Jack Oats (aka Baker) is a man of all trades. Under various pseudonyms, he has been a teacher, ornithologist, conservation biologist, bureaucrat, father, grandfather and husband. He has published lots of science and years ago, he managed Biodiversity Conservation Science for the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation. Nowadays, Jack Oats makes short fictional and factual word creations as part of the Recovery Plan for the Semi-colon. In this, his first published collection of poetr...

From his life’s work so far, spanning more than four decades, Les Murray has selected these 100 poems, his personal best. Including classics such as ‘The Broad Bean Sermon’, ‘An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow’ and ‘The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever’, this elegant hardback is guaranteed to delight Murray fans and introduce new readers to his work. This is a wonderful gift, and a treasure trove of the best poems ever written in Australia.‘No poet has ever travelled like this, whether ...

They say that tourist ships to Antarctica, even more than ordinary human conveyances, are loaded down with aching hearts. Deceived wives and widowers, men who've never been loved and don't know why, Russian crew forced to leave their children behind for years at a time … And then there are the married couples: how calm the old ones, how eager the new! – but isn't a couple the greatest mystery of all?Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice is the tale of a journey to Antarctic...

A fascinating prize-winning novel about a house with a fanciful little turret, built by a river. Unfolding within its rooms are lives of event and emotional upheaval. A lot happens. And the tumultuous events of the twentieth century also leave their mark, from war to economic collapse, the deaths of presidents and princesses to new waves of music, art, architecture and political ideas. Meanwhile, a few metres away in the river, another creature follows a d...

From the author of the critically acclaimed Troll, the new novel from Johanna Sinisalo is full of her trademark style, surreal invention, and savage humorSet in Australasia, this is the story of a young Finnish couple who have embarked on the hiking trip of a lifetime, with Heart of Darkness as their only reading matter. Conrad's dark odyssey turns out to be a prescient choice as their trip turns into a tortuous thriller, with belongings d...

‘Things I Did for Money is a collection of exciting and imaginative stories from one of our most innovative writers. This is a book for readers hungry for a highly original voice.’ — Tony BirchA man’s fury at his neighbour is reversed by strange nightmares. A young woman with a grudge finds a discarded weapon. A hunt for sunken treasure brings two scuba divers to the brink of tragedy.Drawing us into worlds both surreal and familiar, Things I Di...

A brand new story from the author of The Grand Hotel.Rural Victoria 1865, the heat comes in and all the signs of the next drought on its way. At times like these no one seems to mind putting on their best clothes and making the long journey to the cool, bluestone church on a Sunday morning. but it is not only humans seeking shelter and solace on this Sunday morning.

This book is an ode to the fragrant, yet rough-hewn Australian bush. By delving into its pages, you will be transported to a parallel realm where flannel flowers sing, cockatoos choreograph and paperbark trees seduce. A memoir of sorts, this poignant and ethereal collection of poems celebrates the beauty, the harshness and the resilience of this ancient land and its unforgettable inhabitants.In addition, you’ll be serenaded by harps and fairies, meander through time in a yellow din...

'The Fringe, Poetry Cafe' is an anthology from poets based in the North West of England. Some of this work has appeared in poetry pamphlets distributed in pubs, cafes, libraries, shops, buses and trains. In fact, anywhere the public may have time to read some interesting pieces of writing. There are many prize winning poems here. The pamphlets and ebooks are published by SeaQuake Books. The idea behind the initiative is to bring poetry to a wider audience. The poets included in this partic...

Urgent and precarious, the poems in The Rapids, Susan Gillis’ third collection, take us to places lost and reclaimed: a balcony high over the St. Lawrence River in downtown Montreal, upstream to the Lachine Rapids, and beyond, to landscapes as far apart as Greece and the B.C. coast.

For a long time, people have looked to science as a way to understand their own lives. But while science has proven itself a useful metaphor, it has just as often been exposed as being as fallible as the flawed humans who lean on it. Newcomer Leigh Kotsilidis's lively, thoughtful and refreshingly speculative first collection engages and questions the linguistic roots of the hypothetical, both as they apply to the Scientific Method and its faith in certainty, and tothe word's alternate mean...

Terse and concise or rambling and hypnotic, poetry finds the music in language. Building pictures from sound, layering obvious over oblique on obscure, it secretes multiple levels of meaning for the seeking. If a picture is worth a thousand words the goal of a single word is to create a whirl of images. Reducing, condensing, saying more with less: making music in the flow of the words.