The epic true story of George Mallory and Edmund Hillary and the quest to be the first to conquer Everest. A captivating story of adventure, daring, despair and triumph from Australia's favourite storyteller.Last century, two men, thirty years apart, set out to become the first to conquer the highest point in the world. Their names are synonymous with adventure - George Mallory and Edmund Hillary. One travelled from England, the other New Zealand, both seeking to t...

The number 1 non-fiction bestseller.More than 100,000 copies sold!'What we have, we hold'MOttO OF AUStRALIA'S 2/17tH BAttALIONIn the tradition of his bestselling Kokoda, Peter FitzSimons, Australia's most beloved popular historian, focuses on one of the seminal moments in Australian history: the Battle of tobruk in 1941, in which more than 15 000 Australian troops - backed by British artillery - fought in excruciating desert heat through eight long months, against Adolf Hitler's for...

The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spyIn the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person.As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a...

The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimonsIn September 1939, young Australian surgeon Edward 'Weary' Dunlop was working in London when the dogs of war were unleashed. Signing up, he was commissioned a captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC)...

Batavia is the greatest story in Australia�s history. The Shipwreck of the Batavia combines in just the one tale the birth of the world's first corporation, the brutality of colonisation, the battle of good vs evil, the derring-do of sea-faring adventure, mutiny, ship-wreck, love, lust, blood-lust, petty fascist dictatorship, criminality, a reign of terror, murders most foul, sexual slavery, natural nobility, survival, retribution, rescue, first contact with native peoples and so much more...

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle.4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious.5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south.5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees.It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres...

Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become.Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and the young private was assigned to 14th Battalion D Company. By the time they shipped out to Egypt he'd been made a Lance Corporal.On 26 April 1915, 14th Battalion landed at ...

It’s early 1918, and after four brutal years, the fate of the Great War hangs in the balance.On the one hand, the fact that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks have seized power in Russia – immediately suing for peace with Germany – means that no fewer than one million of the Kaiser’s soldiers can now be transferred from there to the Western Front.On the other, now that America has entered the war, it means that two million American soldiers are also on their way, to tip the ...

The story of one man who had the guts to lose his gut. This is a book that will finally help an ordinary bloke lose weight. (Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with wearing a red bandana.)Ever struggled with your weight? Or did you stop struggling years ago and let the pies win? Peter FitzSimons has been there and eaten that. In The Great Aussie Bloke Slim-Down, he will lead you through the fads that failed him, the diets that died fast and left him furious...

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLEROn 19 July 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers - in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front - attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles in northern France. By the next day, there were over 5500 casualties, including nearly 2000 dead - a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history.Just days later, three Australian Divisions attacked German positions at nearby Pozières, an...

A celebration of chest puffing goodness and kindness from around the country written in inimitable Peter FitzSimon's style.You gotta love this country when an AFL legend takes his mum instead of his girlfriend to the Brownlow, when an Australian cricket captain joins a bunch of fourteen year olds for a bit of street cricket, when a bloke wins the Australian Marbles Championship after being reunited with the tom-bowlers his brother threw away forty years ago, and wh...

If only these walls and this land could talk . . .The Sydney Opera House is a breathtaking building, recognised around the world as a symbol of modern Australia. Along with the Taj Mahal and other World Heritage sites, it is celebrated for its architectural grandeur and the daring and innovation of its design. It showcases the incomparable talents involved in its conception, construction and performance history.But this stunning house on Bennelong Point also holds many secr...