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Martin Flanagan, journalist at the Age, has often written of the great Wonders of Australian Sport, his love of the AFL, of the importance of Aboriginal players in the highest echelons of Australian sport. A few years ago he threw himself at the mysterious and distressed figure of Tom Wills - our early Colonial cricket celebrity, who put together the Aboriginal Cricket Team set for Great Britain in 1868 - and helped write the original Code for Australian Rules. A hero for several original clubs - Melbourne, Collingwood and Richmond for example. Yet things fall apart, as things have often done for our sporting stars...

So Flanagan went deeper: "I dared myself to actually picture Tom Wills in the various situations I knew him to have been in during his life and backed my fancy. It was like entering a creative delirium. Pictures appeared before me which I wrote down in scenes. If I do the same thing in ten years' time, I may come up with a different story but I doubt that will happen. I doubt the energy that accompanied the writing of this treatment will ever return."

And so we have his TOM WILLS PICTURE SHOW, shedding light on a most complex character...

This is the story of Ken Thomas, educated with two university degrees but nothing about trucks, who was mislead into buying a truck by a sham relative at the end of the Second World War.

After this shaky start came problems with government regulations and road taxes. All the state governments wanted to protect their rail networks, so road and rail industries hated each other.

Ken's father was a steam engine driver and Ken could see that the entrepreneurial energy of the private transport companies, and the government railway networks should be partners, not enemies.

With practical, business like common sense, Ken led the way to achieve this, in Australia and overseas. Ken described this as a red-blooded, gutsy, period, culminating in an ambush in the TNT boardroom.

'In the transport game, there is no standing still.' - Ken Thomas

[Lt Col Edward D (Moke) Murray]… an outstanding officer in the Indian Army and became a Gurkha commander in Malaya. In 1939 he fired the crucial shot that dispersed a strike that threatened the Raj. He became an outstanding leader in the fight against the Japanese in Assam and Burma. He suppressed the Viet Minh in Saigon in 1945, in what can be seen as the start of the Vietnam War. He was Allied Land Commander in Cambodia and supervised the surrender of the Japanese there. In 1953 he was cheered by millions along the eight-kilometre route of Elizabeth II’s coronation parade as he marched at the head of the hugely popular Gurkha contingent. But when he died not a single obituary of him appeared, apart from a short notice in the Gurkha gazette.
From Anthony Barnett’s Introduction

What sort of man was ‘Moke’ Murray, this forgotten Achilles of the dying British Empire? He served his King in wars from Waziristan to Burma and helped to shape the future of Indochina. But, as this touching and fascinating biography recounts, he ended his life in lonely poverty as the Empire itself dissolved and fell out of memory.
Neal Ascherson, novelist, reporter and historian

A fast-moving historical biography with the feel of a thriller... how did an ordinary Jewish man find the courage to impersonate a tough Nazi officer?

 

Gerhard Badrian was a gentle soul – quiet and compassionate, a competent commercial photographer. The Nazi occupation of Holland changed him. To cope with ruthless tyranny, his first reaction was perfectly normal. Keep your head down, stay out of harm’s way.

But that didn’t satisfy him, so he joined the Resistance. He learnt to forge identity papers which saved hundreds of likely Nazi victims: Resistance members, Jews and others.

 

Still not enough. When, in front of his eyes, he saw his parents captured and deported to their deaths, a new persona emerged. He found he had hidden talents. He was a natural-born actor. Armed with forged papers and wearing an SS uniform, he would march into a prison or hospital…

 

Certainly, this is a thrilling war story, an engrossing Holocaust story. But it is also a family story. Gerhard was the author’s mother’s cousin. For Paul Gardner, Gerhard Badrian is his unsung family hero.

 

"A gripping story of how extraordinary times converted ordinary people into heroes ... This book transforms the history of a global war and monstrous crimes against humanity into a personal story of courage, risk and heart-trembling fear." - The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG

The Vo Rogue Show is the story about a small, gelded weanling of poor breeding initially called 'Erky' and purchased with the proceeds of a punt, that blossomed into a superstar. This once in a lifetime racehorse captivated the nation, created a cult following and enriched the lives of those who knew and loved him. But this book is not just a story about horse racing. It is a story about life, death, resilience and the undying love for this one horse.

The Vo Rogue Show is the story about a small, gelded weanling of poor breeding initially called 'Erky' and purchased with the proceeds of a punt, that blossomed into a superstar. This once in a lifetime racehorse captivated the nation, created a cult following and enriched the lives of those who knew and loved him. But this book is not just a story about horse racing. It is a story about life, death, resilience and the undying love for this one horse.

This true story came from the ship's log of the HMS Rattlesnake under the command of Captain Owen Stanley... who was searching for the Kennedy expedition... sailing the Coral Seas searching for men in the peninsula ranges, and Barbara Thompson was captive on Murralug; Billy Winn, an escaped convict from Norfolk Island, had, through a reign of terror and treachery, cowed the most fearful of all peoples - the Coral Sea headhunters. He had taken power on Badu as the feared demi-god Wongai. Hearing that a white woman was to be found on Murralug, he gathered the Badu headhunters to raid Murralug... However Barbara, after being held on Murralug for five years, succeeded in escaping from the Murralug people and Wongai, and incredibly, was rescued by Captain Owen Stanley and taken back to Sydney.

- Beverley Eley, from her biography Ion Idriess.

The first and best biography of the great Troubadour with artwork by Martin Sharp.

 

Throughout his lifetime, Tiny Tim was a repository of recorded music stemming from the early days of vaudeville to the latest chart favourites. But despite all these influences he remained a true original perfecting his performances as an outreach of his personality. True, he had some strange traits, but they did not impede on his enthusiastic kindness to people he loved, to the musicians he accompanied, and to the many listeners he met. In the age of celebrity, he functioned as the complete entertainer. Lowell Tarling has provided Tiny with a living biography and given us a definitive incentive to re-listen to his recording and re-visit his numerous You Tube postings. You get the feeling that somewhere Tiny is standing on his tiptoes, strumming his ukulele, blowing kisses and saying, 'God bless you all!'

- Hal Stein, (Tiny's cousin and close friend) April 2013

To help celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba on October 31 1917, this book offers nearly 100 unpublished photographs taken in the field by brothers Guy and Barney Hayden, of the 12th Light Horse. Both Lieutenants, the Haydons were at the forefront of the skirmish and the attack itself, and like all the Walers, their great horses Midnight and Polo play their essential part, right to the Charge itself. With Guy Haydon's testimony and Trooper Ion Idriess' diary note on the great day's events, this book is a celebration of our Light Horse - and the world's final great Charge in World War One.

Travel writer, explorer and novelist.

'Gaunts never give up', the motto of Mary's ancestor, Prince John of Gaunt (1340-1399) was quoted by Mary's father, William Gaunt, to his children.

In the 1880s, Mary Gaunt was one of the first women admitted to Melbourne University. Miss Gaunt's desire to study law was denied since male academics believed women incapable of studying 'difficult' subjects. In 1909, Mary, now widowed, led her own expedition into the West African jungle, staying in remote villages to gather information for her book 'Alone in West Africa'. In 1913, in the absence of sealed roads, Mary travelled in a bone-shaking mule cart from Peking to the edge of the Gobi desert and returned to Europe on a Russian troop train. Her amazing experiences in China and Russia produced two more travel books. Mary donated her royalties to the Red Cross to help Belgian refugees. For many years she lived in Italy and, during World War Two, died in France.

Prelude: Outwitting Mussolini

1. 'Gaunts never give up'

2. Encountering prejudice at university

3. Finding Doctor Right

4. Mary postpones a visit to China

5. Africa - the 'Dark Continent'

6. Heading a band of naked warriors

7. 'Madame, you have the heart of a lion'

8. 'Murder Hill' and German Togoland

9. Black magic among the Ashanti

10. The male dinosaurs of Londonís RGS

11. Through Tsarist Russia to Peking

12. Inside the walls of the Forbidden City

13. A political assassination

14. The Great Wall of China

15. 'Behind every small foot is a jar of tears'

16. Chengde and the hunting palace of the Manchu

17. The temple of the Three Mountains

18. 'Please keep your last bullet for yourself'

19. Last days in China

20. Exploring the Amur River and Saghalien

21. On a troop train through Siberia

22. St Petersburg and after

23. Captured by Germans

24. The Gaunts in wartime

25. The final years of a cosmopolitan author

 

Lovers of adventure will thrill at the task Steve Posselt set himself on the biggest kayak trip of his life. Up the Mississippi, through the canals of the US and the UK, down the Thames, across the channel and up the Seine to Paris. Crazy? Steve Posselt is a climate warrior, determined to raise the awareness of climate chaos and its impact on our daily lives. He set off from Canberra in January 2015 to drag his kayak through three continents and attend the Paris Climate Conference officially known as COP21. This is the story of what he learned about himself on the way. It is also the story of despair and redemption as a buoyant, enthusiastic movement embraced him when he finally returned home. A must read for every climate activist, adventurer and their friends.

In 1932, Ion Idriess was one of those who set out from tiny port of Derby with the ending of the Wet season, moving through the rugger Kimberleys towards the developing goldfield of Tennant's Creek. This is the story of his wanderings in the 1930s and what he heard and saw along the way; at a time when wireless and air and motor transport were rapidly changing life in the North and North-west: but when the age of pioneers, of heroic journeys, terrifying loneliness, and violent death, had not yet passed away.

Back in print after 60 years.

The rollercoaster careers of the brothers Gibb – Barry, Robin, Maurice and younger brother Andy – is perhaps the greatest saga in Australian music history. The Bee Gees as a group, and the brothers individually, enjoyed several rebirths over careers that spanned many decades, but it seemed that tragedy followed them at every turn. For every incredible career high there seemed to be a hefty personal downside: divorce, drunkenness and early death are as synonymous with the Gibbs as falsetto harmonies, flares and multi-platinum selling records. This is the story of the brothers’ incredible careers and an examination of the Gibb ‘curse’ – an all-too-human look at the yin and yang of fame. This edition is a re-issue of the original 2015 book entitled: Tragedy - the Sad Ballad of the Gibb Brothers.

Caroline Chisolm's hard work and determination changed the history of female migration to Australia and ensured better conditions for families on migrant ships and offered them paid work.

Eliza Hawkins was a trailblazer, surviving a dangerous journey as the first European woman to cross the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, travelling by horse and cart.

Mary Gaunt from Ballarat dared to lead her own expeditions in West Africa and China, travelling from Peking to the edge of the Gobi desert in a mule cart and became a very popular travel writer and novelist.

Hilda Rix Nicholas fought for women painters to be taken seriously and held successful exhibitions in France and Britain, before returning to Australia to paint superb images of rural life in the Monaro.

Sister Anne Donnell was one of the first nurses to volunteer in World War One. Her letters made her famous, recounting the sufferings of Anzacs in a military hospital on Lemnos, where British administrative bungles kept the nurses and their patients short of sheets, bandages and drinking water.

Nell Tritton from Brisbane became personal assistant and translator to handsome Alexander Kerensky, the reformist Russian Prime Minister who was later deposed by Lenin. As Madame Kerensky she helped him escape assassins sent by Stalin. As the Nazis advanced on Paris Nell used her own money to purchase forged Spanish visas so her husband's Russian-Jewish employees and their families could escape from the invading Nazis.

Louise Mack worked in Tuscany and became the world's first female war correspondent in German-occupied Belgium. She wrote a bestselling war memoir and donated her royalties to help Belgian war victims before returning to Sydney, where she married an Anzac veteran.

Margaret Ogg and Vida Goldstein were ridiculed when they dared to claim that women were intelligent enough to sit in Parliament. Enid Lyons, mother of twelve, became Australia's first Cabinet Minister, but it took another 50 years for Julia Gillard to become Australia's first female Prime Minister.

A lawyer by profession, mother and grandmother, Dame Quentin Bryce blazed a trail for women by becoming Australia's first female Governor-General. After leaving office she returned to her home state of Queensland where she now heads a programme designed to combat domestic violence.

Tripping Over is a true story of life in post war England in the 1950s and 1960s. It tells the story of John, who grows up in the shadow of his dad, a returned war hero. John senses he is different but not in a good way and knows he has big shoes to fill. He is not coping well. Beleaguered and confused, poor judgement and clumsiness dog his every move.

 

When his parents visit the annual Earl's Court Motor Show to buy a new car but return with a boat instead - turmoil follows. Later he is almost killed on a disastrous wild horse ride on Rotten Row but is he really guilty of the police accusation of fraud? As a teenager John explores his sexuality, only to fall in love for all the wrong reasons.

 

John's self-deprecating reminisces are often illuminating as the reader accompanies him on his bittersweet journey of both triumph and disaster.

 

John's first book Reluctant Hero, is about his dad, Bill, who was a Lancaster bomber pilot in WW2. Tripping Over is its sequel. Sex, Lies and Crazy People, published in 2014, follows on from Tripping Over. They are all true stories.