Australia Books

A wonderfully entertaining memoir written by an unabashed free spirit. Popp recounts his romps through equatorial Australia in a delightfully playful narrative saturated with stories of friendships formed and loves lost. It is a great beach read!

this guy here, this popp character, someone every person should meet. at least thats how i feel after reading his book. its a great, easy read that'll keep you laughing throughout. this guy tells of his experiences while in australia for college credit, funniest thing about that: he didnt mention studying more than twice in the whole book! he is obviously a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants guy, which makes for hilarious antics and truly great guy book. this is totally for guys in college, guys recently graduated (i'm 26) or guys who just like being guys. and the girls will have a blast too...learning what guys actually say and do, to and about them!! i literally laughed out loud about 15 times. i couldnt put it down. it reminded me of my years in college, the things i did, the things i didnt do, and the things i should have done...in fact, i may go back to school just to have some crazy experiences like this guy!!

I recently purchased this book as something to flip through on the john. As a 26 year old male I figured if I can't drink and party in Australia why not read about someone who has and maybe I will one day venture to the land down under. Little did I know how much I would actually enjoy this book. I felt like I was right there with "Dooza" tipping back pints and sharing laughs with the locals. A truly laugh out loud book. The chapter on wingman and "D.U.F.F.S is probably the funniest thing ever printed ever. Enjoy

I have done a lot of research and must say that this book is an excellent source to refer to on eating healthy. You can lose weight and feel great all at the same time.

For the past few decades Americans have been told that eating less of everything containing fat is the requisite for losing weight. And yet, over this same period, literally millions of Americans have gone through life eating low-fat diets and being perpetually hungry, but more Americans are overweight now than before this dogma was foisted upon them. Fortunately, Dr. Earl Mindell -- who gave us the best-selling Earl Mindell's Vitamin Bible and related other health books -- has written a book which explains the defects in the conventional avoid-fat/go-hungry dogma of weight loss and tells in easily-understandable language how to lose weight without going hungry. A major factor which Dr. Mindell points out is that excess consumption of carbohydrates -- especially sugar -- not excess consumption of fat, is the major cause of excess weight. Currently the average American eats a staggering 133 lbs of sugar each year, generally without realizing how much sugar they are consuming. Partly this is because in order to make low-fat foods taste appetizing the food industry has loaded our food with sugar. Another reason we eat so much sugar is because the majority of American are deficient in the mineral chromium and chromium deficiency causes sugar cravings. Eating foods rich in chromium, or taking an appropriate chromium supplement, can significantly reduce, or even eliminate, sugar cravings. And decreased consumption of sugar and other carbohydrates is a major factor in losing weight without going hungry. The huge amount of sugar and other carbohydrates currently being eaten by many American is also the major cause of the current increase in type II diabetes. All of these matters are discussed in easily understandable terms in this invaluable book. If you want to lose weight without starving yourself and avoid type II diabetes, this book is a good place to start.

I loved this book, it was not your typical weight loss book. This was not about restricting calories, not eating and did not require starvation to lose weight. Just about how to eat healthy and to lose weight sensibly. The products recommended in the book have helped me to not even want to eat. I now crave less sugar and starches and actually crave healthy food. I recommend this book all the time. Thanks for another great book Dr. Mindell

I bought this book to read with my daughter before we went on vacation to China and actually saw the Terra Cotta Warriors. I doesn't come close to showing how phenomenal they really are but the history is wonderful and now it's a great reminder of a wonderful trip.

Rich with exciting historical details, The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China by Jane O'Connor offers a well-researched book that tantalizes the reader with tales of a poisoned King, a camouflaged dead body, and a booby-trapped tomb. The targeted audience of ages 9-12 will thrill with the adventure while simultaneously profiting from their newfound knowledge of China's first Emperor, Qin Shihuang, and his war and burial customs. Heavily strewn with color photographs, computer images, maps, drawings, and charts, the book easily captures interest and successfully holds attention with its succinct wording and short chapters that directly complement the images.
Jane O'Connor's career spanning roles as editor-at-large, president of mass market children's books at Penguin, and prolific author is crowned by her most recent gem, The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China. Realizing that no children's books had thoroughly documented the world wonder discovered in China, O'Connor successfully fills the void. This book is a must for any library!
The only negative aspect is that the book fails to be part of a larger history series since once the book is read, the reader will want to read more. The detailed bibliography and author's note provide a scope for further reading on the Terracotta Warriors, but readers will long to learn the same concise and tantalizing information on other subjects as well! Hopefully, Jane O'Connor will follow with more books to engage children and adults since The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China masterfully explores its subject.

While on vacation in China, Jane O'Connor visited the thousands of life-sized terracotta warrior statues discovered near the tomb on an emperor in northern China. She was inspired to find out more about both the army of ghostly gray warriors and the man who had ordered their creation. But as O'Connor read everything available about the first emperor and his buried army she discovered that a book on the subject had not yet been written for children. "The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China" rectifies that mistake.

In March 1974 three farmers digging a well near the city of Xian in Lintong County of the People's Republic of China, discovered the clay head of a "pottery man." Neither the farmers nor the archaeologists who arrived to investigate the figure had ever seen anything similar to the life-like figure, and where astounded to discover dozens, and then hundreds and finally thousands of these terracotta figures. When the excavation was done, an army of 7,500 soldiers and horses has been uncovered (so far), after being buried for more than 2,200 years. The life-size figures weighed as much as four hundred pounds each and wore knee-length robes, armor made from small iron "fish scales," and elaborate topknot hairdos (the low-ranking infantrymen did not wear armor). The figures stand at attention and archaeologists also found the hundreds of real bronze swords, daggers, battle-axes, and arrowheads, these silent warriors were carrying.

After sharing the story of the discovery of the figures, O'Connor tells the story of Qin Shihuang, the divine Son of Heaven, who was the first emperor or China. Qin was a paranoid tyrant, and fearing that grave robbers would loot the treasures in his tomb after he died. O'Connor talks about the measures Qin took to protect his final resting place, which included the terracotta figures, stationed in underground trenches, less than a mile from the tomb. The details about the figures, as to why they do not wear helmets or shields and why they are facing east, are quite interesting. There is logic to their arrangement that O'Connor is able to explain, a well as the difference between the 350 chariot horses and the more than 100 cavalry horses. There are more than forty full-color photographs in the book, which help to distinguish between the different types of warriors. The only disappointment here is that there are not more such photographs.

One of the most amazing things about the figures is that of the two thousand unearthed at the time O'Connor's book was published, no two had been discovered to be the same. The figures represent different ages, different parts of China, and even different temperaments. A colored computer image shows how one of the figures would have looked originally when it was painted. Another fascinating section has to do with modern artisans making replicas, following the techniques of 2,200 years ago, to help archeologists understand how the original figures were created. The final chapters of the book are devoted to what it was like inside the Emperor's tomb, where the body may be wearing a jade funeral suit (the government has no intention of actually opening the tomb and looking, but other tombs have been opened in the past to five us some ideas), and Qin's legacy, which is mainly the first Great Wall of China that he had made with a workforce of half a million slave laborers working for a dozen years. However, it would be Qin's silent army that is probably most responsible for what immortality the first emperor possesses today. Seeing them in person would be an unforgettable experience, and O'Connor's book does an excellent job of making that impression on her readers, young and old alike.

This book is awesome! There are so many things in physics that one can learn. This encyclopedia of physics will give you clear explanations of almost everything in physics. This is a truly wonderful book to have. I highly recommend it!

This publication provides a very useful reference for many areas of physics. The bibliographies at the end of each section serve as a starting point for further research in the particular subject.

The contributing authors of this book are impressive, e.g. J.D. Jackson (Classical Electrodynamics), H. Goldstein (Analytical Dynamics), E.C.G. Sudarshan, etc.

Most comprehensive text on physics seen to date. Excellent reference on virtually any area of physics. Deffinitely not an introductory text, but intended for those with a fairly solid background in mathematics and physics, ie. scientists, engineers or the very serious amateur. Plentiful photos, charts, diagrams and supporting reference material. A must for anyone employed in this field or with a keen interest in physics.

This is a true story, and an amazing one. The "Ern Malley affair" was a famous literary hoax in 1940s Australia - without doubt, the greatest literary hoax of all time. It began when Max Harris, young editor of the Adelaide-based avant-garde magazine Angry Penguins, received a package from a certain Ethel Malley, containing the surrealistic poems of her brother Ern, a Melbourne garage mechanic, who had died recently at the age of twenty-five. Did Harris think they were any good? Did he ever! Harris at once pronounced Malley a genius, and a lavish special commemorative issue of Angry Penguins was devoted to Ern's poems. Then the truth came out. There was no Ern, and no Ethel either - Ern's "works of genius" had been cobbled together in an afternoon by two traditionalist poets, James McAuley and Harold Stewart, in an attempt to discredit the avant-garde.

Up to a point, they did: Max Harris was certainly never the same again, especially after the South Australian authorities decided that the Malley poems were obscene and dragged the young publisher through a public trial. The one-time enfant terrible of the University of Adelaide ended his days not as the great novelist, poet, or even literary editor he had imagined he would be, but as a canting, boorish newspaper columnist, churning out opinion pieces for Rupert Murdoch. (He also, in fairness, ran a chain of bookshops that weren't half bad in those pre-Amazon days; Max, with his cane and floppy hat, used to trawl the world - London! New York! the dealers all knew Max - for remainders, often good ones, which he used to ship back to Australia to pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap, as you do. I still think about Max from time to time: I never met him, never even came close, but he came from the same town I did, and as a child I used to hear his name again and again. He was a legend.)

Meanwhile, hoaxer-in-chief James McAuley, following his youthful jape, became the sort of arch-right winger who would nowadays be a cheerleader for Bush-loving Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and started a horrible fascist (sorry, "conservative") magazine called Quadrant; Stewart, ever the more interesting of the two, eventually moved to Japan where he got into Zen, big-time, and made rather cool collages; interviewed in later years, he never wanted to talk about the Malley business, and said that his old life in Australia all seemed like a dream. (Hell, so does mine.) I rather like the sound of Stewart.

But the story of Ern Malley was far from over. If Ern's fame as a great poet had been brief, his fame as a hoax just kept on growing, and has not abated to this day. The Malley poems confront us with crucial literary questions. With Malley, we are by no means a world away from "exquisite corpse" poems, from The Waste Land (that great modernist echo chamber of allusions), from the cut-ups and fold-ins of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs, from the whole panoply of surrealist techniques. When David Bowie glues together random strips of words to write his lyrics ("Serious moonlight, indeed!" as a friend of mine once exclaimed), he is very much in the tradition of "Ern." Are these techniques all to be condemned? And how much, in the end, does authorial intention matter, as opposed to the words on the page? There are lines in Malley that are better (more haunting, more simply memorable) than almost anything in "real" Australian poetry: "Rise from the wrist, o kestrel / Mind, to a clear expanse"; "My blood becomes a Damaged Man / Most like your Albion" (from a poem addressed to William Blake); "Princess, you lived in Princess St., / Where the urchins pick their nose in the sun / With the left hand"; "I have split the infinitive. Beyond is anything." Are the Malley poems really rubbish - or did the compilers of this hasty oeuvre, in mimicking surrealist techniques, inadvertently liberate a deeper world of meaning? In any case, Ern took on a life of his own, and soon became a cult figure, the missing genius of Oz lit. The artist Sidney Nolan painted his portrait.

I've often thought that the Malley affair is a classic Australian movie just waiting to be made. Recently, the story has formed the basis of Peter Carey's very much fictionalised account, My Life as a Fake (2002); but that is an ill-focused, slackly imagined book, far less compelling than the simple truth about the Malley affair. Heyward's book is the one to read, not least because it also includes the full text of Ern's legendary manuscript. Almost sixty years later, the enigma remains. As Ern put it, "I am still / The black swan of trespass on alien waters."

A brilliantly researched and wittily written chronicle of a great literary hoax. In the nineteen forties Australia's avant-garde arts magazine ANGRY PENGUINS received a package of poems from a woman calling herself Ethel Malley, purportedly the work of her recently deceased brother Ern. The magazine's editor was so overwhelmed with the poems that he published the entire oeuvre in a special edition of the magazine. Then word began to get about that neither Ethel nor Ern Malley actually existed, and that the poems were a hoax. The hunt for the culprits was on. The is a great read: a literary detective story, an intriguing picture of the cultural landscape of postwar Australia, and a book which confronts the reader with crucial questions about the elusive nature of aesthetic judgement.

The Ern Malley affair is still something of an embarrassment to literate Australians. Ern Malley was the creation of two poets, James McAuley and Harold Stewart, who wanted to show up what they regarded as the insufferable pretensions of an Australian literary magazine called Angry Penguins. They concocted the fictitious Ern, gave him an irresistibly romantic biography, wrote a dozen supposedly awful poems under his name, and sent off the result. To their glee, the editor Max Harris swallowed the bait and published a special issue in Ern's memory. Then the facts came out, and avant-gardists all over Australia were made to look stupid.

That would be it, except for the bewildering irony that the Ern Malley poems aren't nearly as bad and incoherent as their authors suggested. Well, not all the time. (Heyward helpfully reprints them as an appendix so you can judge for yourself.) They oscillate in the strangest way between genius and gibberish; I have one highly-educated Aussie friend who thinks that they're the most genuinely avant-garde poetry Australia has ever produced, and Heyward is inclined to agree. The Angry Penguin crowd claimed as much, saying that the authors had surpassed themselves in their attempt to turn off conscious control over their own work. They certainly contain some haunting, extraordinary lines ("I am still / The black swan of trespass on alien waters", "I have split the infinitive. Beyond is anything.") The fact that these lines were never meant seriously by their authors raises important questions about the usefulness of discussing intention in matters of literary criticism.

Heyward's story is lucidly and wittily told. There are no clear-cut villains and heroes. Max Harris comes across as appealingly open-minded and imaginative, as well as gullible. The hoaxers weren't cynical hacks but talented and serious poets in their own right. Amongst those taken in by Ern was Australia's greatest modern painter, Sidney Nolan, who (perhaps rightly) said that it didn't matter whether the poems were "authentic" or not, so long as they worked on some level.

A remarkable book, not only in its picture of mid-century Australian cultural history but also in the tricky questions it asks about sense vs. nonsense in art and the motives behind cultural battles.

I first encountered this book when I was expecting my son (born in 1975). The format was easy to read, informative and positive in its approach. I passed copies to my younger sisters, and (most recently) my sister-in-law, so that they could benfit from the information it contained. The book is well-written, clear and factual--after all, Dr.Llewellyn-Jones IS a respected physician! There are sketches and explanations throughout. This is one book which is a "must read" for any mother-to-be (and her husband). I highly recommend it.

Its a great book for newly married couples.. This book gives them a very good insight of the physical relationship between the 2 spouse. It also details the entire process of child birth, right from conception to delivery and child care.

Its a great book for newly married couples.. This book gives them a very good insight of the physical relationship between the 2 spouse. It also details the entire process of child birth, right from conception to delivery and child care.

Grant gives a new perspective about the last century of the (western) Roman Empire. When the average layman thinks of the fall of the Roman Empire, he (or she) thinks of the Rome of the early Caesars: a libertarian, libertine kind of place, full of fun and debauchery. But Grant convincingly shows that late Rome suffered not from decadence but from puritanism, not from too much liberty but from crushing taxes. Late Rome was more like Soviet Russia than like America today: a place suffering from too much government in every sphere of life, from Christian intolerance ...to bureaucratic overregulation of the economy. The perfect gift for your libertarian friends!

The previous reviewer's analysis is correct. I would only add that eerily much of what caused Rome to dry rot and collapse is being mirrored in the USA- high taxation, large bureaucracies, the lack of desire to serve in the military, radical racial diversification, growing elements of societal drop-outs (ie. homeschoolers, Christians, environmentalists), complacency, the growing gulf between social classes. Will the USA fall like Rome? After all, there is no army of barbarians at our doorstep like Rome faced. We have no military coups unlike the dozens which took place in Rome. But there are several fits, enough to think that at the very least, America two centuries from now will be as recognizable to us as modern England would be recognizable to Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror or Richard the Lionhearted.

There are many books disecting and explaining the Roman Empire's rise and fall, and many of them may indeed be more detailed than "The Fall of the Roman Empire" by Michael Grant, but none capture the actions of that age and explain it in such a manner that it is comprehensible to someone without a Harvard degree. Mr. Grant writes in a methodical and clear way that keeps the reader interested and excited. He divides his book in to thirteen chapters, each one describing thirteen points that led to the empire's downfall. He addresses issues not only of military importance, but that of the internal and social struggles, such as the slaves, peasants, generals and nobles. He also includes a series of maps one what the empire looked like at various times throughout its decline. The contents of the book are reason enough to buy it, but the introduction is a general overview of the entire empire, and is very well done. That's the positive side. However, I don't think he was quite detailed enough! I realize that the entire book was intended to be a general run over, but some areas he glazed over, and others he ignored completly. For example, he explained the Weastern Empire in depth, but almost completly ignored the Eastern. He only refered to it when it affected the other. The only other nuance I disliked was that every so often he would contradict himself, like in referece to the social impact of the poor against the state being the most important of the internal struggles that brought down the fall, while he later says the credibility gap was the cause of the decline. After weighing the pros against the cons, I believe this is a very worthwhile book to read if you are just begining a study of that era.

Will Self, T.C. Boyle and Haruki Murakami wish they wrote stories as brilliant as ones written by Peter Carey. In fact, if you're in the UK, pick up Collected Stories for all-inclusive brilliance. Not as self-indulgent or inscrutable as Self, quieter than Boyle, more clever than Murakami (and I do like these guys), Carey shows his ability here in different ways than with his novels. He understands what short stories can and should be. Anyone who likes the form, or who often doesn't have time for a lot of fiction but wishes he/she did, might want to track this down.

The twelve stories in this collection were my first introduction to Peter Carey's fiction, and I was immediately dazzled by their imaginative verve. Surreal, allegorical, sometimes chilling, sometimes magical, and often enigmatic, these are powerful works in a medium which can often be too short to make an impact.

Many of the situations described in the stories are not of the concrete world we live in, but evolve with a nightmarish logic, invoking feelings that we all have experienced in dreams. Witness the "Report on the Shadow Industry" with its baffling but somehow deeply familiar description of a society buying boxes of "shadows" - are they consumable goods, or hopes, or dreams? Also fascinating is "Conversations with Unicorns", a strange fable of unicorns discovering truths about their own mortality. More disturbing still is "Life & Death in the South Side Pavilion", a surreal tale of a man minding horses, who finds that a horse dies every time he makes love, and is trapped in his situation by guilt and an unyielding authority figure. Allusions to intrusive and dominating political systems or other sorts of authority lend a sense of powerlessness and struggle to other stories including "The Fat Man in History".

Overall, these stories invoke a complex and elusive mixture of feelings of yearning and despair. A perfect, intense, short introduction to the work of this author.

"The Fat Man in History" collects but a few great stories by Peter Carey. After reading a few of these stories, you won't be satisfied knowing there are more out there -- therefore the preferred and complete collection is "Collected Stories." Check out my review of Carey's "Collected Stories" here which includes all of the stories found in "The Fat Man in History."

"Collected Stories" by Peter Carey.

Here are the complete (26) short stories of Peter Carey in a single volume, including those collected in the books "The Fat Man in History" (Crabs, Peeling, Life & Death in the South Side Pavilion, Room No. 5 (Escribo), Happy Story, A Windmill in the West, Withdrawal, Report on the Shadow Industry, Conversations with Unicorns, American Dreams, and The Fat Man in History), "War Crimes" (The Journey of a Lifetime, Do You Love Me?, The Uses of Williamson Wood, The Last days of a Famous Mime, A Schoolboy Prank, The Chance, Fragrance of Roses, The Puzzling Nature of Blue, Kristu Du, He Found Her in Late Summer, Exotic Pleasures, and War Crimes), along with 3 previously unpublished works (Joe, Concerning the Greek Tyrant, and A Million Dollars Worth of Amphetamines).

Peter Carey has risen to fame as a novelist, having gained notoriety from such works as Oscar and Lucinda (which garnered him the Booker Prize), Jack Maggs, The True History of the Kelly Gang, and My Life as a Fake. However, like most writers, his debut publications were short story collections and "Collected Stories" finds his mini-masterpieces all in one place. I started reading Carey during a brief residence in Melbourne (I'm a short story fan and was looking for an Australian writer to compliment my travels -- I think it was a travel guide that pointed me to Peter Carey). I bought "The Fat Man in History," but after being blown away by the first few stories, I returned it for the complete "Collected Stories" and never looked back.

Many of the stories have a surrealistic plot, such as "Do You Love Me?" in which the work of cartographers plays a role in the dematerialization of places and people, "Life and Death in the South Side Pavilion" in which a man attempts to shepherd a group of horses that keep dying by falling into a pool of water, "Peeling" in which a man's lover unravels into nothingness, or "Exotic Pleasures" in which captivatingly beautiful birds murderously overwhelm the world. Others center on human relationships, such as "Room No. 5 (Escribo)" in which a couple traveling in a foreign land fall in love in the midst of a military coup, "Happy Story" in which a man balances his love for his girlfriend with his passion for flying, "The Uses of Williamson Wood" in which a woman confronts her abuser, and "He Found Her in Late Summer" in which a man sacrifices himself for his lover. The stories are difficult to describe further because they're not really "like" many other authors I can think of. The language and character interaction are spare but powerful (reminiscent of Joe Frank -- see joefrank.com), the stories are brief, often divided into terse sections/chapters and focusing on the bizarre or fantastic (like Vonnegut), and there is a recurring theme of futility in impossible situations and suggesting a larger metaphorical meaning (evoking Kafka). Each tale leaves a strong emotional impression -- I found myself eager to read the next, but not wanting to finish too soon and exhaust the supply either.

Although "Collected Stories" is the complete collection of Carey's short works, it isn't as available (in the U.S.) as is "The Fat Man in History." But trust me, after reading a few of these stories, you won't be satisfied knowing there are more out there.

After reading this short story collection, I tried a few of Carey's novels. None ever matched the power of these short works. There have only been a few other authors whose stories made such a mark. I also happened to read "Letter to Our Son" by Carey while browsing in a bookstore -- a very short tribute to his son's birth, but also great little story that sticks in my memory.

Quite simply one of the most exciting reads possible about one man on a large island (Bougainville) and the Japanese Army that gradually hems him in.

Plenty of heartstopping moments and many times after putting it down, you ask yourself... "what would I do.....?"

Jungle, deep inpenetrable, rough trails which traverse the island over high mountain ranges, waiting for resupply from air at night on a lonely hilltop, knowing that if you die, you die alone --- it is all here.

A shame books like this are not written anymore.

I was given a very old,battered Trash and Treasure copy of this book, and frankly was not interested in WW2 stories.However, one day I started it and within a page or too my heart was pounding with fear and exertion, mozzies were biting and it was steaming hot, hot, hot. I became the 18 year old (18! Good grief!, a mere baby ,a schoolboy) sent by a ignorant command into largely uncharted , enemy controlled desperatly physically difficult territory, and ALONE! What madness, but thank goodness Peter Ryan survived to tell the tale so brilliantly. and to have a distinguished career in academic publishing. A friend of a friend was able to get my copy autographed for me, quite a thrill.

This book by Peter Ryan is amazing. A story of one man patrolling in New Guinea in WW2 with natives, trying to obtain as much information as possible about the enemy, while working behind the enemy lines for more than a year. Highly recommended.

I totally agree with the reader from San Francisco. This book is GREAT! Delighted that I found it. I am "mid-sixties", feel great, and fighting "aging" every step of the way! This book has sooo many answers-----it covers skin care, make-up suggestions--even goes into skin care products. Then, continues into foods, exercise-- well it covers everything for me. It is so full of good information. It is a big book, and a pretty one. I just love it---can you tell? And highly recommend it! Thank you Josephine Fairley and Sarah Stacey!

No Need to go anywhere else! Comprehensive, magazine-style reading; it is full of critical information and reaches beyond the beauty industry by speaking with health and well being experts from around the globe. I give the set to girlfriends as gifts. Needless to say, they are anticipated presents!

A great book that my wife and I discovered at a Spa. Wonderfully informative and enjoyable to read. Even as a male, I found good-to-know information. We're sending it to my mid-sixties mother who is going to be absorbed with it.

With so many products claiming superiority out there, the book's best feature is the objective evaluation of branded cosmetics.

A great book for anyone interested in not just beauty, but total and optimum health. Have seen nothing like in the States.