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"I am a Jew. Between 1933 and 1945 I lived in Germany, the country of my birth, with the many who perished and with the few who survived the Holocaust."

 

With these bald statements Ken Arkwright commences the story of his life. There have been countless stories written by and about Holocaust survivors, and each one has its own perspective, each being a witness statement, an eye-witness account - and each deserves to be told.

 

This particular book has the interesting provenance of having first been published in German, where it aroused considerable interest. Now Hybrid Publishers is proud to release a revised and updated English edition, with fascinating material about Arkwright's life and times.

 

For decades the author resisted telling his story. As he comments, "Many years of reflecting on these events had to take place to make me feel the need to write about this journey."

 

He feels an urgency to tell his story, as otherwise his unique life experiences and the life stories of some of the people he met and who perished in the Holocaust will die with him.

 

Now in his ninetieth year, Ken Arkwright writes with clarity and in great detail - and with a remarkable lack of bitterness - about the progress of his life through the Great Depression, the rise of the Nazis, and the Second World War.

 

It is indeed a story beyond survival.

 

Arthur Upfield's autobiography was written in 1937 but put aside during the intervening years of the Second World War. Now available for the first time, here is Upfield's own story of tramping Australia and developing his great crime novels featuring Bony, the first Aboriginal detective, alongside real desert characters like One-Spur Dick, Mr Pluto, Dead March Harry and the evil Snowy Rowles. Illustrated with photographs from Upfield's archive.

The first woman to gain a pilot's licence in the Commonwealth outside Britain, Millicent Bryant steps onto the Sydney Harbour Ferry, Greycliffe, to return home on a sunny November afternoon in 1927. But just off Bradley's Head, the Greycliffe is rammed and sunk by a passenger ship and, in the moments of her drowning, Millicent's recent life and flying achievements rise like final bubbles of breath from the wreckage.

 

Ninety years later, this innovative biographical work, based on Millicent's rediscovered letters and writings, tells the 'lost' life of a highly individual, modern woman whose passions took her not only to the sky but beyond it.

 

Entrepreneur, student of Japanese, early motorist, mother of three, would-be novelist, politically engaged citizen - and woman wih a hidden love - this was Millicent Bryant, aviator.

World War II was the biggest and most destructive war in history. For two centuries wars had grown ever larger, with the use of more terrible weapons and rising casualties, culminating in the cataclysmic global events of 1939–45. And then, quite suddenly, large international wars have all but disappeared. What caused wars to grow in size to such an extent and then shrink so precipitously? Is this a permanent state of affairs or could big wars make a comeback?

 

Lawyer and historian John P Storey explores these questions by looking at the evolution of military technology and tactics over the long history of warfare. From ancient bronze spears and chariots to World War II tanks and warplanes, from the nuclear weapons of the Cold War to the drones and robotics of the future, the changes in our methods of waging war has had, and will continue to have, a major impact on their size and destructiveness. The sobering conclusion Storey makes is that, based on past trends and the weapons in the pipeline for the future, there is a much higher risk of there being much bigger wars in the coming decades.

Young Fidelia Knight arrives in Melbourne in 1874, alone except for her treasured companion, Samuel Johnson; well, half of him.

 

To escape servitude, Fidelia hides each night in Bourke-street's renowned Coles Book Arcade. She loves words, you see, and wants to know them all.

 

What she overhears in Coles sets her on a path that will change the lives of everyone she meets, starting with Jasper Godwin, the hopelessly underqualified manager of the new Billings Better Bookstore.

 

Fidelia's thirst for knowledge is contagious. She tutors two orphan boys and two illiterate women, inspiring them to unlock their creativity; and her exploration of colonial Melbourne takes her to some unusual places.

 

Nothing daunts this diminutive genius, except the mystery of what really happened to her parents on the voyage from England.

Ian Higgins BA (Hons), BEd, DipDiv has been fascinated by words for as long as he can remember. He has written short stories, poetry and many letters to the editor, as well as editing the Religious Education Journal of Australia at its inception.

 

He has now retired on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria with his wife Barbara.

 

In his late seventies he was diagnosed as having late onset bipolar disorder. These memoirs are written from a bipolar perspective in the hope that this shared lived experience may be a help to others.

When Merryn O'Neill's fiance, Jake Hawkins, an officer with the Pacific Islands Regiment in Port Moresby, breaks off their engagement, so he can marry the daughter of his commanding officer, her world is torn apart.

 

Arriving reluctantly in Port Moresby to take up a prearranged flying position, Merryn doesn't envisage the magical spell this strange and seductive land, particularly one of its own people, will cast over her. But Merryn and Jake share a secret from the past Merryn can't forget. No matter how much she tries.

 

Set during the period of the Vietnam War, against a backdrop of evocative tropical heat, menace, and intrigue, Bird of Paradise explores the tangled emotions of love, loss, and betrayal, climaxing in dramatic and unexpected consequences.

Adventures in love in exotic Cairo.

Alice Taylor Stewart is an engineer.

Nerida Cordo is a linguist.

Together, they travel the world building bridges ~ both literal and figurative.

They also delight in getting up to all kinds of mischief; like a two-woman St Trinians.

And the other thing in which they take delight?

Each other.

Art the part-time spy is at it again, and this time he's got birds on the brain.

Mr Snippet's Crested Featherfoot Fantail is missing. It's his best bird and unless it's found, his wedding birds-for-hire service might go out of business.

Art loves to be faced with a problem and he sets out to catch the thief, with help from his friend India (when she's not collecting dog droppings for her science experiment) and, as usual, no help from Mars Bar!

It’s the turn of the nineteenth century and a small contingent of British colonialists has been dispatched to a (fictitious) African country, their mission: to establish colonial dominion over an ‘unclaimed territory’. While some of colonialism’s cruelties have by this stage been realised, the ‘Scramble for Africa’, under the auspices of Darwinian theory, Christian charity and Eurocentrism, has assumed the guise of philanthropy. Colonialism’s ‘noble duty’ – the ‘white man’s burden’ – is ‘to save the savages from themselves’.

Told with a dry, caustic humour that lampoons the era’s language and sensibilities, Bisulo’s Pig aims to situate the reader in the colonial mindset, typical of the time, that fictionalised Africa and rendered its native inhabitants as pitiful, barbarous or subhuman – and to reveal that a great many of us might not be quite as free of an imperialistic outlook as we may fancy.

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‘In recent decades, countless novelists have been criticised for the ways in which they’ve treated Africa and Africans in their works. And often justly so: many of these handlings have been crude, prejudiced, ignorant and dehumanising.

‘The purpose of Bisulo’s Pig is to examine whether swinging too blindly in the other direction can also present problems …

‘Ultimately, Bisulo’s Pig is all about cultural relativism and suprarationalism: Anthropology 101. It aims to show there can be logic couched in absurdity, science undergirding superstition, reason amid randomness. While the book’s aim is to darkly parody the colonial project as an exercise in farce, its overriding purpose is to reveal the multifarious guises under which racial prejudices persist.’ – Taz Liffman

 

At the age of 65 Gordon Lewis was described by an enraged senior judge as a 'bloody maverick!' He took comfort from this assessment as he felt it confirmed that he was on the right track...

 

Gordon Lewis loves the humanity of the Law. That affection has led him to a legal career of great diversity. Whether as Director of the Victorian Law Institute, sitting as a County Court Judge, regular presentations on radio, guest speaker at both overseas and Australian conferences, or his role as Cricket Australia's Senior Code of Conduct Commissioner, his name has become almost as well known to the general public as it is to the legal profession.

 

Known for his warmth, compassion and quick wit, he has devoted many years to assisting and advising young lawyers. The textbook he originally co-authored with Justice Kyrou, Handy Hints on Legal Practice, was once described as the only legal textbook to ever make the readers laugh. Several years ago he decided to write 'a funny book about the law and his life so far.' This book is the result. Whether it is the law stripped of its pomposity, cricket, film reviewing, greyhounds or just coping with life's exigencies, the self-deprecatory humour in these pages gives a rare insight into the author's kindness and sense of fun. You might also think that apart from writing 'a funny book', almost coincidentally the author has recorded a testament to overcoming personal adversity.

She fears the unknown...

Artist Kirri Smith is haunted by the memory loss she suffered in New Orleans, and fears what it may hide.

He has the answer to her past...

When American Daniel Brand walks into Kirri's art gallery on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, their encounter results in a startling revelation - one which will have tragic outcomes for Kirri's family.

The present holds dangers they could never imagine...

A past act of deception has created killers who will do anything to achieve their goal. Kirri and Daniel are flung into a nightmare of suspicion and lies when the killers' plan takes a terrifying new twist...

In Black Ice, obsession and lies threaten a second chance at love.

Book 2 in the Kit O'Malley series.

Poison pens can draw blood. And that is exactly why TV presenter Rebecca Jones hires private eye Kit O'Malley to investigate the threats against her. But the trouble with being tenacious, tough, and too smart for her own good is that everybody else wants her on their team.

As if trying to keep Rebecca alive and on the air wasn't enough, Kit is beset by a clutch of other people's catastrophes that require her very particular skills to resolve.

And, as Kit is the detective who can't say no, before she knows it she is up to her eyes in the worst that Australia's criminal minds can throw her way.

Money laundering, sordid sexual shenanigans, abduction, political sleaze, and murder among Melbourne's movers and shakers threaten to swamp Kit as she picks her way through the morass of double-dealing, treachery, and outright greed.

As if that's not enough, the beautiful and sexy Alex Casenove sweeps back into her life, reminding Kit that love is almost as deadly as hate and that murder never happens at a convenient time.

Bleeding Hearts, the sequel to the highly acclaimed debut Blood Guilt, is a tightly plotted romp through the dark underbelly of Australia's most-cultured city, vibrantly demonstrating that even the heartless bleed.

For outback mechanic Kevin Matheson, it's just another summer's day. Mulga wavering in the haze, sweat on his brow, bastard flies getting in his way.

And then the vampires arrive, leaving his life like road kill in their wake.

Caught between vicious nomadic bikers and their brutal foes from the coast, Kevin fights to save not only those he holds dearest, but his own soul.

But how far will he go to save the people he loves?

Book 1 in the Kit O'Malley series.

Private investigator Kit O'Malley has had more exciting cases than following a wealthy client's husband, but Celia Robinson is paying big money to find out what the libidinous Geoffrey is up to with a blonde, a redhead and entrepreneur Ian Dalkeith and his group of shady businessmen.

Enduring a heatwave and fighting the inanimate objects that are out to get her are the hardest parts of Kit's assignment until a body is found in the Robinson's ornamental fish pond and everything takes a turn for the weird and nasty.

While the cops do their own thing, Celia's daughter Quinn hires Kit to find the killer and her mother's missing butler. What Kit doesn't count on is Quinn's determination to be involved in the case. To make matters worse she brings along her lawyer, Alexis Cazenove, who is as stunning as she is smart and has an extremely disconcerting effect on Kit's sense of balance.

After a near miss with a homicidal driver, Kit knows she's getting close to something - even if the truth seems to be that everyone has a secret. And then there's the question of just who the mysterious Mike Finnigan is following; is it Geoffrey, Dalkeith or Kit herself?