Australia Books

This book, plus the next two in the trilogy, are fantastic. They combine love, hate, betrayal and revenge in a story of two families that are linked by blood and circumstances that neither family can control. The strong links between Indigenous Australians and their spirituality was well researched and written, and it was good to read an accurate account of the mounted police and their duties, however disturbing most of it was. I highly recommend this trilogy by a very talented writer as I was left moved both as a reader and an Australian.

This book was a god-send. I bought it after my baby was born, and wish I had gotten it before. I had a very difficult baby who had major dramas sleeping. This book offered lots of very helpful advice, and helped debunk some of the myths out there.

This book is a must read for any expectant parents.

The book is great: just what I was looking for. The direct text is what the overseas visitor or migrant need to be presented about this amazing country

This is one the funniest and most exciting books I've read in a long time. From start to finish you entangled in a web of humour, luck, suspense and drama.

The main character, Max, is bought to life so well by the author. You live and breathe his every move. You follow him around from the smoggy mists of a North London hospital to the beautiful countryside of England to outback of Austrailia. Don't ask how he does it because Max wouldn't know !

I cann't wait for the sequal or even the film.

Good effort Steve Emecz for your first book.

My kids thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have read it many times ove and we still enjoy it. It is the story of Cuthbert, an only child, until his mummy brings home "four darling baby girls". Cuthbert has to learn to adapt to his new environment! He learns that his mummy still loves him, even though he shares her with 4 sisters!. The pictures are superb. The text is well written. A fun book for learning about siblings.

This book is out-of-print but, as the author, I suggest you put in a cross-reference to "New Zealand by Bike", the second edition, most recently revised in 1998. Thanks. N>B. Please note the author's name is Bruce Ringer not Brude Mirger.

Sven Klinge is the author of the most comprehensive cycling guide books in Australia. By combining cycling with walking treks, he has explored over 300 of Australia's National Parks and State Forests. Born in Sydney and educated at the University of Sydney, Sven now divides his time between accountancy and other writing projects. CYCLING THE BUSH: 100 RIDES IN NEW SOUTH WALES is a fully revised edition, with dozens of new rides, and many others updated to take into account new management policies and conditions. The range of rides includes short one day trips around Sydney to extended overnight cycling/walking expeditions in remote and rugged wilderness areas. Almost all of New South Wales' major national parks are covered, including nearly 50 rides in the popular Blue Mountains alone. Other chapters centre on the wild Morton National Park, the picturesque Barrington Tops, and the great alpine ranges of Kosciusko. From mountain lookouts to secluded beaches, from pristine rivers to limestone caves, from cliff-lined gorges to snow-gum forests, this guide covers 100 of the most exciting mountain and touring bike adventures available to the cyclists in New South Wales and the ACT. Each ride incorporates data on distances, height variation, transport, access, track and rides grades, facilities, map references, and special equipment needed. Extensive information is provided on geological, biological, and historical aspects of natural, Aboriginal, and colonial features along the rides. There are chapters devoted to the development, mechanics, and maintenance of the mountain bike, in addition to sections covering accessories, riding techniques, first aid, food, equipment, photography, and camping. In COMPACT, LIGHTWEIGHT FORMAT, this guide should be POCKET EQUIPMENT for every cyclist and bushwalker wishing to discover this exciting way of venturing into the most diverse parks system in Australia.

I bought this book when I enrolled in journalism at university, and I thought it was brilliant. It is clear, well written and extremely informative. I recommend it to anybody who is considering a career as a journalist. It is one of the few nonfiction books I have been able to read cover to cover in such a short period of time. It deserves every star I have given it.

Inga Clendinnen's new book traces the history of contact between Aboriginal Australians and British colonisers from 1788-1800. Clendinnen has used a number of primary sources for her book, mainly journals kept by the British. By comparing different versions of the same events, she has - as far as is possible - excavated the facts of what actually happened from the subjective accounts they are embedded in. She has then applied the available anthropological knowledge about the Indigenous people of Sydney to interpret events and relationships through their Aboriginal cultural context.

We meet a fascinating group of people, both British and Aboriginal, and learn about how they coped with their newfound situations, and how they forged relationships with each other. Most of all, we find a story of two very different cultures profoundly misunderstanding each other.

However, we also find a fair and compassionate man in Australia's first Governor, Arthur Phillip. In the years from 1788-1792, his leadership was committed to treating the Aboriginal locals well, interacting with them as equals, and attempting to understand them.

As Phillip leaves the colony and subsequent Governors are less committed to these ideals, we sense an opportunity lost, and glimpse a different set of possibilities for Australia. This is a beautifully written account of a period in Australia's history which reminds us that things could have turned out very differently for Aboriginal people.

I've always thought that crime encapsulates culture. Particularly violent crime. The who and how and where and what and why of a murder fix details that might otherwise be overlooked and lost for ever, because murder is an extraordinary thing that happens to ordinary people. If you want to learn about everyday life in Victorian Britain, don't read about Queen Victoria, read about Jack the Ripper. Similarly, if you want to learn about everyday life in modern Australia, don't read about an Australian celebrity, read about MacDonald the Mutilator. His is one of the extraordinary and often disturbing cases examined in this book, which ranges from convict days in the late 1700s to the disappearance of foreign tourists in 2001. Some true-true-crime writers would gloat over this history and try to titillate readers with it. Blackden doesn't, and he doesn't just record, he analyzes and places in context too. Australia has a distinctive culture and a distinctive landscape and both are reflected in the crimes committed there.

Or not committed there: one of the most interesting cases examined in that book is that of Azaria Chamberlain, a month-old baby girl who disappeared near Ayers Rock in 1980. Had her parents, who were Seventh Day Adventists, carried out a so-called "sacrifice in the wilderness", as certain newspapers claimed? Or had she, as her parents claimed, been snatched by a dingo? In Blackden's account the latter seems much more likely, and the media-inspired prejudice suffered by the Chamberlains is one of the ways a distinctively Australian tragedy has application to the US and UK too. Crime encapsulates culture, and so does our reaction to crime. Often that reaction, in books as well as newspapers, is voyeuristic and exploitative, but that isn't true of Danger Down Under: it's intelligent, thoughtful, and highly readable, and though I doubt the Australian Tourist Board will be happy with it, I think intelligent and thoughtful true-crime fans should be. Australia isn't all sand, surf, and sunshine, and it isn't all serial killers and psychopaths either, but all of those things exist there and DDU is a very useful reminder of that.