Australia Books

I work at David Fleay Wildlife Park on the Gold Coast, Australia and have seen many different textbook/research books on various Australian animals and would have to say this is the one I recommend for anyone who is only looking at purchasing one book and wants something that covers a large range of Australian reptiles, birds, amphibians, insects and mammals. You can get more detailed information books on specific animals or species but they are usually also a lot more expensive. If you want a reasonably priced easy to read book with wide coverage and the basic information plus a little more, then this is the one for you.

In addition to the written text you have photographs on most of the animals as well as shaded maps of Australia indicating where they are found. There are even some diagrams and coloured sketches of various features of some animals such s claws, eyes and skin.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants a good research book on Australian animals or anyone who just has an interest in Australian wildlife.

The people who claim to be offended by this book or who want it banned clearly haven't actually read this story. Although it starts of with the death of a character whose fictional life seems to parallel to Steve Irwin's, as the story continues the reader quickly discovers that there are not too many similarities. Yes we have Kangazoo (which is obviously Australia Zoo) and Mick Lamington's career and on camera success is obviously the same as Steve's. However we soon discover away from the camera the fictitious Mick is nothing like Steve, more to the point anyway the behind the scenes look at Lamington's life and death isn't the main plot of The Endangered List. The main plot follows the main character and narrator of the story Brian "Frosty" Westlake. Frosty was Mick's best mate, he was the real deal nature man and was the behind the scenes guy responsible for Mick's success by placing the wildlife for Mick to pick up (and kiss, an action which is paying out Rex Hunt, who for those not Australian, was the host of a few lot less successful Australian nature shows (well fishing) whose career died out long before Steve's life did).

Anyway the story follows the fact that Frosty and the rest of those who relied on the Steve Irwin brand's future is now very uncertain. What are they going to do for a job? In Frosty's case he only ever had a handshake deal with his best mate and his home (a house inside Kangazoo) and everything else all now belong to the Trust. The American cable TV channel that's lets face it, Lamington got all the viewers for, needs to quickly replace Mick, and Frosty has to do everything to ensure he's still part of the deal. The network however has very different ideas to Frosty as to who should be the frontman and hire ex Chippendale dancer TV personality Glenn Mellon (again another shot at Australian TV this time the emulation is of ex Manpower dancer now backyard gardening TV show host celebrity Jamie Duree), who has got the looks but not the expertise and certainly hasn't done his dues in the wildlife industry. Frosty's expertise as a rigger is going to be called upon even more and while shooting an episode it looks like he has taken advantage of the situation for his own gain, well maybe he can learn from this and get that host spot after all.

I really enjoyed this story, its success lies in the fact that as a reader and knowing what actually did happen in the aftermath of Irwin's demise, you are assuming the story is going to go a certain way, so it's a lot more unexpected and a surprise when it doesn't. Although frosty is not morally the nicest guy in the world, nor are his actions what you would hope any real life character would emulate, he is a very likeable character. The Endangered List does very cleverly emulate existing celebrity and celebrity wannabes, or hangers on as we like to call them, from Australian TV as well as the Irwin tragedy. The only characters where it probably hits a bit close to home are the hanger ons, who readers are unlikely to have much sympathy for anyway such as the media manager who seemed to be more interested in promoting himself than anything else. The Endangered List does not at any time make fun of Bindy Irwin (there is no character like her in this book), Westlake writes a much older rebellious teenager named Ranger as Mick's daughter. Terri, again Mick's wife has no similarities to her, in fact the fictional character that is Mick's wife in some ways is more like Steve was than Mick is.

Success also is achieved through the very accurate portrayal of secrets revealed I guess of how wildlife documentaries are made. Whoever Brain Westlake is in real life, obviously has done thier research here, or has in fact worked in the TV industry him/herself. As someone who worked in a wildlife park for a fair number of years (not Australia Zoo) I can vouch that rigging and so forth is how it is done, no one sees an animal in the distance sprints and picks it up like on TV. So this book may destroy the magic for the reader if they had assumed this was the case. Westlake obviously hasn't worked in a wildlife park as there are a few obvious things that point this out such as his Koalaseum having both male and female koala residents in the same enclosure. No way you'd do this unless you were breeding them or you'd have heaps of koalas which with them being threatened due to loss of habitat meaning there's no where to release them, no wildlife park would be doing that!

Like I said The Endangered List, although it touches on it, is certainly not for the majority a fictional parallel of Steve Irwin's life and death. This thriller more closer emulates Donald E Westlake's (which is maybe why the pen name Brian Westlake was chosen) classic masterpiece The Ax. Read this, it's a good book!

Great fun and captures the Aussie spirit

Enemies, a Love Story (Yiddish: Sonim, di Geshichte fun a Liebe) is a novel by Isaace Bashevis Singer first published serially in the Jewish Daily Forward in 1966.
The English translation was published in 1972.
Set in New York City in 1949, the novel follows Holocaust survivor Herman Broder.
Throughout the war he survive in a hayloft, taken care of by his non-Jewish, Polish servant, Yadwiga who he later takes as his wife in America.
Meanwhile, he has an affair with another Holocaust survivor, Masha.
To Yadwiga, he poses as a traveling book-salesman despite the fact he is simply a ghost writer for a corrupt rabbi.
He wanders about New York with a constant paranoia and perpetual desperation made more complicated when his first wife from Poland, Tamara, comes to New York.
Enemies, a Love Story is a 1989 film directed by Paul Mazursky, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including two nominations in the Best Supporting Actress category for Anjelica Huston (Tamara Broder) and Lena Olin (Masha).

Works By Author:
* Enemies: A Love Story
* Gimpel the Fool
* Henne Fire
* Zlateh the Goat
* The Spinoza of Market Street
* The King of the Fields
* The Slave
* A Day of Pleasure

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I own virtually every book in print on English cathedrals and this book is an important addition to that collection for several reasons. First, the quality of the photography is superior to any other such book. They were all done for this book and were taken over a short period of time. Second, this book includes the Roman Catholic cathedrals as well as those of the Church of England. Third, it gives a handy summary of pertinent information about each cathedral. Finally, it has an enormously helpful map with the Anglican dioceses superimposed over the county boundaries, as well as small maps showing the Roman dioceses and two historic diocesan maps.

Of course, this book is not perfect. It lacks floor plans. Two cathedrals lack exterior views, and several other exterior shots fail to give a sense of what the building looks like -- even though some of the exterior pictures, such as that of St. Alban's, capture the most important architectural elements. The biggest disappointment to me is the comparative lack of architectural and design criticism. There is a tiny bit of chastisement of Victorian outrages, but I became accustomed to more pointed critiques in the first book on English cathedrals I owned, and on which I still rely, Collins Guide to Cathedrals, Abbeys & Priories of England and Wales, by Henry Thorold, 1986, and in many of my subsequent purchases. But that book has black-and-white photography and perhaps too much detail for many readers. This effort by Tatton-Brown and Crook is an excellent combination of coffee-table book beauty with sufficient academic context.

An outstanding read! Clearly written, I devoured this book in three nights, have since re-read it twice and constantly refer to it for reference.

I also bought the book as a gift for the CEO of an Internet Security startup firm. Interestingly, he left it on a plane by mistake and promptly bought a new copy so as not to go without!

Golis outlines the key elements for structuring the V.C. business plan, which takes a bit of effort to get straight but is well worth incorporating his elements in a formal Business Plan.

As a reality check for other buyers, I used this book as a constant reference source in building a submission for Stage 1&2 V.C. raising (which has now successfully been accepted and is in the 'heads of agreement stage' for $500,000 in funds placement).

The book does not present company management issues. Its focus is on the Entrepreneur and Venture Capital raising issues.

Any book that tries to cover everything about the history of Capitalism is doomed to fail because of the extent of its history. This book however avoids that by containing itself to using Coca-Cola as its base to start from. This is not a book about the benefits and wonders of Capitalism. It is a bare bones, warts and all tale of how Coke was lucky in its marketing and business practices to enable The Company to expand beyond its original market (that which a horse drawn cart could cover in a day) to today's massive corporate juggernaut. Through the use of the franchise, extreme quality control and powerful marketing it show how the company went from being a feel good tonic in competition with over a thousand other similar drinks to being the major market force for soda pop. The book covers topics such as the creation of the idea of a corporation to having the status of person, how the money market works in the flow of capital, the effect of marketing and advertising on consumer tastes and how free trade really becomes oligopoly. A frightening set of examples are presented, enough to make the strongest advocate of free market forces to rethink their position. An excellent book which goes hand in hand with Naomi Klein's No Logo and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.

This book is not only a great reference book but also has many practical uses!

If you're interested to evaluate economic rationalism or free markets from a moral and ethical point of view, this is the book for you. While the author is a professor in philosophy, he starts the first third of the book talking about economics. And I have to say it's a very excellent presentation and straight to the point. In fact, one of the most understandable presentations I've read about the basics of economics.

The rest of the book evaluates economic rationalism and free-market-ism from various philosophical perspectives: utilitarian, deservingness, social darwinism, voluntary exchange, economic democracy, maximization of liberty and conservativism.

The one thing I absolutely loved about this book was that it was very easy to read. I've read a lot of economics and a bit of philosophy. Though my knowledge of these subjects may not be as much as others, I didn't really have any trouble following this book because the author has a wonderful gift of making things easy to understand and his arguments easy to follow.

I have two copies of this book in paperback.
It is an outstanding story by one of the participants.
I call this event, Australia's Alamo.
The outcome was different but the results were the same.
Basically the small guy fighting for his rights against the big guy.
The fight for Freedom!
This is a must for all such libraries.