyage of self-discovery. As Jane relives old joys and faces old fears, she discovers that the books were not what she thought they were, and she was not the child she thought she was.      ...Show more

Private Bill: In Love and War by Barrie Cassidy

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

Great Australian Outback Trucking Stories by Bill Marsh

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

'Marsh knows how to spin a yarn' - Gold Coast Bulletin Master storyteller Bill 'Swampy' Marsh has travelled the width and breadth of Australia to bring together yet another memorable collection of stories. This time he has met with many of our outback truckies that criss-cross our nation - across desert s, rivers, and the Great Dividing Range - to share their extraordinary yarns and tales. ...Show more

Barefoot in the Bindis

$39.95 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

Scottish-born Robert Wales sailed into Sydney Harbour during WWII, but in 1953 he was choking in the city and doctors prescribed fresh country air. With no experience and only knowledge he'd picked up from a few books, he uproots his family and sets out to establish a sheep farm in the bush. When they a rrive on a lonely hill in northern New South Wales, they have no electricity, no running water, no telephone and no choice but to make this their home. From Angela Wales, eldest of the five kids, comes this extraordinarily vivid and evocative account of the next ten years as they try to tame six thousand acres of bush and navigate the challenges of country life. Filled with drama and hilarity, joy and back-breaking toil, Barefoot in the Bindis portrays a childhood spent in the outback, and is a sensational picture of Australia's past. ...Show more

Don Dunstan: The Visionary Politician Who Changed Australia by Angela Woollacott

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History | Reading Level: 3 Biography

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 ...Show more

Major Thomas: The Bush Lawyer who Defended Breaker Morant and Took on the British Empire by Greg Growden

$32.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

Wooleen Way: The Renewing an Australian Resource by David Pollock

$35.00 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History

The outback conjures many images that the Australian psyche is built upon. Its grand vistas of sweeping dusty plains and its evocation of a tough pioneering spirit form the foundation of our prosperous culture. But these romantic visions often hide the stark environmental, economic, and social problems that have inadvertently been left in the wake of our collective past. Through retelling the struggle of his family amid droughts, financial ruin, depression, and death, David Pollock exposes the modern-day realities of managing a remote outback station. Forced by a sense of moral responsibility, he set out on an uncharted course to restore the 153,000 hectares of degraded leasehold land that he felt he was obliged to manage on behalf of the Australian people. Then, just at the point when that course seemed certain to fail, the project was saved by the generosity and faith of everyday Australians. This is an urgent story of political irresponsibility, bureaucratic obstinacy, industrial monopolisation, and, above all, ecological illiteracy in a vast segment of the Australian continent. It is a familiar story of overexploitation. Yet it is also a story of the extraordinary ability of the natural environment to repair itself, given the chance. After over a decade of his hard-won insights, Pollock outlines in The Wooleen Way a specific and comprehensive plan to reverse the ecological damage done to the pastoral resource since European colonisation. He also emphasises the economic and social necessity of carrying it out. This is a story with national implications about a way to curb the conquering human spirit so that it aligns with the subtle power of the natural landscape. ...Show more

Jack Charles: Born-again Blakfella by Jack Charles

$34.99 AUD

Category: Australian Stories People History | Reading Level: 3 Biography

Stolen from his mother and placed into institutional care when he was only a few months old, Uncle Jack was raised under the government's White Australia Policy. The loneliness and isolation he experienced during those years had a devastating impact on him that endured long after he reconnected with his Aboriginal roots and discovered his stolen identity. Even today he feels like an outsider; a loner; a fringe dweller. In this honest and no-holds-barred memoir, Uncle Jack reveals the 'ups and downs of this crazy, drugged up, locked up, fucked up, and at times unbelievable, life'. From his sideline as a cat burglar, battles with drug addiction and stints in prison, to gracing the nation's stages and screens as he dazzled audiences with his big personality and acting prowess, he takes us through the most formative moments of his life. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Jack Charles- A Born-again Blakfella is a candid and uplifting memoir from one of Australia's finest and most beloved actors. ...Show more