Australia Books

Parker's got an eye for humor, beauty, and the essence of Hong Kong. Here in this big art book for all ages are his drawings (technically gorgeous) of HK festivals, street life, panoramas, architecture, and people.

I always like to give a copy of this book to people who have visited or lived in Hong Kong. It captures the flavor of the place so well!

Great for kids to get "lost" in, great for adults to enjoy. Fine enough for the coffee table.

The BUG guides are simple to read, a lot thinner, less bulky and heavy than their competitors who keep adding fine dining, five star hotels and other stuff we backpackers never use (which makes a lot of difference when you have to lug the thing around an entire continent, or even in this case just New Zealand) and much better value. They give a description and rating on each hostel (they claim they do not accept free nights or money but who knows), as well as maps of hostel locations and travel company information.

You obviously won't agree with all their reviews of the accommodation but that's the backpacking scene. You can have a terrible experience at somewhere where someone else had one of the best stays of their life. Don't rely on this guide alone, ask other backpackers who have been to the destinations you are going where they stayed and what it was like. The more opinions you get the more likely you are to get a clearer picture.

Definitely get this over Lonely Planet and Let's Go, at least until they clean up their acts.

This is a great story by a spirited Lady, who isn't content with only dreaming of adventure. Her writing is vivid and makes you feel as if you are sharing the adventure with her and her husband. Lee's poems are a treat for the mind and the photographs are worth a thousand words.

This is the most definitive resource on Australian Cryptozoology around. Its got around 30 pages per chapter, and each chapter just focuses on one animal. It's hard to find that much information on just one creature, anywhere else. It contains hundreds and hundreds of eyewitness accounts, as well as maps, photos, sketches, theories, and a sizeable bibliography. All information is presented in a speculative way, never outrightly saying that it definitely does or doesn't exist. The author is a member of the Cryptozoological society making all the information credible. A great book.

What does it take to make a difference? Is a good heart and a strong will enough? This book shows that from the point of view of working inside a government department making a difference is an incredibly fraught enterprise and that the best outcomes don't always come from the best intentions. Ultimately it shows that despite all the earnest people working in government who genuinely do want to help the other -- this book deals primarily with government bureaucrats whose job it is is to administer projects relating to indigenous Australians in the far north -- in the end what they do is provide more of the same, that is more whitefella government. The stories this book has to tell are as frustrating as hell because they seem to point to one conclusion, that implementing meaningful progressive change is impossible. And yet it may be, in a very Brechtian way, that by pointing up all the bad new things, it enables us to better see where the good new things might arise. An amazing book.

Although the hikes in this book were numerous, I did quite a few and all were breathtaking. Bushwalking in Australia is an excellent guide to hiking all over the continent and seeing every type of terrain that this diverse place has to offer. This book made my time is Australia so much more valuable and was worth every penny. It even has instructions on how to take trains and buses to trailheads. One of the best hiking books I have ever used.

All I have to say is that it was the best book! Cohen is a great writter

The book contains excellent colour pictures of the Australian Butterflies, including BW plates under the species texts which are really useful. The text contains upto date information under the species accounts, but the general biology chapters remain similar to Common & waterhouse, with a few new inclusions, such as a section on photography. The book is esential for all with an interest in Australian Butterflies.

This is the most authoritative work on butterfly and angelfishes to date. Steene & Allen navigate the narrow overlap between scientific completeness and accessibility to lay audiences with ease.
Detailed descriptions of behavior, habitat and appearance are accompanied by beautiful underwater photographs for each fish.

GLobal Consequences of the Butterfly Effect

Hawthorne, Susan. The Butterfly Effect. 2005. Spinifex Press. Melbourne, Australia

From the physical sciences comes the theory that all life is interconnected, that even the gentle movement of a butterfly's wing can connect to vast and distant changes and consequences. The pages of this book are like those frail wings; marks on delicate paper that connect and relate.

In Wild Politics Hawthorne explored the growth of wisdom and strength in a world of biodiversity and cultural diversity; a world where everything is connected and politics are best nurtured in their own home environment. She showed how disconnection is vital for the irresponsibility and immorality of growth-based capitalism.

The Butterfly Effect is the artistic complement to Wild Politics. In poems that range through history and space, Hawthorne makes the same connections. She gathers with Indian women in the feminist organization of Jagori where...we could not share a language, but we could share lunch...but as they read, listen to the / rhythms of their voices. It's / not only words we read.

Words are important for poets but feelings are also important. Hawthorne re-iterates in Greek - about Virginia Woolf...this girl who would change the shape of English literature... could not learn Greek -she was a too young and she was a girl ...she listened to the birds singing in Greek/ but she could not understand them...the connection to life was stronger than language and Woolf...returned to the song of birds / to their healing sounds...

Woven into her beautiful lines about discovery and community, the destruction of life, cruelty and the intimacy of her mother's death, Hawthorne is telling us that love and courage do triumph; love in all its forms, including the punishable love of lesbians. Only connect and the understanding will spread; we have beauty to contemplate in these poems, but the thread of urgency, of the necessity of witness is strong and insinuating. Be enchanted, be moved but also the poems speak - acknowledge and be moved to action.

Throughout the poems is the underlying tribute to Sappho: the joy and right of women to love women. In her opening conversation with Sappho, Hawthorne muses...we have been violated and vilified. And yet there is a chorus just beyond the limits of audibility, we know it exists, but who will praise it? The Butterfly Effect is part of that chorus and we need to tune our ears to hear it and help its journeys because...

We women.
our lives are like vines threading
The eye of the needle holds more than the camel.

We also are butterfly wings, with no pre-knowledge of the consequences of our actions and creativity. Theresa Wolfwood