Australia Books

This exciting, new book marks a new stage in the maturation of the coaching industry and presents a coherent definition and model of behavioural coaching based upon scientific, validated behavioural principles. It provides structured models and strategies for bringing about durable and measurable change in individuals and organizations. Both authors are respected leaders in their fields and have an established reputation as coaching authorities. The authors are also founders of the internationally renowned Behavioral Coaching Institute. The institute is the global leader in the development and supply of world-best practice coaching technology and has trained and certified over 800 coaches working with organizations around the world.

Dr. Skiffington's coaching books have become industry standard materials throughout the global coaching community and make valuable reference resources for any coaching program.

Today, more and more professional coaches are moving away from reliance on simplistic and mechanical proprietary coaching systems taught by the many commercial coach training schools and are seeking to work with theoretically grounded and empirically validated approaches.

This text book is a detailed and well-crafted exposition of the behavioural science of executive, workplace and personal coaching -technical enough to satisfy the theorists but accessible to those without a background in the behavioural sciences. Authors Dr Skiffington and Zeus present an integrated model of evidence-based coaching which draws on adult learning principles, psychology, management and leadership literature and have integrated it with their considerable experience and research. Some of the key features of the text include: coaching as personal development; learning and behavioral change; the practice of behavioral coaching; client-centered coaching for internal/external coaches; and how behavioral coaching is being used today.

This work makes a significant contribution to establishing coaching as a well-grounded cross-disciplinary means of facilitating human and organisational change. Readership: It is a must-have for current and potential coaches, trainers, HRM personnel, consultants, management generally, academics, small business proprietors, students, professionals and even sports coaches etc.

Excelent for understanding the basics of this rather new field of expertise.

Behind the Mountain is a unique creation, more than a close, personal look at a most unusual place, Tasmania, "an appendix, an after thought" to the mainland of Australia. It is also the memoir of a brilliant, scholarly self-exile's return after twenty years and his coming-to-terms with the people and places that made him who he is.

Conrad had "escaped" from Tasmania at age twenty to attend university at Oxford and to start a new life. He had burned in the back yard all his diaries, exercise books, and "anything that might incriminate [him] by attaching an identity to [him]." He had left his home and family behind, intending never to return, believing that "Home was where you started from, not where you stayed." Twenty years older when he writes of revisiting Tasmania, he has discovered that despite his attempt to escape, "Tasmania had set the terms of [his] life. The home you cannot return to you carry off with you: it lies down the at the bottom of the world, and of the sleeping, imagining mind."

This search for identity and roots informs his travels within Tasmania and gives the book an immediacy and liveliness lacking in so many other studies of place. Tasmania, he explains, is "an offshore island off the shore of an offshore continent," its residents therefore the "victims of a twofold alienation," with nothing between them and Anarctica, the end of the world. Conrad turns his eagle eye, his thoughtful sensibility, his absolutely limitless vocabulary, and his extraordinary skills at description to the recreation of Tasmania from the air, from the water, from the farm, from the mountain, and even under the ground, all in vivid word pictures. You will travel with him, and experience the great good fortune of seeing the island through the eyes of a gifted and introspective native whose twenty-year absence has given him a perspective on life in Tasmania that enable him to communicate it with "outsiders."

Best of all, Conrad permits the reader to share his discovery that he had "placed [his] trust, mistakenly, in the myth of self-invention. You created yourself, and did so out of nothing." Instead, he finds, "we are all still pioneers, required to colonise the piece of ground which chance assigns us, to make it our own by shaping it into a small, autonomous intelligible world....[Tasmania] was the landscape inside me: the space where I spent my dreaming time....Tasmania had set the terms of my life."

Conrad's account of his return to Tasmania is a delightful journey in time, place and language. Tasmania's special place in history and geography is depicted in the special style that can only be invoked by the self-exile. His prose is rich with metaphor in dealing with his own life, Tasmania's physical features and the society English society imposed on it. Raised in a suburb north of the State Capital, Hobart [the world's most southern such], Conrad's childhood environment was overshadowed by the looming, capriciously moody Mount Wellington. Everything else about Tasmania was "Behind the Mountain."

Conrad is expressive about what it was like to be raised in a place that even the rest of Australia seemed to have forgotten - it was left off school maps of the Last Continent. As the site of imprisonment for the most incorrigible of Britain's transported felons, its white inhabitants later tried to erase their own history. Isolated, then, in place both globally and socially, its people clung to the only culture they could derive - the "home" that was England. Even when the rest of Australia sought ties with the Americans, Tasmania remained locked into their version of the "old country."

Conrad breaks the mould of that image. He's frank about the white's treatment of Tasmania's Aborigine population and culture. He contrasts the outlook that named and respected every mountain, stream or other physical feature of the island. The Parlemar people were rounded up in a series of paramilitary exercises, the most notorious that of the Black Line. The surviving Aborigines [some suicided from seaside cliffs] were exiled to Flinders Island and other off-shore sites to rot and die. Even their corpses were desecrated by amateur "anthropologists" keen to depict them as sub-humans, well deserving extinction. The eradication was absolute - Tasmania remains the only Australian State with no surviving indigenous population.

Conrad journeys over the island by bus and aircraft [he is unable to drive]. The jaunts confront us with bizarre naming practices the island was subjected to by white settlers. No Aborigine names were applied until the State's Hydro Commission attempted some restitution while building dams in the mountains. The attempt is simply a final instance of the paucity of knowledge of Aborigine culture. His tours take us to Port Davey, a week's walk from the nearest road end, and the distant, disreputable Macquarie Harbour. His map shows the anomaly of this extensive estuary with its entrance but 60 metres wide. It was truly the end of the world for many convicts who laboured their lives away under assault by winds originating off the South African coast.

His candor in descriptions of his life and his family is refreshing. He aspired to the exile he entered with unwarranted enthusiasm. The book opens with the conflagration of his childhood artifacts. He is later as disturbed by this sacrifice as we are while reading it. His evocative metaphors evoke the remorse to follow him as he recovers or recreates those childhood losses. The memories he solicits show a level of confusion about his own identity - at one point unable to discern whether the image in a photograph is himself or his father. Life on the Apple Isle could lead to such vague self-persona given the paucity of information about his roots. An alcoholic grandfather had simply been made to disappear by the rest of his family.

It's trite to state that any examination of one's roots can lead to disillusionment. But Conrad's return to this remote land provided an improved sense of self-identity. He returned to learn more of his natal surroundings than would have been possible had he not left. He demonstrates that all he learned during his journeys didn't require a comparison to his adopted land to be valuable. Every place he visited or researched provided new elements of his self-awareness in their own right. The book is an object lesson for anyone who has left home for other venues. Read it to learn of this faraway land, the brilliance of its re-discoverer, and perhaps some insight into your own outlook about where you are. It's a rewarding journey.

Beautiful photographs of LIFE - from the ovum and sperm joining together to the baby's head emerging at birth, this book takes you there. My son loved looking at the pictures. My husband and I had to take a deep breath to read the part that tells how the sperm gets in there to begin with. He's 7 and it was time. This was the best possible way. Amazing pictures!

This book was given to us when we were expecting our first son and we loved seeing the stages of development. It has become a favorite of our sons from the moment when they both first asked "what happened when we were in your tummy?".

The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay is a great book which would appeal to a wide range of kids (and adults!). It's Australian without being strange to those from other nations, and contains the brilliant outcome that so many kids would appreciate - a contest with EVERYONE as the winner. The illustrations are bold and gorgeous - coloured lino prints. The birds' characterisations are so human and relatable! A lovely book all round.

.

This book was shortlisted for the 1994 "Picture Book of the Year Award". If your child is a budding birder here's a book that will both entertain, as well as inform.

Boonaroo Bay is normally a peaceful place but one day the spoonbill, the darter, the cormorant, the curlew and the oystercatcher had a big dispute over who had the best beak in the Bay. But luckily Pelican who is the wisest of the birds was watching this noisy argument and decided to hold a contest to settle the question.

The contest was very cleverly devised since there were five events: - collect shrimp from the mud....spearing fish......extract a pipi (clam) from its shell....find a worm in the sand....and finally catch a slithery eel.

Each bird won the event for which its beak was best suited. This is a very good lesson in life.

Narelle Oliver is both author and illustrator. Her linocut illustrations although very bold contain lots of subtle detail with accurate representations of the characteristics of each of the bird species.

This book would appeal to all children who are developing a love of birding.

A fascinating look at how the reality show "Big Brother" was presented and viewed all over the world. Since so many countries produced their own local versions of the show, this provided an excellent opportunity for contemporary cultural analysis on a global scale. This is is a riveting read.

"Big Bother" by Dr. Toni Johnson-Woods examines the Australian "Big Brother" reality television program from a celabratory and popular culture theory perspective. Dr. Johnson-Woods lectures at the University of Queensland, and is (among other hats to wear) an expert in popular contemporary television.

Toni explores "Big Brother" in an international context, the production of of the program, the generic markers of "Big Brother" and reality television genre theory in general, the filmic techniques, the program's content and contestants, the audience, and the numerous media representations of the program. As "Big Brother" was such a successful and pervasive program within Australian television culture, it was very much worthy of investigation as a media case study.

I think that it is wonderful for our academics to be recording significant elements of contemporary culture, and using their research to define WHO we are at the moment, and WHAT we do in our recreation hours. Dr. Johnson-Woods has not only written an educational and informative book, but one that is fascinating to read. Five stars!

When I first grabbed this book (from the library) I had this strange feeling that it was going to be extremely hard to understand. Yet the moment I got home and read the introduction I was immediately piqued.

That was over a month ago. Right now I am still facinated, when I have read the book for over three times.

Drouyn covers all the aspects of writing for the screen in this book. The language she uses to describe certain principals (eg: subconscious subtext) is easy to understand even though it's written in a complex manner. Truly magnificent writing.

Coral Drouyn's book addresses the issue of film and television scriptwriting from an Australian perspective. This may seem trivial until you consider that the Australian media industry is different from the US and European versions in a number of fundamental ways. For example, commercial breaks in TV shows are spaced differently and are of different duration from their overseas counterparts. Ms Drouyn covers all aspects of scriptwriting in a manner that any average reader can relate to and understand.

This narrative is mostly about the relationship between Natalie and her mother, Agi. Natalie comes from an upper middle class mainstream Jewish Australian family. Natalie eschews the comfortable upper middle class secular life that her mother envisions for her to become a baal teshuva, a repentant one. Natalie joins a Hassidic sect

Black is a reference to the clothing Hassidic men wear and the rainbow is the joy Agi eventually finds in being the grandmother of five Hassidic children.

Agi is at times meddlesome and disapproving and at others very helpful,

Mother and daughter eventually come to accept each other's differences.

Recommended for anyone interested in the Bal Teshuvah movement, Hassidism, or any non-religious mother who feels lost or distraught because her son or daughter has joined a fundamentalist religion

Helpful book for parents of children who become bal teshuva. Realistic yet heartwarming and encouraging.

A fantastic true story that has exposed the UN for there own incompetence and corruption. This is not a political book, but one of fact, and of sorrow. Once you pick this book up you will not want to put it down. The central character of the book is a real life entrupener David Morris and what an unbeleivable character he is, what he acheived in Somalia on just a few hundred thousnd dollars, put to shame the UN who spent over 1 billion dollars. This book should be a major motion picture, but I suspect the UN would never allow it to happen.

"Blood Money" is a tragic example of how, as the old saying goes, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." New Zealander David Morris went to Somalia with the idea of making some money as a contractor for the U.N. as the U.N. tried to save the country from starvation and anarchy. While the U.N. fed the people, Morris's company fed the U.N. As chronicled by fellow countryman and reporter Trisha Stratford, somewhere along the way Morris decided to do what he could to help the Somali people. For his trouble and due in part to U.N. bungling, he ended up dead. In the context of the greater disaster that was the U.N. mission to Somalia, Morris's death might seem only a small part. But the trouble he and his company had with the World body are lessons that need to be learned if the U.N. is ever going to be an effective force for international intervention. This book is an excellent journalistic account of bureaucratic failure.

Margaret Wild and Janine Dawson's BOBBIE DAZZLER tells of Bobbie, an energetic wallaby who jumps, skips and bounces. Her friends are impressed with her prowess, but she can't do the thing she most wishes to do - the splits. Only after much practice does she achieve her goal in this funny, satisfying story of determination.

Bobbie Dazzler by Margaret Wild and Janine Dawson is a fun look at four animal friends. Bobbie is a Red-Necked Wallaby and her friends are Koala, Wombat, and Possum. Bobbie has lots of talents like hopping and skipping, but she is sad that she cannot do the splits. After many tries and a lot of determination she and all of her fiends master the new skill. The illustrations are charming I really enjoyed the view of the Australian native plants such as bottlebrushes, eucalyptus, banksias, and kangaroo paws. Karen Woodworth-Roman, www.librarians.info

There should have been a section on Michael Robert Hamilton Holmes a Court. Enigmatic raider and consumate businessman. I felt slightly cheated but I enjoyed the book.

This is probably the best book on the corporate excesses of the 1980s since Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart. Veteran Australian financial journalist, Trevor Sykes, dissects the collapses of Alan Bond, Christopher Skase and a rogues' gallery of other Antipodean corporate scoundrels. He even bravely attempts to unravel the intricate webs surrounding Brian Yuill's Spedley Securities Limited and John Spalvin's Adelaide Steamship group of companies. Although Sykes explains his reasons why he did not delve into such companies as Elders IXL Limited and John Fairfax Limited, this reviewer feels the book's only failing is that it only mentions by way of cross-reference Australia's biggest player of the Eighties, the late Robert Holmes a Court, the South African-born financier and pastoralist who became Australia's first billionaire. Despite this oversight, The Bold Riders is a highly recommended read which should appeal to all business readers around the English-speaking world, particularly regarding Sykes' insight into Australia's Federal and State politicians and their somewhat symbiotic relationships with business.