Australia Books

This is a collection put together of letters from refugees in Australian detention centres. For those of you that don't know this - Australia has a policy of taking in only 12,000 refugees a year - this is nothing compared to many other countries. If they arrive here without a visa they are immediately put into a detention centre, in the most harsh, remote places in Australia and kept there until their applications are 'processed' - the process drags on and on and the Australian government is particularly cruel to refugees and has had the UNHCR criticised the processes and procedures used.
This book provides an amazing insight into their world and what it is like for them to be locked up in a detention centre with their rights void.
This is what one refugee has to say:
'This place is not for human being. This is refugee zoo. The government keep me in zoo without crime. Here in the centre not good things to do. Just thinking and thinking. I came here for safe life. But the government put me in prison. They do not want to here my problem. They just want to pass the time. This is no justice. They want to make me crazy. Now I'm crazy. Dead is much better than this zoo.'
The proceeds for this book go towards helping the refugees - for this reason alone I urge people to get this book and see into their world.

Frommer's has lots of great information, from where to stay, where to eat, best sites to see and very interesting tips and tricks. It's unfortunate that there isn't a later edition--the Frommer's for $50 a day or less has some more recent information that I found very useful as well.

When I shop for a travel guide I look for something objective-- it must give general interpretations before the author's opinion! frommer's australia 2000 is the perfect combination of the two. it starts off with a "best of" section which details both the major highlights of the continent as well as off the beaten track suggestions for the anti-tourism tourist. it also gives suggested itineraries in case you have a limited time in a particular spot. it also has the best hotel descriptions I've ever read in a travel guide, for all price ranges! I've traveled with many guides, and frommer's has been the most accurate. This is the best out there.

Very informative. Great practical info. They tell you straight up the good and the bad. There are lots of little tips as well. I really got a lot out of the book.

Out of the 5 or 6 books I've reviewed on NZ travel, this is the one that will be actually carried and used on my month-long trip. The information is never vague; for example excursion trips are described, the top providers are listed with all necessary details. Maps are extensive and frequent. I particularly liked the fact that while there are many ideas for budget travel, also included are the special hotels or restaurants or offroad trips that can cost more but are considered worth it. This guide is for everyone, versus Lonely Planet, (the backpacking crowd) or Fodors ( high end spenders) or Inside Guides (good pictures and background, no practical information).

I have always felt that the official history of Australia was very strange and very boring. It contained scarce mention of large scale conflicts and almost no mention of the people who had been occupying our land for the 30,000 years prior to european colonisation. Many people who have learned about the history of white Australia have felt the same but Henry Reynolds was one of the few people to become active in the field and say definitively that black history deserves a voice and that black history is so very different to the stereotypes and urban mythologies that have come to characterise it for many Australians. This book and others that have been influenced by Reynolds' stance have thoroughly changed the way many people see Australian history and I predict it will influence many people to take a more compassionate and integrated view of other races.

The Australian TV show _Frontline_ was a vicious attack on "current affairs". Although it definitely used the Australian scene as a starting point, the things it had to say applied to TV news everywhere.

This book is a collection of some of the best scripts from _Frontline_; as it was a very verbal show, not all that much is lost. Profiles of the actors, lots of photos, and a nice introduction to the _Frontline_ phenomenon are also included. Recommended to mediawatchers, especially if you can't get the video.

Churchill's illfated invasion into the 'soft underbelly of Europe' wasn't so soft to the men who actually made the invasion at Gallipoli. In the thick of the campaign was the 11th Australian Infantry Battalion. This book is their story.

The author is an employee of the Department of Defense in Australia, and has spent years researching the actions of the 11th. He has made five trips to Gallipoli. He researched the official reports and the homes and graves of the people who returned to Australia. Innumerable un-published memoirs were given to him and he has produced this book as a tribute to those men.

The action at Gallipoli is not well known here in the US. The series of new books coming from Australia on the subject are a welcome addition to the history of World War I.

I read this book many years ago and still, from time to time, have a quiet laugh to myself thinking about it. It's one of the most original plots I have ever come across and I wonder why no-one ever made it into a movie. It belongs in the same bag as Terry Southern's Magic Christian for its wickedly black humour, but adds in an Odyssey story line that keeps you enthralled all the way to the end. The (anti-) hero is Gascoyne, an aging operator who secretly runs a small town from the front seat of a beat-up car with the aid of Ritz crackers. Constantly on the move as he runs his patch, he radios back instructions to a telephone operator who is his only line of command. But lurking in the background is a manacing and growing danger that threatens to usurp Gasgoyne's position....
I lost my original copy years ago, so I live in hope of finding another.

WHAT A JOY TO SEE A PUBLISHED MASTERPIECE ...OF ONE OF THE WORLD'S FOREMOST CUTTING EDGE EXAMPLES OF CIVIC ARCHITECTURE.

Denver International Airport obviously derives it's superb design FORM, from it's context in the native locale and region of the majestic 14,000 foot high mountains of DENVER. "Gateway to the West" contains the best published architectural photography anyone could expect.It could be argued that the informed reader would make comparisons or analogies of Denver airport with Sarinnen's Dulles Airport or his soaring TWA airport at JFK, in N.Y.

The success of the airport's execution by Master ARCHITECTS Fentress & Bradburn (& winters) sets the standard for future airports world-wide.

In fact we see that this internationally world-class Architectural Firm has already accomplished a self-fullfilling prophecy, by accepting several more world-flung Airport Design comissions in the Middle East and Far East, as well as in the U.S.

Architect Curtiss Fentress & his "gang" know what they're up to, in creating majestic uplifting roof structures to symbolize air travel. This publication cements the architect' ideas into a philosophy of "FORM FOLLOWS VISION", rather than the more prosaic "FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION", and the publisher deserves credit for devoting 200+ pages of how private expression (on the drawing boards) becomes public expression (to millions of passengers who arrive at "Gateway to the West" ).