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Fred Cook began his football career with Footscray in the VFL. But he really made his name in the game after crossing to Port Melbourne in the VFA.

His prodigious goalkicking in the 1970s earned him the nickname of 'Fabulous Fred' and fame at a pop-star level. He appeared on TV, on radio and wrote newspaper columns, and he mixed with Melbourne's sporting and entertainment elite.

But he fell in with a criminal crowd, formed a drug habit, lost everything and did three spells in prison.

Cook has led a remarkable life, going from hero to zero. He's always wanted to tell his story, which features football, crime and drugs, and the wider issue of sportspeople who struggle with normalcy once their careers have ended.

Fred Cook's name still resonates, thirty years after his career ended. Last year he was nominated for the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

Facing Fear is the inspiring true story of Lisa Blair, who on 25 July 2017 became the first woman to sail solo around Antarctica. She very nearly didn’t live to tell the tale. Seventy-two days into her circumnavigation, when Lisa was more than 1000 nautical miles from land, the mast of Climate Action Now came crashing down in a ferocious storm. In freezing conditions, Lisa battled massive waves and gale-force winds, fighting through the night to save her life and her boat. Following her ordeal, Lisa relied on her unbreakable spirit to beat the odds and complete her world record. With unwavering focus and determination, she sailed home, completing her journey after 183 days. This is the story of her remarkable voyage.

Facing the Music explores the dark side of ambition and the ambiguous passions which surround creativity. Duncan Bayle is a successful composer whose genius has faltered. He blames his problems on the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of his daughter, Anna, whom he has long regarded as his muse. Duncan believes that if he is to work again, Anna must return. But she had good cause to leave and even better reason to stay away.

On the day of Gran's funeral, teenager Zoe finds Gran's 'not to be opened until after my death' package. So she opens it.

Turns out, Gran was not just Madga, she had other names too. And other lives.

Together with her hockey-nerd mate Luke, Zoe goes on a digital journey of discovery to find out who her Gran really was.

Amy and Christopher are twins AND international sleuths. Their eco-photographer parents travel often. So the twins fly to meet them.

Christopher loves drawing. He draws people and places. And often he notices unusual clues.

Amy reads and thinks quickly. She also collects coins, stamps, stickers, phone cards and clues.

Together they solve mysteries in the air and at international airports.

“One of the most-needed and grab-you-by-the throat convincing books around today” - Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys

 

“For parents who feel defeated by the powerful influence of social media in their children’s lives, this book will sympathise, illuminate, inspire and encourage us to believe there is another, better way to live.” - Hugh Mackay, social researcher and bestselling author

 

Smartphones and other interactive devices have turned up the volume on stress and are harming our mental and physical health. They have shrunk the capacity of families to spend time together, and when together, they have increased conflicts. Two-thirds of Australian families experience tension or disagreement about screens at least three times a week.

 

In this confronting yet constructive guide on parenting in the digital age, award-winning journalist Toni Hassan catalogues the impacts of interactive devices on children and young people and offers ways out.

 

“Rather than freeing us, screens have made us dependent,” she says. “They have thinned relationships and thinned time for the things that ultimately nourish us. Almost no part of children’s lives are free from the anxiety created by commercial forces curating their moment to moment experiences.”

 

Moving beyond the gloom, Hassan offers lots of practical hope with ideas and tips for families to manage the digital age so that, despite the challenges, children and young people can thrive.

Here is Brodie, an expatriate trader in New Guinea, whose understanding of the sorceries and rituals he now lives with is moving close to respect and wonderment. He watches his visiting daughter, a twelve year old, being captivated by this culture of theatre.

The place was packed. Tiptoe, over the matt-black heads of the crowd, he could see the performers. He edged closer, but so rapt was everyone that none of them looked around. The figure who held their attention was not from anywhere Brodie could place, and indeed, more than anywhere else, he might have come from the grave. His eyesockets were painted with sulphur, enlarged to include much of the temples and the cheekbones, so bright a yellow that the eyes behind seemed empty. His skull was shaved and rubbed with ashes, and whatever hank remained of the hair was evidently the support for the plumes which pealed upward like golden-throated trumptes and for the crimson lances which entered the head, one on either side, which spoke of the fierce manner of his death.

When daughter Meg falls suddenly ill, Brodie fears she will be relying more on a matrix of magic rather than the sterile planes and inoculant infusions he would better trust.

This novella was first published in the Antipodes Journal, Austin, Texas.

Faraway Places is a collection of three novellas that goes to dark and dingy places that the faint-hearted might wish are truly faraway. But are they? Not when you take a crazed trip with an odd-ball who dreams of a faraway place, while all the while he is on a slow-burn to insanity. Maybe he can solve the problem of living in a caravan alongside a garbage tip with a foul-mouthed significant other and a companion dog. That's not an easy problem to solve when you lack initiative.

 

Perhaps the frozen wastelands of pre-revolutionary Russia are a change of location, but still you'll find that it's that kind of faraway place where many bizarre things could be possible: dogheaded people might exist, a nasty con-man can become a tsar and, if you want to save your skin, there are people you should avoid. If that’s not enough, then waiting to be solved is the provenance of two mysterious trunks and their contents in the basement of St Petersburg's Hermitage.

 

Finally, a misconstruction about a killing on an isolated farm in a British colony in 1815 leads to disastrous consequences. Decent men can commit abominable acts and criminals can be decent. In this faraway place, it's brutal times all round - brutal times for the original native inhabitants, for settlers and their women, and for the convicts and child convicts. A gripping read.

A city in danger. Thousands will die. What would you sacrifice to save them?

Operative Mark Talbert's father is murdered, the agency he works for has him hunting terrorists, and the only connection is the father of Julie Evans, the woman he loves.

Julie's father has placed her in the hands of a terrorist determined to unleash horror on an unprepared city. She needs someone she can depend on, but can she trust the man she loves?

People are dying; people who seem to have nothing in common, until Mark discovers his father's involvement in a decades-old crime. A killer is taking a calculated revenge that threatens Mark, Julie, and Julie's son.

Meanwhile the terrorists are making their final move.

What does it take to make a man?

The short stories of Pierz Newton John move through the full range of masculine experience, with an openness, not afraid to show men at their most lonely, sexual, loving, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes abusive. Tender moments between father and son, first sexual experiences and what men feel and think about women.

* Cover endorsement from acclaimed Australian authors, Chris Womersley and Matthew Condon.

* Pierz Newton-John is a father and former psychotherapist. Published widely in literary journals. Winner of Alan Marshall Short Story Award.

* Cover and evocative sketches by talented artist, Paden Hunter.

Agent Capra Jane - cybercop attached to the Melbourne-City HQ of Southern Indian-Pacific Corp - trawls the mean streets of Cy-city and other cyberspace resorts.

In a climate-changed future, after the gene and borders wars of the 2060s, and in a world governed by the Alpha-Omega Accord and its Interplanetary Exchange, Capra Jane fights a never-ending battle against crime.

Things change in unexpected ways, however, when she is teamed up with the enigmatic and beautiful Zanzibar Black of HomeWorld Security, and Decker, a returned astronaut who's never been in cyberspace.

This book is aimed at providing criticism on contemporary Australian poetry in a form that is accessible to general readers. It is intended to be the first in a series which will grapple with the bewildering diversity of the contemporary poetry scene. Australian poetry deserves a criticism that accompanies the astonishing momentum and luminosity that has developed, which both elucidates the scale of poetic achievement and is also not afraid to evaluate that achievement through a rigorous and disinterested critical lens. Australian poets have been feeding the ghost with extraordinary energy and acumen over the last quarter of a century; it is now time for Australian poetry criticism to catch up.

 

This is Ross Fitzgerald's 42nd book, an updated edition of his 2010 book My Name is Ross. Although he has now succeeded in not drinking alcohol or using drugs for 50 years, in this revised edition the author still calls himself an alcoholic, and pays extended tribute to the role of Alcoholics Anonymous in keeping him on the wagon. His involvement in AA has become a way of life; he still attends two or three meetings a week.

 

A key aspect of AA's therapeutic process involves what can be termed the mechanism of surrender. Instead of telling alcoholics to use their willpower, control their drinking or pull up their socks, AA suggests that a much more efficacious strategy is to admit that, at least in relation to alcohol, they are beaten. With his insight into the scourge of numerous kinds of addiction, Fitzgerald traces the journey of many alcoholics and drug addicts.

 

In this brutally honest and intimate portrayal of his fascinating life - his struggles as well as his successes - Fitzgerald doesn't shy away from his difficult times and regrets, but ultimately has written an uplifting and inspiring book. With the prevalence of alcohol in our daily lives for every celebration or sad occasion, a book like this is needed more than ever.

Tim Thomas, former Special Forces Commando, knows about fear and the feelings of 'fight and flight' - but he also knows about harnessing some important insights to move beyond fear to a more connected life; one where you connect with others and re-connect with yourself and your potential.

 

Tim Thomas served in Afghanistan and East Timor as a Commando. Since leaving the Army in 2010, Tim has worked in the veteran recovery space, helping other veterans on their journey of healing post-service.

This book portrays a modern epic - of an army that sailed across the world to fight a war. Its struggle with the Kaiserreich (German empire) became the most formidable campaign Australian troops have ever fought. By the time Monash's soldiers broke through the Hindenburg Line, their achievement and its cost were staggering.

This epic was created by normal Australians, and is understandable to normal Australians. Here, you won't need expertise in military terminology. But to appreciate the titanic conflict the Diggers had entered, you'll find a clear picture of the Great War - its key issues and extraordinary events.

Before this book was written Australians could not get, in one concise volume, the two interwoven sagas - of Australia's epic and the Great War itself. That's what this lively and vigorous book offers.

It draws on the sources of thirteen countries to present as many good unknowns (women, men and fascinating situations) as it does big leaders, events, generals and battles. In debate it's not shackled to old predictables, and while mindful of general readers, it relies throughout on sound scholarship. For good measure, it bombards a few fallacies and their well-overdue authors.