Oceania Books

This is on of the best Reader's Digest book on Australia, with unbelievable and stunning images on Australias nature (over 900) in a brilliant quality. This book helped me a lot in travelling outside the known tourist paths and find the treasures in the Parks and Nature. This guide to Australia's National Parks is very clear and detailed, wonderfully set up with maps and regions, with useful and clear explanation on the nature and wildlife. Even after 3 trips to Oz I still find a lot in this book, wherever I've been these places or not. Keeps me updated and curious about my next trip to Australia. Well recommended, and also a great coffee-table book (or tea-table in down-under)

I have to state that I have a conflict of interest in this matter; Rudy DePaola is my father-in-law but for nearly 30 years I and my sons have been reveled by his stories. That said, I have to add that this is great story about an ordinary kid who went to war at age 17 and came home to become a educator, father and grandfather. This is Rudy's life with some "embellishment" and is a fun read from start to finish.

Men like Rudy and my own father, who won't write his story, are the greatest heroes of our time. They went to war as kids and returned as men who quietly and steadfastly built the modern society that, more or less, has propelled the whole world forward.

We will all be poorer when they pass on but this is a great chance to learn what they endured to give us what we have today.

This book is so funny I've really embarassed myself on public transport laughing aloud. Forget all other books about Australia, this tells you what it is really like in sharp, witty style. Buy it before you go there. definitely

I bought this book with the hope of finding something more authentic than some of the more popular books on Australian Aboriginal culture I'd read. Though these stories have been collected, translated and compiled by Anglo Australians, my impression is that the authenticity of these stories has been retained. I do believe my authenticity-meter is pretty accurate. However, I have no authority on the subject, and would love to see a review here from someone who does. In absence of such, I hope my review is helpful to others.

Each story is followed by Johanna Lambert's commentary. Lambert draws parallels between concepts in these stories, and myths of other cultures. She also explains the contextual beliefs of Aboriginal people in a way that I found helpful and seems respectful to me. At times the psychoanalytical perspective seems a bit forced when applied to these stories and Aboriginal culture in general. I wonder if psychoanalysis is universal enough to be applicable to something so ancient and whole in and of itself. For the most part, though, I found the analysis helpful, and if you don't, you can just read the stories and skip the analysis which follows.

If your exposure to Aboriginal culture from the women's perspective is limited to Lynn Andrews or Marlo Morgan, I highly recommend you read this book. Also a great book for anthropologists and students of shamanism or global spirituality. Or, if you enjoyed "Rabbit-Proof Fence," if you just like to hear about different perspectives than your own or want to understand the various people of the world, this book is for you. Recommended.

~heidimo

For those interested in one of the earliest successful movements for women's suffrage, this book is a must. It is the best of the books on the Australian movement for its thoroughness. While there are more "fun" versions of the movements with oral history excerpts, etc., this is the book to turn to as the authoritative work on the subject.

The book is an outstanding analysis of the history of Australian Literature.According to the author, in 19 century travel guides and writings,women figures scarcely appeared in male-writings.Many writings portrayed men as 'Australian legend', 'a bush man' or a 'rough and tough man'. Australian character has taken various forms and varieties through the national history but women have been kept aloof or have been absent somewhere in the bush. The bush has been typically imagined as a feminine landscape and `Woman', most of the time is seen carrying the burden of this metaphor. Australian figures of woman do not appear in the discourse of national identity. Kay Schaffer has delved deep into the fiasco of 'identity' on personal,social and national level and have brilliantly exposed the metaphoric reality of identities with help of Lacan's theory. The book is a must read in order to understand how identities are created within the culture and language and reflected in literature!

This book was a tour de force of finding the "lost" voices of women when it came out twenty years ago. Oxford keeps it in print, and it remains as important as when it was first published -- showing how women stayed in the workforce despite raising families, how they were major, not seldom primary, actors in socialist politics despite endless claims to the contrary, and how political self-interest and historiographical laziness have worked to silence their economic, political and historical roles. Based on in-depth archival research, this book remains THE corrective to so much rehashed second-hand argument.

This detailed, well-organized reference provides a guide to all the countries of the world from the perspective of the South. Most of the contributors are from the developing world, and the work is coordinated by the Instituto del Tercer Mundo in Uruguay. Don't be fooled by your gut reaction that a book can't be readable and rigorous unless it's published in New York, however. This is one of the better geopolitical reference sources in print by any standard. The country profiles provide unparalleled historical summaries of developing nations, along with truly relevant statistics. It also provides analyses of current global issues, such as food, health, education, poverty, habitat and human welfare.

A beautiful book, showing superb examples of belts from all over the world. This book is one, of a series of six, detailing ethnic jewelry from around the world. All of the pieces shown come from the collection of a Belgian couple, who have been collecting since the 1950s. The book contains magnificent, color photos, which show items at actual size, in many cases. My only criticism of the book, concerns the examples of Native American jewelry from the Southwestern United States. None of the Southwestern items were made by known artists, nor are the items of outstanding quality or design. The other books in the series share this same shortcoming.

Author Clinton Frederick writes about his father who was killed in WWII just four months after his own birth. In this sentimental and emotionally touching book "World War II: A Legacy of Letters - One Soldier's Journey" he takes readers on a journey of discovery about not only his father but about the war, the era and the attitudes of that time and place in our history. He not only shares long lost letters that his father wrote, but he adds information that he researched about his dad's unit and what was going on in the war around the time of those letters home.

The author remembered that his father had old war souvenirs in the attic at his childhood home and in his adult years he comes back to rediscover them. He also finds a truck load of old letters that his father wrote home. He took this treasure trove of information and makes this one very endearing voyage of emotions. He finally gets a good look at understanding his dad and learns more about him then he ever knew. In the process of putting the book together he finds members of his dad's old unit and even finds out about his parent's best man at their wedding. He uses the letters, lots of conversations along with hours of researched data from government files, lots of help from strangers and family to compile lots of information about what his dad did in the war. It is a moving reading experience and one that will explore many parts of your own heart and soul.

Frederick does a masterful and skillful job of placing the letters into the flow of the book along with recaps of events and comments. The end deals with the death notices and the funeral of his father. It all works to paint this portrait of the real man his father was. This son truly honors his father's history and delivers a fine tribute to him. I believe that the author finally make all those personal emotional connections between himself and his father as well. I think there was healing taking place just through the writing of the book.

The book has lots of facts, old photos, and information related to his father's war experiences; a great personal look at World War II. The author does a professional job of the writing and putting this book all together. It is well worth buying and reading it. Readers will find it fascinating and emotionally riveting at times. I enjoyed it very much.