Australia Books

This story is one that I have read many times. It starts off with the girl from the city not knowing anything about the outback. She meets up with a smug rancher who just waits for her to mess up. During their time together they work together, rub each other the wrong way, and learn to respect each other. The surprise ending is entertaining as well as enlightening. The witty repartee is throughout the book and keeps you reading carefully so as not to miss those perfectly stated phrases.

The book was as I expected, it would'd be better ir they show the picture and mention the editon.

We use this book in 8th grade and it really helped me get through Biology! The book plainly states all the ideas and clearly too!

Do you want the good news first, or the bad news?

Le'ts start with the bad: THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA, A BOOK OF IDENTIFICATION is no longer available in its original hardcover format with its beautifully illustrated birds and its handy bird-by-bird location map.

The good news: you can get the same great book in reformat as one disintinguished member of the excellent Princeton Field Guides series.

In addition to the standard features that make a book like this a success, BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA trails a section called - enigmatically - 'The Handbook'. This extensive postlude provides an excellent introduction to classes of birds, the life cycle of birds that hobbyists with middling knowledge like this reviewer will greatly appreciate.

The Aussies are great folks and make marvelous life-time friends. As though it couldn't get any better, they now have a superb book for identifing the birds of their beguiling and sunburned country.

This is a terrific book. Read in conjunction with John Birmingham's 'Leviathan: an unauthorised biography of Sydney', you will get more than a working knowledge of how and why Sydney is like it is.

Flannery has written an introductory essay 'The andstone City', which gives a good overview. The bulk of the book is an anthology of voices from the earliest days to late 19th century -from Captain James Cook to Mark Twain, Aboriginal women, and British governors.

2000 saw a plethora of books on Sydney, as it hosted the Olympic Games. This is one of the best.

This is a memoir of a New Zealand born, Australian raised actress who decides to give up her ho-hum life to chase her dream of becoming an actress in the US. This is such a funny. touching and inspiring story, and might interest native New Yorkers as Bella comes to grips with the culture shock of her move from Oz to NYC. She joins the famous Strassberg Acting School, and embraces all that her new home has to offer. She is totally honest (you will cringe with her as you read her faux pas) and hi five her as she struggles to know what she wants and how to get it. Best memoir I have read in a long time, and aspiring actors will enjoy and relate to her harrowing auditions and the feeling of success after fully becoming her character roles.

I have always been an avid reader of maritime and naval history but must confess I was totally ignorant of HMAS Sydney and the mystery surrounding her dissapearance. I only became aware of the story of Sydney and her crew when I stumbled on the internet site, "finding Sydney" and seeing the first photographs of her wreck, which was discovered in March of 2008. Reading the history of HMAS Sydney on the web site, I was hooked.
Following a violent surface battle with the German Commerce Raider Kormoran, off the West Coast of Australiain, on November 19, 1941, the Australian Light Cruiser HMAS Sydney sank with no survivors from her crew of 645 souls, yet 317 German Survivors from Kormoran were eventually resucued.
The Author, Mr. Olson, has done a superb job of researching the loss of HMAS Sydney. As the book was written before the discovery of both sydney and Kormoran, it was more than a little interesting to see just how close many of the authors conclusions were - if not 100% acurate at least close enough - to the evidence provided by photographs of the wreck site.
Mr. Olson - working from a veritable sea of original documentation, including transcripts of interrogations with Kormoran Survivors - has carefully pieced together the most logical, and I feel the most likely, explanation of how a superior warship could have placed itself in a position to be surprised and initially overwhelmed, by what should have been an inferior opponent. And, how her entire crew could have perished virtually without a trace. In so doing Mr. Olson, on ballance, vindicates Sydney's Commanding Officer, Captain Joseph Burnett, RAN who, over the years has born the brunt of much criticism for placing his ship in such a vulnerable position.
In this age of Terrorism it is worth mentioning that asymmetrical warfare is nothing new. The perspective of asymmetrical warfare and it's consequences, while not a main theme of the book, come across very clearly. In this age of renewed piracy and terrorism this book should be mandatory reading for any prospective naval commanders who will be taking their ships into harms way.
It is the final chapter in which the author pays fitting tribute to the crew of HMAS Sydney and quite rightly points out that, "The enduring tragedy of Sydney's death is that its loss has been perceived as something shameful...Sydney's loss, however, was not shameful. Captain Joseph Burnett and the men under his command upheld the proud traditions of the ship and the Royal Australian Navy."
The Royal Australian Navy and the Australian People can rightfully take great pride in HMAS Sydney and her Crew. As an American I am thankful and grateful that over many years and many conflicts, Australians have been staunch allies and good friends to my country.

Georgia Beaumont in 24 when she boards a ship for Australia. Behind her is South Africa, her homeland she loves but can no longer endure.

Bitterbloom tells the story of the delicate balance between escape and feelings of guilt and loss; of Georgia's shattering relationships with two men who come close to destroying her. In a passionate and often devastating emotional journey, Georgia must come to terms with her past to find peace in a new and hostile land. Alison Stewart brings a new sense of the pain of loss and the joy of re-discovery as she charts a course form confusion and dislocation to peace with the clarity and force only personal experience can afford. Bitterbloom introduces a brilliant and established Australian writer to the world.

I give this extraodinary novel a 5 out of 5 and wish this talented and popular writer good luck in the future.

This book is a product of remarkable research by Professor Pybus. In a fascinating unravelling of little known facets of early European settlement of Australia it reveals that history is never as simple as we think, and that White Australia was never as White as some liked to believe. In today's Australia, where Sudanese migrants are being demonized for electoral gain, it reminds us that our true heritage is a mixed one we should embrace, not disown.

This is not the Captain Bligh of the Nordhoff and Hall novels. Nor does it tell of the Captain Bligh of Charles Laughton's characterization in film. This is a look at the real Captain Bligh of history and Gavin Kennedy gives us a man who was significantly flawed but fundamentally a decent, even caring, commander who lost his ship to the villainous madness of Fletcher Christian. This may be one of the better "pro-Bligh" histories and definitely worth the read. Its style is not dense and its breadth is considerable.