Darwin is a survivor, you have to give it that. Razed to the ground four times in its short history, it has picked itself up out of the debris to not only rebuild but grow … Darwin has known catastrophes and resurrections; it has endured misconceived projects and birthed visionaries. To know Darwin, to know its soul, you have to listen to it, soak in it, taste it.This is a book about the textures, colours, sounds and frontier stories of Darwin, Australia's smallest and lea...

Can there be good social policy? This book describes what happens to Indigenous policy when it targets the supposedly 'wild people' of regional and remote Australia. Tess Lea explores naturalized policy: policy unplugged, gone live, ramifying in everyday life, to show that it is policies that are wild, not the people being targeted. Lea turns the notion of unruliness on its head to reveal a policy-driven world dominated by short term political interests and their erratic, irrational effect...

Darwin is a survivor, you have to give it that. Razed to the ground four times in its short history, it has picked itself up out of the debris to not only rebuild but grow. Darwin has known catastrophes and resurrections; it has endured misconceived projects and birthed visionaries. To know Darwin, to know its soul, you have to listen to it, soak in it, taste it.To write about her home town, Tess Lea waded knee-deep in memories of the city, including those of her family an...

One of Library Journal’s 10 Best Books of 2015Following his acclaimed Atlantic and The Men Who United the States, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this imposing force of nature.As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise,...

This bestselling book, the triumphant fruit of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, is the unchallenged contemporary reference on the history of New Zealand. New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to introduce full democracy. Between those events, and in the century that followed, the movements and conflicts of human history have been played out more intensively and more rapidly in ...

A great collection of questions, answers and facts! Why can't elephants jump? Why don't sheep shrink when they get wet? Divided into sections about animals, people, the law and funny names and places, each part of this hardback book explores little known and often amusing information - Certain to entertain!

'If Ray Mears isn't a Great Living Englishman, then goodness me, who is? Ray is a persuader, pragmatist and populariser in the Durrell-Attenborough-Bellamy tradition.' - Robert Crampton, The TimesRay Mears is a household name through his television series Tracks, World of Survival, Bushcraft Survival, The Real Heroes of Telemark and many more. He is a private individual who shuns publicity whenever possible and would pre...

Jenna Butler draws on her own experiences of her grandmother's disappearance into senile dementia to reassemble a sensual world in longpoem form that positively crackles with imagery and rhythm. Identities and memories flow and flicker as she strings together fragments of narrative into stories that comprise one woman's life. It entwines her disappearing life with that of the persona of the woman's granddaughter through a choreographed confusion of identities: of she's and I's. Few poets c...

An electrifying, epic history of the city of Sydney as you have never seen her before.'To peer deeply into this ghost city, the one lying beneath the surface, is to understand that Sydney has a soul and that it is a very dark place indeed.'Beneath the shining harbour, amid the towers of global greed and deep inside the bad-drugs madness of the suburban wastelands, lies Sydney's shadow history. Terrifying tsunamis, corpse-robbing morgue staff, killer cops, neo-Nazis, power j...

A broad, concise and inclusive vision of Australia and Australians by one our most renowned historians.After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events that have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport; the suspicion of the tall poppy; the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbo...

The Great Barrier Reef is dying. Extreme weather is becoming all too familiar. Yet when it comes to action on climate change, division and paralysis rule the land.In this vivid, urgent essay, Anna Krien explores the psychology and politics of a warming world. She visits the frontlines of Australia’s climate wars – the Reef, the Galilee and Bowen basins, South Australia. She investigates the Adani mine, with its toxic politics and controversial economics. Talking to...

"Sydney may look golden, but this is the sunniness of Mozart, whose bright notes, especially at their most joyous, seem to cast themselves out across a great abyss."Sydney has always been the sexiest and most gaudy of our cities. Here, novelist Delia Falconer conjures up its sandstone, humidity, and jacarandas. But she goes beyond these to find a far more complex city: beautiful, violent, half-wild, and at times deeply spiritual. It is a slightly unreal place, haunted by a...