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Australian orders, 1 book $5.50, 2 or more $10.50
Overseas orders, 1 book $13, 2 books $20, 3 books or more $25.
In Adelaide, Ginninderra Press books are available at East Avenue Books, 53 East Avenue, Clarence Park 5034.
Ruth Bayne
Scooting Through
The adventures of two ignorant innocents, both old enough to know better, travelling from London through countries as uncharted as Turkey, Persia and Iraq to Calcutta by Lambretta scooter in 1959.
1 74027 214 5, 206pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Dale Blair
No Quarter: Unlawful Killing and Surrender in the Australian War Experience 1915-18
One of the rarely discussed aspects of the experience of soldiers in the First World War was the refusal to take prisoners during battle and in some cases the killing of prisoners in the front line. No Quarter investigates the degree to which Australian soldiers were participants in this practice both as victims and perpetrators.
'...exceptionally well-researched, objective and well-written...an essential work for any student of the Great War...' - Military History
1 74027 291 9, 76pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Allison Blom
Magic Dragons: My Fight Against & Triumph Over Cancer
'It is refreshing to read of one remarkable woman's journey with breast cancer and the way in which she summoned her mental and emotional strengths to beat it.' - Dr Stuart B. Renwick
1 74027 035 5, 55pp, $15.00 BUY NOW
Margaret Bolton
Not Another Nun Story
The stories of Not Another Nun Story recount some of the more human side of life in a convent in the 1960s. Before Vatican II, convent life was rather like that depicted in Audrey Hepburn’s film A Nun’s Story. Margaret Breuer became a Sister of Mercy while still a teenager, and teenage behaviour surfaced occasionally, giving rise to the humorous side of some stories. No, this is not just another nun’s story, but a story of one who rather unsuccessfully struggled with the rules and regulations and the spiritual side of convent life, while making the most of the temporal side!
978 1 74027 651 1, 64pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Fred Brown
Fred Brown’s Schooldays
'Fred Brown's Schooldays gives an unsparing, affectionate account of Canterbury Boys' High School, Sydney, where he was a pupil from 1940 to 1945. Fred’s story is of a school keeping the flag of learning flying through the darkest days of war, when students dug trenches and practised with machine guns as the enemy came ever closer to Australia, meanwhile collecting transfers, ogling girls and telling smutty jokes as schoolboys have done down the ages. Fred Brown’s Schooldays is full of funny stories and larger-than-life characters, teachers and students. It will enthral former pupils, their wives, friends and relations, children and grandchildren. But it is also a timeless story of boys growing up in a country at war, and a classical style of education from which there is still much to learn.' - Phillip Knightley, Murray Sayle
Print edition sold out but PDF version available on CD, $10.00 BUY NOW
Kylie Ciampa
Living with Dyslexia
Written by a teacher who herself lives with dyslexia, this informative book takes a personal and positive approach towards this surprisingly common learning difficulty.
1 74027 368 0, 56pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Ray Clift
It's a Fine Line
Anecdotes about some of the humorous events, and some of the dangerous incidents, Ray Clift encountered during his thirty-two-year career as an officer in the South Australian Police. His fresh and challenging memories highlight the differences between policing then and now. It's a Fine Line shows how we all walk a fine line between success and destruction. Ray and his peers are survivors with scars yet they still retain their sense of humour. Their eyes fixed on justice and common sense, they have walked along a rocky path, fallen in potholes and regained their toehold. He and his colleagues emerge as modern-day angels with dirty faces.
978 1 74027 571 2, 76pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Ray Clift
Maybe Blue Ghosts
The author of It’s a Fine Line has had an interesting life which has enabled him to produce another collection of anecdotes laced with humour, danger, bizarre moments and personal misfortunes of police officers. Some fell ,never to rise and others just ploughed on. The narrative is spliced with Ray Clift’s optimism and New Age beliefs. It is a candid, honest study of people engaged in a tough career, who view horrific sights on a daily basis. Yet they are supposed to be devoid of emotions like robots, dispensing the law,:yet always hopeful that justice will prevail.
978 1 74027 640 5, 56pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Pam Cole
Candlefire
It took a Caribbean cyclone, an Irish grandmother's hundredth wedding anniversary, an email from Puerto Rico, and a fireside visit from her great-great-grandfather’s cantankerous lady love to make the author realise their Hunter Valley farm lay close to land settled by her colonial forebears. Dreams and discoveries about her female ancestors mingle in this entertaining patchwork of tales told by candle light. Can the strength and courage of past lives enable us to cope with ageing, change, and loss?
'A strong sense of place and historical connectedness permeates the book.' - Grass Roots
978 1 74027 448 7, 144pp, $22.50 BUY NOW
Pam Cole
A Drop of the Asp
Pam Cole's magical word skills and memory for detail have cast their spell, and we are with her in a world of woodstove cookery and mustering on horseback, of bucketing bathwater from the wash-house copper at lamplit day's end, the chilly mountain air perfumed with lucerne hay and spicy apples, while firelight flickers on revived poddies snuggled on the hearth and the telephone jingles on the wall as the postmistress connects the party line...
978 1 74027 504 0, 90pp, $20.00 BUY NOW
Paul Corfiatis
My World
This insightful book is a rare glimpse into the world of autism. It tells of one man’s struggle against all the odds, in a fearful and confusing world - his aspirations, his yearning for acceptance and love, not just for himself but for the entire global family. It is a triumph of the human spirit, speaking to courage, grace and creativity, and offers inspiration to all who read it.
978 1 74027 665 8, 76pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Anne Collins
My Friends This Landscape
‘A spacious walking meditation on place by an attentive and courageously permeable writer who has come to love this island as intensely as those of us bound to it by birth and ancestry and who has allowed its presence to inhabit and inform the quietly assured cadences of her verse and prose. Journeys of the spirit, landscapes of the mind and heart, symphony and silence, bone and blood and leaf and stone of country - from Cockle Creek to Albert Road, Moonah, Montrose to Mount Wellington, Bicheno to Cradle Mountain and beyond - this carefully crafted collection of poetry and essays, earthed and numinous, bound by location and a particular lived experience but infinite in intimation, exhilarating and deeply restful, is a small jewel of a work.’ - Terry Whitebeach
978 1 74027 657 3, 70pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
John Cope
Boer War Men of the Queanbeyan-Braidwood Region: Adventurers or Patriots?
Drawing on contemporary wartime letters, John Cope tells the stories of 190 men from the region who joined British troops in the Boer War.
'Cope is to be congratulated for pursuing these elusive local men so indefatigably and so faithfully...' - Canberra Times
1 74027 301 X, 280pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
John Cope
Pioneer Parson of Early Canberra
Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith MA ThL was a significant figure in the lives of so many people who lived in the sparsely populated Canberra district in the second half of the nineteenth century. This book, based on thirty years of his diaries and many letters, provides a window on the families of his day and the inconveniences and tragedies that they frequently experienced.
'...a valuable contribution to local history. The production of the book is a credit to this excellent local publisher. John Cope has given Canberra’s clerical pioneer a worthy tribute.' - Canberra Times
978 1 74027 397 8, 308pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Marty Dodd
They liked me, the horses, straightaway
Marty Dodd, taken from his parents when he was a boy, grew up to be a successful stockman, horse trainer and opal miner.
'Highly recommended...a delight from start to finish.' - Magpies
1 74027 067 3, 104pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
Martha Unganpari Edwards (illustrated by Kunyi June-Anne McInerney)
Daisy Bates & the Watjala Kids
Born of an Aboriginal mother of the Antikirinya language group and a white father, Martha Unganpari Edwards was therefore a ‘watjala kid’. In her long years with the people at Ooldea siding and later at Wynbring on the East-West railway line, Daisy Bates made it clear that such liaisons, and the children resulting from them, were offensive to her. As her story shows, however, Martha was one child who didn’t let Mrs Bates's resultant behaviour go unchallenged.
'This marvellous book has its own warm, humorous voice and a unique value in giving us real community responses to the extraordinary phenomenon of Daisy Bates, remembered from childhood by Aboriginal people who were actually there. The vivid combination of words and images makes that world come to life in ways that will educate and delight any reader, young or old.' - Nicholas Jose
978 1 74027 575 0, 40pp, colour illustrations, $15.00 BUY NOW
Lyn Drummond
Where To Go For a Seven-year Cycle
A philosophical, often off the main tourist beat travel book based on the author Lyn Drummond’s seven years’ travel experiences working mainly in central and eastern Europe. The book’s title is based on a Jung philosophy that seven years of our lives represent a particular cycle and she has just completed such a cycle.
The seven years began when she left Sydney in 2002 to work in Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia as a volunteer for an aid agency. The journey continues in 2003 to Hungary and a three year contract at the Australian embassy in Budapest, and later as a teacher and journalist in other parts of the region, such as Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Albania. It is not a travel book in the sense that it lists places and contact details, but an exploration of a region she previously had no particular interest in, a renewed discovery of her European heritage, a strong relationship with a city (Budapest) she has no traditional or family connection to and a contemplation of the strong feelings she once had for Australia. The book also examines elements of exile, and anonymity in foreign countries which can create a rather contented bubble of living, sometimes immune from more deeper emotions - including in the context of her long friendship with the late Australian writer Randolph Stow, who settled in her home town in England and whose books dwelt on these themes.
978 1 74027 671 9, 76pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Brenda Eldridge
Down by the River
There was a moment or two when I imagined I was outside on the path by the reach. We had left the curtains undrawn as it was a mild evening and some of our friends still hadn’t seen dolphins even though they have visited several times. There was always the chance the dolphins would swim past and splash the water to call us out to admire them. What I saw in my mind’s eye was a large room softly lit. Bookcases lined one wall, pot plants and vases of flowers rested randomly; the cosy corner looked so inviting with its soft cushions and small table laden with books…
978 1 74027 677 1, 44pp, $12.50 BUY NOW
Brenda Eldridge
Tales From My Patagonia
For years I have felt that too many people born in Australia are unaware of how extraordinary the natural phenomena of this country are. They work hard to save enough money to go travelling overseas in search of the unusual. If fact really is stranger than fiction, then I believe this is never more so than here. Sometimes it takes an event, even a small one, to make us open our eyes. When was the last time you went for a drive and turned aside to investigate one of those brown tourist attraction signs at the side of the road and discovered something amazing rather than just following the green signs that tell you how many kilometres to your destination? Pack a picnic and give it a try and you too may be astonished by what you find.
978 1 74027 694 8, 66pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Brenda Eldridge (editor)
The Heart of Port Adelaide
Twenty-eight writers reflect in fiction, non-fiction and poetry on the past, present and future of Port Adelaide.
‘Port Adelaide is not so different from many country towns whose fortunes have come and gone. For all the hype about making it into something new and glitzy, I suspect the ghosts have other ideas. It is the home of people who recognise there is more to life than material ownership and still enjoy buying their vegetables from a greengrocer and stamps from cheerful ladies in the post office.’ - Brenda Eldridge
978 1 74027 705 1, 122pp, $20.00 BUY NOW
Glenda Ellis
Our Soldiers: Bungendore & the Great War
The people of Bungendore, New South Wales, shared the experiences of World War I with the Australian population of the time. The village was in no way more or less remarkable than any other. This book is an attempt to fix in the memory of that town now what life and death in the service of one's country could mean then. It reminds us of the life of another time and recalls the characters of the men who were willing to die to maintain that life for those who survived.
'...a detailed and sensitive tribute to the fallen of one typical Australian town.' - Canberra Times
978 1 74027 487 6, 198pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Ulrich Ellis
Pen in Politics
'These memoirs will be of particular interest to many specialist audiences. They include aficionados of the history of journalism, the early years and growth of Canberra as the national capital, the Country Party and the New England New State Movement. But there are many others, including all students of political life in general, particularly of those behind-the-scenes operators who grease the wheels of politics in so many ways.' - Professor John Warhurst, ANU
'...the time lapse before the appearance of these memoirs, covering another era in politics, has in no way diminished their value or importance. They are as fresh as ever – alive with acute observations and facts...' - Canberra Times
'...a rich vein of material on the behind-the-scenes operators and how they go about greasing the wheels of politics. For any political aficionado it is all compelling stuff.' - Northern Daily Leader
'...well-written and witty...' - Overland
978 1 74027 406 7, 271pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Alan Fewster
Capital Correspondent
The edited letters of Edwin Charles, written while he was a resident at Canberra’s Gorman House in the 1930s.
'...a goldmine of amusing social history.' - Canberra Times
'...wonderful collection...difficult to stop reading...' - Canberra Historical Journal
'...a valuable social history of early developing Canberra...' - History
'...skilfully edited and generously illustrated.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
1 74027 133 5, 172pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Joy Ford
A Very Normal Family
It is a horrendous act to violate a child - more outrageous when that child must learn to 'survive'... Joy is one of those children who went on to do more than just 'survive' the traumas of child abuse. Her determination to come out on top has paid off and she is a living example of healing. Take a moment to be inspired and encouraged by her story.
'...a brief and useful insight for professionals into the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse...' - Women Against Violence
1 74027 300 1, 63pp, $16.00 BUY NOW
Venie Holmgren
A Sense of Direction
'From Tuart trees to Towamba, with a black woollen sock capping the yoghurt, Venie Holmgren dips her fingers into the contrasting culrures of 1970s Australia. The landscape and the language are laid out for us in her own mixture of irreverent humour, anti-authoritarian notions of freedom and plain tenacity...as she battles solitude, the viicissitudes of life and outback roads for almost three bumpy years in a campervan.' - Tim Metcalf
978 1 74027 481 4, 184pp, $20.00 BUY NOW
Jennifer Horsfield
Mary Cunningham
Mary Cunningham lived in the Canberra region from the late 1800s. Her life was bound up with some of the great stories of early nationhood: the prosperity brought by wool, the arrival of Federation, the imperial enthusiasms of the Edwardian era, the creation of the national capital, and the sorrows and losses of the Great War.
'Anyone who enjoys reading about the minutiae of lives caught up in the sweep of history will appreciate this biography.' - Canberra Times
'...both a deeply affecting personal story and a record of rural life...a valuable addition to the local history of Canberra and district.' - Canberra Historical Journal
'...fine biography...' - Weekend Australian
'...a valuable insight into the history of the ACT and the life of women on outlying properties.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
978 1 74027 267 4, 268pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Jennifer Horsfield
Rainbow: the story of Rania MacPhillamy
The beautiful and accomplished daughter of a wealthy squatter, Rania MacPhillamy left Australia in 1915 to work in a Cairo hospital treating the wounded from Gallipoli. After the death of her soldier sweetheart she stayed on in Egypt and together with an older woman, Alice Chisholm, she set up a series of canteens for the men of the Light Horse.
'...laced with excerpts from letters, diaries, journals and official papers, but is not overwhelmed by its research. It is always human and colourful.' - SAM (Sydney Alumni Magazine)
Winner, Non-fiction, ACT Writing & Publishing Awards 2008
978 1 74027 423 4, 254pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Rosemary Howden
Episodes from a Fractured Childhood
Early in her life, the author’s maternal grandparents and her parents share a house and she feels loved and secure. Her grandparents suddenly move away to live. Without their influence, her parents rush headlong into self-destruction, sinking to such a level that all respect for them is lost and they become social outcasts.
978 1 74027 479 1, 248pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Madeleine Huxtable
The Flight of the Scorpion
On Saturday 7 March 1942, 12 RAF and RAAF personnel set sail from Tjilatjap, Java, in a 30-foot wooden lifeboat. Their mission: to reach Roebourne on the northern coast of West Australia, some 950 nautical miles away, and bring rescue to the remaining airmen trapped on the island who were in danger of being captured by the enemy. Written in memory of the author's father, RAAF Flight Sergeant William Nicholas Pax Cosgrove (1918-1943) of Richmond, Victoria, who was a member of that crew. The names, dates and some events are true. The rest is fiction.
1 74027 294 3, 72pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Brian H. Jones
The President
A reworking in modern idiom of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, with the original text rearranged, updated and supplemented to illuminate contemporary political practices. As with Machiavelli's work, The President advises politicians about how to access, exercise, and - above all - keep power, by whatever means the situation allows.
978 1 74027 500 2, 68pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Eileen Jones
The Accidental Poet
'Eileen Jones doesn't readily stand out in a crowd. By temperament and habit she avoids self-promotion. Like many quiet achievers, she is candid, down to earth and even forthright when asked for information, but she has no great wish to impress. It's only when you talk with her and start reading between the lines, that you come to appreciate just how remarkable she is.' - Max Cornwell
'...an inspiring story of unfailing courage, persistence and unshakeable self-belief...' - The Write Angle
'...offers up gems and insights into the history of Australia, as well as the life of the author.' - Synapse
978 1 74027 417 3, 214pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Eileen Jones
A Potpourri of Prose
A varied collection of essays by an author who sustained multiple injuries including significant brain damage and was told it was most unlikely that she would ever recover her verbal skills. In spite of that warning, she now writes constantly, both prose and poetry.
978 1 74027 5555 2, 62pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Claire Laishley
Did You Know We Had a Screen Door?
Due to a short but sad history of car travel in her youth, Claire Laishley is less than enthusiastic when her husband suggests a road trip for their next holiday. Naïve to the pitfalls of driving something the size of a removalist van around the countryside, these two ‘virgin vanners’ take the plunge and hire a Winnebago, the Rolls Royce of mobile homes. This is a hilarious account of their travel experience, full of anecdotes covering everything from formulating a take-off checklist the RAAF would be proud of, and working out the ablution solution of the on-board toilet affectionately called Winnie the Poo, to managing her husband’s evolving fetish for brown signs. There are also plenty of colourful characters encountered during their trip, including the magical mystery massager in the mountains and the asthmatic astronomer on the plains.
‘Laishley’s wry observations and dry wit, combined with her interesting accounts of Aussie tourist icons and people they meet, have produced a thoroughly entertaining, easily-digestible read.’ - Caravan World
978 1 74027, 202pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Claire Laishley
Writing the Wrongs of My Life
We can all relate to situations in life where things have not gone as planned. These are soon forgotten, however, and we are quite happy to put them in our past, never to be mentioned again. Claire Laishley has had more than enough of these moments but, in her case, she has decided to share them. From the adult education class where her over-ambitious project saw the course brochure and the lecturer altered forever, to a unique apology to the next-door neighbour, she has documented these and many other stories about her own ‘wrongs’. As with her previous book, Did You Know We Had a Screen Door?, an account of the road trip she and her husband embarked on in a Winnebago, Claire uses humour to relate to her audience. But in this collection, readers will also appreciate her honest, self-deprecating style.
978 1 74027 686 3, 68pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Claire Laishley
The Diary of Delores D’Lump
Claire Laishley wasn’t particularly concerned when she found a lump in her breast. She’d had two others removed over the: years, both benign, and at the time the doctor had intimated there would probably be more. But this time things would be different. The Diary of Delores D’Lump covers the twelve-month period from the day breast cancer was diagnosed. It is a powerful story that takes the reader on an emotional journey through the harsh treatment regime which, in Claire’s case, leads to unexpected and life-threatening side effects. But although the subject matter is serious, this story also captures the author’s sense of humour and indomitable spirit. Like her earlier book My Mother Is My Daughter, which told how her mother’s dementia changed the dynamic of their relationship, the author manages to inject humour into what many would feel is another other humourless subject. Along with the humour there is a blunt honesty in her writing; she is not afraid to detail her emotional lows, and many will relate to her story.
978 1 74027 710 5, 172pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Robert Lehane
Forever Carnival
The founding Rector of St John's College, Sydney, Very Rev. Dr John Forrest, is the central character in this book, which tells a story of hopes dashed as grand dreams for St John’s succumbed to the reality of a divided Catholic Church and low student numbers.
'Lehane...tells an entertaining and rather sad story in exceptional detail, using an impressive array of contemporary sources.' - University of Sydney Gazette
'Lehane is a good writer who knows how to walk the tightrope between populism and rigorous history. His quotes are always ahort and essential; his ability to tell a story is so well honed that the narrative never flags.' - Sydney Morning Herald
'...a story full of interest and intrigue.' - Irish Echo
'...gives much insight into the Byzantine, often secretive and power-hungry ecclesiastical hierarchy...a moving story at a human level.' - Tain
'...provided great enjoyment and satisfaction...' - Irish Roots
'...deserves to be read by all those with an interest in the Irish diaspora, the history of New South Wales or the study of modern Catholicism.' - Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
1 74027 268 4, 330pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Robert Lehane
William Bede Dalley
Draws on a wide range of sources to reveal an unconventional, perennially popular character who made major contributions to the political, legal and literary life of NSW. While the despatch of colonial troops to Sudan in 1885 is the act he is most often remembered for today, contemporaries admired him for much more - not least the use of his remarkable oratorical power, honed in memorable court cases, to champion causes such as religious and racial harmony and a gentler form of parliamentary politics.
'...much more than the account of a fascinating and full public life. It brings to life the colony of New South Wales in the 30 years after the grant of responsible government.' - Bar News (journal of the NSW Bar Association)
'...fascinating for the insights it provides of the parliamentary system in its infancy.' - Tintain
'Lehane's biography has done ample justice to a remarkable Australian patriot who deserves to be remembered for the significant role he played...' - Sabretache
'...a very readabe, ably researched and interesting account of a figure who fully deserves the focus of a biography.' - Australian Historical Studies
'...very readable... Solidly researched and well illustrated...' - Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society
'Those who read William Bede Dalley will rejoice in a rich and meaningful life and will learn about an aspect of Sydney and colonial society that better-known historians have barely glimpsed.' - Canberra Historical Journal
'Lehane...paints a rounded portrait of his subject through the vivid accumulation of detail, leaving readers to form their own impressions of Dalley. It is a very effective biographical technique... This remarkable book, with its text delightfully leavened by contemporary portraits and prints, is a colourful account, not only of the torturous permutations of colonial factional politics in NSW, but of the social history of Sydney and its environs. Robert Lehane has captured the very flavour of late-colonial society, from the bushranging days to the 1888 Centennial.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
'...a great insight into colonial Sydney...a fine biography...' - Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
'...full, readable, well-researched...' - Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society
978 1 74027 437 1, 423pp, $35.00 BUY NOW
Marina Lutz
Somers Commonwealth Immigration Camp
'I met Marina Lutz when she came to join the Barossa Writers in 2002. Soon after her arrival, Marina read to us a short account of her first year teaching. She had been appointed to a migrant camp, to teach English to the children. She was a living piece of Australia’s history and I told her that it was important that she write more fully about that camp. She smiled and confided that she already had. She showed me her manuscript...' - Alice Shore
978 1 74017 426 5, 54pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
John Maneschi
Giovinezza
A memoir of growing up in World War II Italy.
'An outstanding quality of John Maneschi's memoir is the subtle balance between time levels and between adult and childish points of view. The child's perspective constantly lightens the tone, finding enjoyment and fun in events which are acutely troubling to the adults. Written with verve, sensitivity and humour, Giovinezza will delight its readers.' - Joy Hooton
978 1 74027 431 9, 168pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Jennifer Martin
Mental Health Practice
This important book provides information on the latest developments in policy and service planning and delivery in mental health services; and gives a range of practical information and strategies for early intervention and working with people who are suicidal or self-harming and those who are using alcohol and other drugs as well as legal and justice issues.
1 74027 349 4, 236pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Freya Mathews
Journey to the Source of the Merri
An ecological philosopher's account of three friends' journey to the source of their local creek.
1 74027 197 1, 55pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Stephen Matthews (editor)
'How Did the Fire Know We Lived Here?'
In words and photographs (many in colour), more than 100 Canberrans reveal the stories of courage, loss and optimism behind the disastrous January 2003 bushfires.
'...an object lesson to all Australians to respect the forces of nature while enjoying the lifestyle afforded to them as they live within their unique environment.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
Highly commended, ACT Publishing Awards 2004
1 74027 202 1, 192pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
Deb Matthews-Zott (editor)
Gifts of Life
'Courage and inspiration are what you feel when you read these exceptional stories of everyday families coping with what life has dealt them! The harsh reality of organ and tissue donation is that we are dealing with life and death!' - Robyn Hookes
978 1 74027 410 4, $18.00 BUY NOW
Ian McFarlane
Of Cheese and Chutney
Essays, selected from Voice magazine, on a diverse range of issues, from the human rights of refugees, Indigenous reconciliation and the environment, to global conflict and economic rationalism. The elegantly expressed passion of the twenty-one pieces attacks the moral vacuum of right-wing arrogance with a search for humanity.
‘The thrust of the essays is no less powerful for being pushed forward by passionate belief rather than by a cooler approach to concepts and structure.’ - Canberra Times
‘The world-weary idealism of Ian McFarlane’s thoughtful essays on the Howard years deserves to reach a wider audience. He examines everything...from writing, the media, cricket, war and refugees’ rights with a keen intellect and discerning conscience and, despite the dark nature of some of the subject matter, a quirky sense of fun.’ - Judges’ report, ACT Writing & Publishing Awards 2010
Runner-up, Non-fiction, ACT Writing & Publishing Awards 2010
978 1 74027 583 5, 72pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Peter McIntosh
Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Sonnets?
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
With these immortal lines Shakespeare begins his most famous sonnet and perhaps the most famous love poem of all time. But this poem, and over one hundred others, first published in a slim volume called Shakespeare’s Sonnets 400 years ago, was written by Shakespeare not about a beautiful young woman, but about a beautiful young man. Shakespeare addresses this man as ‘my lovely boy’.
Shakespeare did not write a diary and the Sonnets are the closest he comes to telling us about his personal relationships. But what in fact do the Sonnets reveal? If Shakespeare was infatuated with a ‘lovely boy’, who was this handsome young man? If he was a rich aristocrat, as the Sonnets seem to suggest, how did Shakespeare, an actor on the fringes of respectability, living in lodgings in London, make his acquaintance? What was the nature of the relationship between Shakespeare, his wife, the young man, and the Dark Lady of the later sonnets? What is the meaning of the Sonnets’ enigmatic dedication that refers to the mysterious Mr. W.H. and why is the Dedication written in such odd language? And who was Mr. W.H. and was he the same person as the young man?
These questions and innumerable others have perplexed readers for centuries. Shakespearean scholars have concentrated on explaining certain allusions in individual sonnets or groups of sonnets, but no comprehensive answers to all the immensely puzzling questions raised by the poems have ever been presented.
This meticulously researched but highly readable book challenges conventional views. It takes a fresh approach to the difficult issues presented by the Sonnets, and upsets many cherished assumptions about the handsome young man, the Dark Lady, Mr. W.H., and Shakespeare himself.
‘McIntosh presents his startling case in a clear-headed, engaging and lively style. The book will delight, tease and provoke the many people who remain fascinated by the Shakespeare phenomenon.’ - Professor Michael Bennett, University of Tasmania
978 1 74027 663 4, 76pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Humphrey McQueen
Framework of Flesh
McQueen uses labourers' own words to retell their battles around scaffolding and shithouses, for the safe removal of asbestos, prompt and adequate compensation, and a decent burial. The stories start in convict times and cover the six states and the ACT. The labourers' struggle for health and safety is followed into their dismantling of the framework of fear erected by the Building and Construction Commission. By tracking on-the-job experiences of demolishers, dog-men, hod-carriers and navvies, McQueen confirms the conviction of an early official of the BLF, Ben Mulvogue: 'A union constitutes a school for the working class, wherein they learn self-reliance, learn their rights, privileges, opportunities, as well as their possibilities. Every new demand for better physical protection of the workers ensures a great ideal development for a future generation.'
'...lively and impressively researched... It is the mixture of historical narrative with theory that grounds and enlivens this book...' - Journal of Occupational Health and Safety
978 1 74027 545 3, 338pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Humphrey McQueen
We Built This Country: Builders’ Labourers and Their Unions
We Built This Country is a broad-brush look at builders’ labourers and their unions since the convict era. Builders’ labourers build this country socially and culturally as well as with concrete. McQueen pictures them as ‘improvising nomads’ who contributed to the Australian legend. We follow the membership as it shifts between ‘Weird Mobs’ of Irish and Italians. Led by Norm Gallagher and Jack Mundey, the BLF became the most controversial union to erupt out of the rebellious Sixties. Builders’ labourers rocked Australian cities with green bans and worker control. Their struggles are retold by digging into campaigns from each State. The stories are pitched against the demands of Messrs Construction Capital. The experiences of the builders’ labourers thus open a window into the making of the Australian working class.
‘…should be compulsory reading for new and old union officers and organisers…’ - Australian Options
978 1 74027 697 9, 364pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Kerry O’Regan
The Things My Best Friends Told Me
A woman sets out to walk the Camino, the ancient pilgrimage across the north of Spain. No longer young, she walks alone, leaving family and friends behind. But she also carries them with her, in the messages they’ve written on her stick. Each day she walks and each day she reads the messages, and muses on them. These are her musings, on the places she sees, the people she meets, the events she lives. They’re whimsical, witty, and wise.
978 1 74027 546 0, 76pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Joe Rich
Refugee: a kind of Jewish childhood
In the 1930s, many children fled the rising menace of Nazism in Europe. This book is the story of one such who with his parents left Berlin in February 1939 to make his way to Sydney where, although welcomed by some, they attracted the hostility of many others who saw such immigrants as a threat to Australia’s relatively homogeneous culture and, during the war with Germany, distrusted them as enemy aliens. With the return of peace in 1945, this distrust morphed into a tide of anti-Semitism as Australians, whose patriotism was still at that time strongly tinged with an immense pride in their British origins, learned of the lethal attacks on British servicemen, who had fought against Hitler, by Zionist insurgents prepared to stop at nothing in their resolve to carve out a Jewish state in Palestine. Interwoven with these experiences are the unique, more personal elements of the equation, as this ill-matched and increasingly dysfunctional trio struggled to re-establish itself firstly in the alien environment of a large Australian city and then in the isolation of a Victorian country town.
978 1 74027 618 4, 218pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Leann Richards
Houdini's Tour of Australia
When escapologist Harry Houdini toured Australia in 1910 he brought magic, mystique, his wife and an aeroplane. Houdini conquered crowds and nearly caused riots, he escaped straitjackets and shackles and flew through the air. Some said he was supernatural, to others he was a fraud, but Houdini confounded them all.
'A well researched book of great interest...' - History Magazine
978 1 74027 396 1, 60pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Leann Richards
The First Merry Widow: The life of Carrie Moore
Born near the docks in Geelong, Carrie Moore was destined to become the queen of the Edwardian stage. From the bright lights of London to the vaudeville halls of Hobart, Carrie captivated audiences around the world. She danced across stages adorned in diamonds but died penniless and alone in Sydney. This is the story of Australia’s own Carrie Moore, the Merry Widow.
978 1 74027 620 7, 74pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Stephen Roche
Don’t Tell: Toowoomba Prep - the case which broke the silence on child sex abuse in Australia
Told through the eyes of a lawyer, Stephen Roche, this is a compelling account of the most important sexual abuse civil trial in Australian history. It begins when a young girl’s life is torn apart while attending a prestigious Anglican preparatory school, suffering repeated sexual abuse at the hands of her boarding master. After a complaint by a fellow classmate, the man is charged. On the day he is to appear in court, he commits suicide. For the next eleven years the school and Church deny the abuse ever occurred and it seems as if Lyndal’s life will remain in ruins - her cries for help forever falling on deaf ears. It is not until she is twenty-one that her story is finally told in court, exposing the dark face of the Church and a shocking history of institutionalised denial and neglect. Lyndal’s story evokes a feeling of anger, outrage and contempt for the powers that be and the landmark legal decision brings the highest office in the country to its knees and forever changes Australian attitudes towards abuse.
978 1 74027 664 1, 256pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
John Sabine
Around the World in Eighty Ways
A book for travellers rather than a travel book. The author makes no attempt to extol the virtues of different and far-flung places, nor how to get there, nor what to do when you are there, nor – and what is usually worse – any mention of how much of a small fortune all of that would cost. By contrast we have here a veritable salmagundi of travel adventures – for both the armchair voyageur and the inveterate wanderer. You will accompany the author to places both near and far, sometimes with his family and sometimes not, to experience with him the ups and downs of his travels at home and abroad. And always with a smile on your face.
978 1 74027 553 8, 256pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Don Selth
More Than a Game: Canberra’s Sporting Heritage 1854-1954
‘I read this manuscript as Don worked on it. Having read so much of it, I was desperately keen to see it one day published. Now that it has been published, my one remaining desire regarding it is this: please, young sports lovers and budding sports writers, read it and absorb it. This is a unique document about the history of ACT and Australian sport; it has been painstakingly researched, and it is written in a way that will enable all readers to easily comprehend and appreciate its contents. For that, at the very least, thank you, Don Selth.’ - Robert Messenger
‘Selth has admirably blended statistics, historical facts, photographs and anecdotes into a most enjoyable read. His research has been meticulous and his writing is organised and thorough.’ - Canberra Times
978 1 740127 622 1, 246pp, $28.00 BUY NOW
Janice Simpson
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Rushing across eight countries on a bicycle sounded like a good idea before flying solo to Paris to begin the journey. The author knew how to mend a puncture and change a tyre, but did not reckon with how she might fill in the never-ending hours as the kilometres hummed by under her wheels. Humour and courage are brought to the test. Worries are juxtaposed against the backdrop of European life and the lives of her fellow riders as they pedal from Paris to Istanbul, following the route of the Orient Express. The story weaves between the present and the past, Europe and Australia, and the author’s life as daughter, mother and wife. Wry wit is always close to the surface in this emotionally engaging and wholly entertaining book.
978 1 74027 719 8, 186pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Ben Smith
No Time for the Smiths
A true account, constructed from journals, of the first year of a marriage fifty years ago. In 1959, Sydney was a kinder, slower place. In outer suburbs you could see koalas in the trees. Bandicoots still hunted through rubbish bins, black snakes basked on the lawn and kookaburras laughed at sun-up two days before it rained. The sea was clean, buildings smaller, cars rudimentary, freeways unknown. We had pounds and shillings, inches, yards, believed in cooking with lots of lovely fat and were able to travel to England restfully by sea. Labour-saving devices were the clothes prop, the mechanised ringer and the barrel lawnmower. The welfare state hadn't replaced the need to work and young couples getting married found things tough.
978 1 74027 527 9, 212pp, $28.00 BUY NOW
Debra Smith
In Prison
'The Bridge Foundation is unique...because it serves an important issue that most of society, including governments, would rather avoid: the provision of services for those released from custody. Why is it that we think custody is a solution and an end in itself? I have never met a more gutsy and generous group of people than those who serve The Bridge Foundation. Debra Smith has led the way but, oh boy, they have all brought their distinctive ethical passions to focus on those who need help. Abandonment is not their style and it is a pity that we cannot all recognise the worth and beauty of a local response to a worldwide problem.' - His Honour Peter Gebhardt
978 1 74027 521 7, 130pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
Harold John Solomon
The Queer Colony
Old agile brains are always evolving and while some may scheme for augmentation of estates, perhaps Joseph and Judah Solomon’s thoughts were elsewhere when they arrived in Hobart Town as convicts on 1 March 1820.
978 1 74027 687 0, 54pp, $16.00 BUY NOW
Stephany Evans Steggall
Bruce Dawe: Life Cycle
Acknowledges one of Australia's best known poets and one of his best known poems. His life cycles have been poverty, perseverance and personal happiness; the rhythms of his being are the rhythms of his poetry - persistently fearless in speaking out on social and political issues; consistently sensitive and lyrical about painful concerns; insistently witty and satirical on just about anything. His range of poetry resists wrong and reveals a great love of his fellow man and a deep understanding of life. This biography is the first time that Dawe's life has been interpreted in full through his poetry, and the poems take on new significance when read in this context. The subject is telling some of the story in his own words - in poems.
'...estimable and intriguing...sympathetic, carefully researched and fluently written...' - Canberra Times
'...a warm portrait of one of our greatest living writers.' - Brisbane News
'...an intimately personal account of a notable life...refreshingly free of psychological speculation and self-conscious interpositions.' - Australian Book Review
978 1 74027 567 5, 368pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Jenny Stewart
The Two Canberras: Essays on public policy
Public policy is all around us - it is, after all, what government is supposed to be about - but it is often difficult for citizens to sort out the spin from the substance, the values from the rhetoric. In these clearly written and highly enjoyable essays, Jenny Stewart (Professor of Public Policy in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy) tackles the core policy dilemmas of our time, from population growth to innovation, from a perspective that is both personal and analytical.
978 1 74027 675 7, 198pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Peter Walters
The Perfumed Curriculum
This is a story about love and loss and the choices that are made in their name. As Peter Walters recovers from the painful treatment of a virulent cancer, he remembers a time when, as a young teacher, he experienced a series of hilarious, traumatic, magical and fateful episodes of love and loss. Flying in the face of conventional teaching practices of the sixties and seventies, Peter’s accounts of romantic involvement with fellow teachers and mothers of his students are intense, sensuous, funny and tragic and in stark contrast to the term of trial which he is undergoing.
978 1 74027 578 1, 194pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Stephen Matthews Ginninderra Press PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015
stephen@ginninderrapress.com.au
www.ginninderrapress.com.au
ABN 42 447 290 724
All prices are in Australian dollars and include Australian Goods & Services Tax (GST). GST is deducted from overseas orders.
Postage & handling will be added to your order:
Australian orders, 1 book $5.50, 2 or more $10.50
Overseas orders, 1 book $13, 2 books $20, 3 books or more $25.
In Adelaide, Ginninderra Press books are available at East Avenue Books, 53 East Avenue, Clarence Park 5034.
Ruth Bayne
Scooting Through
The adventures of two ignorant innocents, both old enough to know better, travelling from London through countries as uncharted as Turkey, Persia and Iraq to Calcutta by Lambretta scooter in 1959.
1 74027 214 5, 206pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Dale Blair
No Quarter: Unlawful Killing and Surrender in the Australian War Experience 1915-18
One of the rarely discussed aspects of the experience of soldiers in the First World War was the refusal to take prisoners during battle and in some cases the killing of prisoners in the front line. No Quarter investigates the degree to which Australian soldiers were participants in this practice both as victims and perpetrators.
'...exceptionally well-researched, objective and well-written...an essential work for any student of the Great War...' - Military History
1 74027 291 9, 76pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Allison Blom
Magic Dragons: My Fight Against & Triumph Over Cancer
'It is refreshing to read of one remarkable woman's journey with breast cancer and the way in which she summoned her mental and emotional strengths to beat it.' - Dr Stuart B. Renwick
1 74027 035 5, 55pp, $15.00 BUY NOW
Margaret Bolton
Not Another Nun Story
The stories of Not Another Nun Story recount some of the more human side of life in a convent in the 1960s. Before Vatican II, convent life was rather like that depicted in Audrey Hepburn’s film A Nun’s Story. Margaret Breuer became a Sister of Mercy while still a teenager, and teenage behaviour surfaced occasionally, giving rise to the humorous side of some stories. No, this is not just another nun’s story, but a story of one who rather unsuccessfully struggled with the rules and regulations and the spiritual side of convent life, while making the most of the temporal side!
978 1 74027 651 1, 64pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Fred Brown
Fred Brown’s Schooldays
'Fred Brown's Schooldays gives an unsparing, affectionate account of Canterbury Boys' High School, Sydney, where he was a pupil from 1940 to 1945. Fred’s story is of a school keeping the flag of learning flying through the darkest days of war, when students dug trenches and practised with machine guns as the enemy came ever closer to Australia, meanwhile collecting transfers, ogling girls and telling smutty jokes as schoolboys have done down the ages. Fred Brown’s Schooldays is full of funny stories and larger-than-life characters, teachers and students. It will enthral former pupils, their wives, friends and relations, children and grandchildren. But it is also a timeless story of boys growing up in a country at war, and a classical style of education from which there is still much to learn.' - Phillip Knightley, Murray Sayle
Print edition sold out but PDF version available on CD, $10.00 BUY NOW
Kylie Ciampa
Living with Dyslexia
Written by a teacher who herself lives with dyslexia, this informative book takes a personal and positive approach towards this surprisingly common learning difficulty.
1 74027 368 0, 56pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Ray Clift
It's a Fine Line
Anecdotes about some of the humorous events, and some of the dangerous incidents, Ray Clift encountered during his thirty-two-year career as an officer in the South Australian Police. His fresh and challenging memories highlight the differences between policing then and now. It's a Fine Line shows how we all walk a fine line between success and destruction. Ray and his peers are survivors with scars yet they still retain their sense of humour. Their eyes fixed on justice and common sense, they have walked along a rocky path, fallen in potholes and regained their toehold. He and his colleagues emerge as modern-day angels with dirty faces.
978 1 74027 571 2, 76pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Ray Clift
Maybe Blue Ghosts
The author of It’s a Fine Line has had an interesting life which has enabled him to produce another collection of anecdotes laced with humour, danger, bizarre moments and personal misfortunes of police officers. Some fell ,never to rise and others just ploughed on. The narrative is spliced with Ray Clift’s optimism and New Age beliefs. It is a candid, honest study of people engaged in a tough career, who view horrific sights on a daily basis. Yet they are supposed to be devoid of emotions like robots, dispensing the law,:yet always hopeful that justice will prevail.
978 1 74027 640 5, 56pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Pam Cole
Candlefire
It took a Caribbean cyclone, an Irish grandmother's hundredth wedding anniversary, an email from Puerto Rico, and a fireside visit from her great-great-grandfather’s cantankerous lady love to make the author realise their Hunter Valley farm lay close to land settled by her colonial forebears. Dreams and discoveries about her female ancestors mingle in this entertaining patchwork of tales told by candle light. Can the strength and courage of past lives enable us to cope with ageing, change, and loss?
'A strong sense of place and historical connectedness permeates the book.' - Grass Roots
978 1 74027 448 7, 144pp, $22.50 BUY NOW
Pam Cole
A Drop of the Asp
Pam Cole's magical word skills and memory for detail have cast their spell, and we are with her in a world of woodstove cookery and mustering on horseback, of bucketing bathwater from the wash-house copper at lamplit day's end, the chilly mountain air perfumed with lucerne hay and spicy apples, while firelight flickers on revived poddies snuggled on the hearth and the telephone jingles on the wall as the postmistress connects the party line...
978 1 74027 504 0, 90pp, $20.00 BUY NOW
Paul Corfiatis
My World
This insightful book is a rare glimpse into the world of autism. It tells of one man’s struggle against all the odds, in a fearful and confusing world - his aspirations, his yearning for acceptance and love, not just for himself but for the entire global family. It is a triumph of the human spirit, speaking to courage, grace and creativity, and offers inspiration to all who read it.
978 1 74027 665 8, 76pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Anne Collins
My Friends This Landscape
‘A spacious walking meditation on place by an attentive and courageously permeable writer who has come to love this island as intensely as those of us bound to it by birth and ancestry and who has allowed its presence to inhabit and inform the quietly assured cadences of her verse and prose. Journeys of the spirit, landscapes of the mind and heart, symphony and silence, bone and blood and leaf and stone of country - from Cockle Creek to Albert Road, Moonah, Montrose to Mount Wellington, Bicheno to Cradle Mountain and beyond - this carefully crafted collection of poetry and essays, earthed and numinous, bound by location and a particular lived experience but infinite in intimation, exhilarating and deeply restful, is a small jewel of a work.’ - Terry Whitebeach
978 1 74027 657 3, 70pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
John Cope
Boer War Men of the Queanbeyan-Braidwood Region: Adventurers or Patriots?
Drawing on contemporary wartime letters, John Cope tells the stories of 190 men from the region who joined British troops in the Boer War.
'Cope is to be congratulated for pursuing these elusive local men so indefatigably and so faithfully...' - Canberra Times
1 74027 301 X, 280pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
John Cope
Pioneer Parson of Early Canberra
Rev. Pierce Galliard Smith MA ThL was a significant figure in the lives of so many people who lived in the sparsely populated Canberra district in the second half of the nineteenth century. This book, based on thirty years of his diaries and many letters, provides a window on the families of his day and the inconveniences and tragedies that they frequently experienced.
'...a valuable contribution to local history. The production of the book is a credit to this excellent local publisher. John Cope has given Canberra’s clerical pioneer a worthy tribute.' - Canberra Times
978 1 74027 397 8, 308pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Marty Dodd
They liked me, the horses, straightaway
Marty Dodd, taken from his parents when he was a boy, grew up to be a successful stockman, horse trainer and opal miner.
'Highly recommended...a delight from start to finish.' - Magpies
1 74027 067 3, 104pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
Martha Unganpari Edwards (illustrated by Kunyi June-Anne McInerney)
Daisy Bates & the Watjala Kids
Born of an Aboriginal mother of the Antikirinya language group and a white father, Martha Unganpari Edwards was therefore a ‘watjala kid’. In her long years with the people at Ooldea siding and later at Wynbring on the East-West railway line, Daisy Bates made it clear that such liaisons, and the children resulting from them, were offensive to her. As her story shows, however, Martha was one child who didn’t let Mrs Bates's resultant behaviour go unchallenged.
'This marvellous book has its own warm, humorous voice and a unique value in giving us real community responses to the extraordinary phenomenon of Daisy Bates, remembered from childhood by Aboriginal people who were actually there. The vivid combination of words and images makes that world come to life in ways that will educate and delight any reader, young or old.' - Nicholas Jose
978 1 74027 575 0, 40pp, colour illustrations, $15.00 BUY NOW
Lyn Drummond
Where To Go For a Seven-year Cycle
A philosophical, often off the main tourist beat travel book based on the author Lyn Drummond’s seven years’ travel experiences working mainly in central and eastern Europe. The book’s title is based on a Jung philosophy that seven years of our lives represent a particular cycle and she has just completed such a cycle.
The seven years began when she left Sydney in 2002 to work in Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia as a volunteer for an aid agency. The journey continues in 2003 to Hungary and a three year contract at the Australian embassy in Budapest, and later as a teacher and journalist in other parts of the region, such as Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Albania. It is not a travel book in the sense that it lists places and contact details, but an exploration of a region she previously had no particular interest in, a renewed discovery of her European heritage, a strong relationship with a city (Budapest) she has no traditional or family connection to and a contemplation of the strong feelings she once had for Australia. The book also examines elements of exile, and anonymity in foreign countries which can create a rather contented bubble of living, sometimes immune from more deeper emotions - including in the context of her long friendship with the late Australian writer Randolph Stow, who settled in her home town in England and whose books dwelt on these themes.
978 1 74027 671 9, 76pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Brenda Eldridge
Down by the River
There was a moment or two when I imagined I was outside on the path by the reach. We had left the curtains undrawn as it was a mild evening and some of our friends still hadn’t seen dolphins even though they have visited several times. There was always the chance the dolphins would swim past and splash the water to call us out to admire them. What I saw in my mind’s eye was a large room softly lit. Bookcases lined one wall, pot plants and vases of flowers rested randomly; the cosy corner looked so inviting with its soft cushions and small table laden with books…
978 1 74027 677 1, 44pp, $12.50 BUY NOW
Brenda Eldridge
Tales From My Patagonia
For years I have felt that too many people born in Australia are unaware of how extraordinary the natural phenomena of this country are. They work hard to save enough money to go travelling overseas in search of the unusual. If fact really is stranger than fiction, then I believe this is never more so than here. Sometimes it takes an event, even a small one, to make us open our eyes. When was the last time you went for a drive and turned aside to investigate one of those brown tourist attraction signs at the side of the road and discovered something amazing rather than just following the green signs that tell you how many kilometres to your destination? Pack a picnic and give it a try and you too may be astonished by what you find.
978 1 74027 694 8, 66pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Brenda Eldridge (editor)
The Heart of Port Adelaide
Twenty-eight writers reflect in fiction, non-fiction and poetry on the past, present and future of Port Adelaide.
‘Port Adelaide is not so different from many country towns whose fortunes have come and gone. For all the hype about making it into something new and glitzy, I suspect the ghosts have other ideas. It is the home of people who recognise there is more to life than material ownership and still enjoy buying their vegetables from a greengrocer and stamps from cheerful ladies in the post office.’ - Brenda Eldridge
978 1 74027 705 1, 122pp, $20.00 BUY NOW
Glenda Ellis
Our Soldiers: Bungendore & the Great War
The people of Bungendore, New South Wales, shared the experiences of World War I with the Australian population of the time. The village was in no way more or less remarkable than any other. This book is an attempt to fix in the memory of that town now what life and death in the service of one's country could mean then. It reminds us of the life of another time and recalls the characters of the men who were willing to die to maintain that life for those who survived.
'...a detailed and sensitive tribute to the fallen of one typical Australian town.' - Canberra Times
978 1 74027 487 6, 198pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Ulrich Ellis
Pen in Politics
'These memoirs will be of particular interest to many specialist audiences. They include aficionados of the history of journalism, the early years and growth of Canberra as the national capital, the Country Party and the New England New State Movement. But there are many others, including all students of political life in general, particularly of those behind-the-scenes operators who grease the wheels of politics in so many ways.' - Professor John Warhurst, ANU
'...the time lapse before the appearance of these memoirs, covering another era in politics, has in no way diminished their value or importance. They are as fresh as ever – alive with acute observations and facts...' - Canberra Times
'...a rich vein of material on the behind-the-scenes operators and how they go about greasing the wheels of politics. For any political aficionado it is all compelling stuff.' - Northern Daily Leader
'...well-written and witty...' - Overland
978 1 74027 406 7, 271pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Alan Fewster
Capital Correspondent
The edited letters of Edwin Charles, written while he was a resident at Canberra’s Gorman House in the 1930s.
'...a goldmine of amusing social history.' - Canberra Times
'...wonderful collection...difficult to stop reading...' - Canberra Historical Journal
'...a valuable social history of early developing Canberra...' - History
'...skilfully edited and generously illustrated.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
1 74027 133 5, 172pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Joy Ford
A Very Normal Family
It is a horrendous act to violate a child - more outrageous when that child must learn to 'survive'... Joy is one of those children who went on to do more than just 'survive' the traumas of child abuse. Her determination to come out on top has paid off and she is a living example of healing. Take a moment to be inspired and encouraged by her story.
'...a brief and useful insight for professionals into the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse...' - Women Against Violence
1 74027 300 1, 63pp, $16.00 BUY NOW
Venie Holmgren
A Sense of Direction
'From Tuart trees to Towamba, with a black woollen sock capping the yoghurt, Venie Holmgren dips her fingers into the contrasting culrures of 1970s Australia. The landscape and the language are laid out for us in her own mixture of irreverent humour, anti-authoritarian notions of freedom and plain tenacity...as she battles solitude, the viicissitudes of life and outback roads for almost three bumpy years in a campervan.' - Tim Metcalf
978 1 74027 481 4, 184pp, $20.00 BUY NOW
Jennifer Horsfield
Mary Cunningham
Mary Cunningham lived in the Canberra region from the late 1800s. Her life was bound up with some of the great stories of early nationhood: the prosperity brought by wool, the arrival of Federation, the imperial enthusiasms of the Edwardian era, the creation of the national capital, and the sorrows and losses of the Great War.
'Anyone who enjoys reading about the minutiae of lives caught up in the sweep of history will appreciate this biography.' - Canberra Times
'...both a deeply affecting personal story and a record of rural life...a valuable addition to the local history of Canberra and district.' - Canberra Historical Journal
'...fine biography...' - Weekend Australian
'...a valuable insight into the history of the ACT and the life of women on outlying properties.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
978 1 74027 267 4, 268pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Jennifer Horsfield
Rainbow: the story of Rania MacPhillamy
The beautiful and accomplished daughter of a wealthy squatter, Rania MacPhillamy left Australia in 1915 to work in a Cairo hospital treating the wounded from Gallipoli. After the death of her soldier sweetheart she stayed on in Egypt and together with an older woman, Alice Chisholm, she set up a series of canteens for the men of the Light Horse.
'...laced with excerpts from letters, diaries, journals and official papers, but is not overwhelmed by its research. It is always human and colourful.' - SAM (Sydney Alumni Magazine)
Winner, Non-fiction, ACT Writing & Publishing Awards 2008
978 1 74027 423 4, 254pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Rosemary Howden
Episodes from a Fractured Childhood
Early in her life, the author’s maternal grandparents and her parents share a house and she feels loved and secure. Her grandparents suddenly move away to live. Without their influence, her parents rush headlong into self-destruction, sinking to such a level that all respect for them is lost and they become social outcasts.
978 1 74027 479 1, 248pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Madeleine Huxtable
The Flight of the Scorpion
On Saturday 7 March 1942, 12 RAF and RAAF personnel set sail from Tjilatjap, Java, in a 30-foot wooden lifeboat. Their mission: to reach Roebourne on the northern coast of West Australia, some 950 nautical miles away, and bring rescue to the remaining airmen trapped on the island who were in danger of being captured by the enemy. Written in memory of the author's father, RAAF Flight Sergeant William Nicholas Pax Cosgrove (1918-1943) of Richmond, Victoria, who was a member of that crew. The names, dates and some events are true. The rest is fiction.
1 74027 294 3, 72pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Brian H. Jones
The President
A reworking in modern idiom of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, with the original text rearranged, updated and supplemented to illuminate contemporary political practices. As with Machiavelli's work, The President advises politicians about how to access, exercise, and - above all - keep power, by whatever means the situation allows.
978 1 74027 500 2, 68pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Eileen Jones
The Accidental Poet
'Eileen Jones doesn't readily stand out in a crowd. By temperament and habit she avoids self-promotion. Like many quiet achievers, she is candid, down to earth and even forthright when asked for information, but she has no great wish to impress. It's only when you talk with her and start reading between the lines, that you come to appreciate just how remarkable she is.' - Max Cornwell
'...an inspiring story of unfailing courage, persistence and unshakeable self-belief...' - The Write Angle
'...offers up gems and insights into the history of Australia, as well as the life of the author.' - Synapse
978 1 74027 417 3, 214pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Eileen Jones
A Potpourri of Prose
A varied collection of essays by an author who sustained multiple injuries including significant brain damage and was told it was most unlikely that she would ever recover her verbal skills. In spite of that warning, she now writes constantly, both prose and poetry.
978 1 74027 5555 2, 62pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Claire Laishley
Did You Know We Had a Screen Door?
Due to a short but sad history of car travel in her youth, Claire Laishley is less than enthusiastic when her husband suggests a road trip for their next holiday. Naïve to the pitfalls of driving something the size of a removalist van around the countryside, these two ‘virgin vanners’ take the plunge and hire a Winnebago, the Rolls Royce of mobile homes. This is a hilarious account of their travel experience, full of anecdotes covering everything from formulating a take-off checklist the RAAF would be proud of, and working out the ablution solution of the on-board toilet affectionately called Winnie the Poo, to managing her husband’s evolving fetish for brown signs. There are also plenty of colourful characters encountered during their trip, including the magical mystery massager in the mountains and the asthmatic astronomer on the plains.
‘Laishley’s wry observations and dry wit, combined with her interesting accounts of Aussie tourist icons and people they meet, have produced a thoroughly entertaining, easily-digestible read.’ - Caravan World
978 1 74027, 202pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Claire Laishley
Writing the Wrongs of My Life
We can all relate to situations in life where things have not gone as planned. These are soon forgotten, however, and we are quite happy to put them in our past, never to be mentioned again. Claire Laishley has had more than enough of these moments but, in her case, she has decided to share them. From the adult education class where her over-ambitious project saw the course brochure and the lecturer altered forever, to a unique apology to the next-door neighbour, she has documented these and many other stories about her own ‘wrongs’. As with her previous book, Did You Know We Had a Screen Door?, an account of the road trip she and her husband embarked on in a Winnebago, Claire uses humour to relate to her audience. But in this collection, readers will also appreciate her honest, self-deprecating style.
978 1 74027 686 3, 68pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Claire Laishley
The Diary of Delores D’Lump
Claire Laishley wasn’t particularly concerned when she found a lump in her breast. She’d had two others removed over the: years, both benign, and at the time the doctor had intimated there would probably be more. But this time things would be different. The Diary of Delores D’Lump covers the twelve-month period from the day breast cancer was diagnosed. It is a powerful story that takes the reader on an emotional journey through the harsh treatment regime which, in Claire’s case, leads to unexpected and life-threatening side effects. But although the subject matter is serious, this story also captures the author’s sense of humour and indomitable spirit. Like her earlier book My Mother Is My Daughter, which told how her mother’s dementia changed the dynamic of their relationship, the author manages to inject humour into what many would feel is another other humourless subject. Along with the humour there is a blunt honesty in her writing; she is not afraid to detail her emotional lows, and many will relate to her story.
978 1 74027 710 5, 172pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Robert Lehane
Forever Carnival
The founding Rector of St John's College, Sydney, Very Rev. Dr John Forrest, is the central character in this book, which tells a story of hopes dashed as grand dreams for St John’s succumbed to the reality of a divided Catholic Church and low student numbers.
'Lehane...tells an entertaining and rather sad story in exceptional detail, using an impressive array of contemporary sources.' - University of Sydney Gazette
'Lehane is a good writer who knows how to walk the tightrope between populism and rigorous history. His quotes are always ahort and essential; his ability to tell a story is so well honed that the narrative never flags.' - Sydney Morning Herald
'...a story full of interest and intrigue.' - Irish Echo
'...gives much insight into the Byzantine, often secretive and power-hungry ecclesiastical hierarchy...a moving story at a human level.' - Tain
'...provided great enjoyment and satisfaction...' - Irish Roots
'...deserves to be read by all those with an interest in the Irish diaspora, the history of New South Wales or the study of modern Catholicism.' - Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
1 74027 268 4, 330pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Robert Lehane
William Bede Dalley
Draws on a wide range of sources to reveal an unconventional, perennially popular character who made major contributions to the political, legal and literary life of NSW. While the despatch of colonial troops to Sudan in 1885 is the act he is most often remembered for today, contemporaries admired him for much more - not least the use of his remarkable oratorical power, honed in memorable court cases, to champion causes such as religious and racial harmony and a gentler form of parliamentary politics.
'...much more than the account of a fascinating and full public life. It brings to life the colony of New South Wales in the 30 years after the grant of responsible government.' - Bar News (journal of the NSW Bar Association)
'...fascinating for the insights it provides of the parliamentary system in its infancy.' - Tintain
'Lehane's biography has done ample justice to a remarkable Australian patriot who deserves to be remembered for the significant role he played...' - Sabretache
'...a very readabe, ably researched and interesting account of a figure who fully deserves the focus of a biography.' - Australian Historical Studies
'...very readable... Solidly researched and well illustrated...' - Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society
'Those who read William Bede Dalley will rejoice in a rich and meaningful life and will learn about an aspect of Sydney and colonial society that better-known historians have barely glimpsed.' - Canberra Historical Journal
'Lehane...paints a rounded portrait of his subject through the vivid accumulation of detail, leaving readers to form their own impressions of Dalley. It is a very effective biographical technique... This remarkable book, with its text delightfully leavened by contemporary portraits and prints, is a colourful account, not only of the torturous permutations of colonial factional politics in NSW, but of the social history of Sydney and its environs. Robert Lehane has captured the very flavour of late-colonial society, from the bushranging days to the 1888 Centennial.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
'...a great insight into colonial Sydney...a fine biography...' - Australasian Journal of Irish Studies
'...full, readable, well-researched...' - Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society
978 1 74027 437 1, 423pp, $35.00 BUY NOW
Marina Lutz
Somers Commonwealth Immigration Camp
'I met Marina Lutz when she came to join the Barossa Writers in 2002. Soon after her arrival, Marina read to us a short account of her first year teaching. She had been appointed to a migrant camp, to teach English to the children. She was a living piece of Australia’s history and I told her that it was important that she write more fully about that camp. She smiled and confided that she already had. She showed me her manuscript...' - Alice Shore
978 1 74017 426 5, 54pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
John Maneschi
Giovinezza
A memoir of growing up in World War II Italy.
'An outstanding quality of John Maneschi's memoir is the subtle balance between time levels and between adult and childish points of view. The child's perspective constantly lightens the tone, finding enjoyment and fun in events which are acutely troubling to the adults. Written with verve, sensitivity and humour, Giovinezza will delight its readers.' - Joy Hooton
978 1 74027 431 9, 168pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Jennifer Martin
Mental Health Practice
This important book provides information on the latest developments in policy and service planning and delivery in mental health services; and gives a range of practical information and strategies for early intervention and working with people who are suicidal or self-harming and those who are using alcohol and other drugs as well as legal and justice issues.
1 74027 349 4, 236pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Freya Mathews
Journey to the Source of the Merri
An ecological philosopher's account of three friends' journey to the source of their local creek.
1 74027 197 1, 55pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Stephen Matthews (editor)
'How Did the Fire Know We Lived Here?'
In words and photographs (many in colour), more than 100 Canberrans reveal the stories of courage, loss and optimism behind the disastrous January 2003 bushfires.
'...an object lesson to all Australians to respect the forces of nature while enjoying the lifestyle afforded to them as they live within their unique environment.' - Reviews in Australian Studies
Highly commended, ACT Publishing Awards 2004
1 74027 202 1, 192pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
Deb Matthews-Zott (editor)
Gifts of Life
'Courage and inspiration are what you feel when you read these exceptional stories of everyday families coping with what life has dealt them! The harsh reality of organ and tissue donation is that we are dealing with life and death!' - Robyn Hookes
978 1 74027 410 4, $18.00 BUY NOW
Ian McFarlane
Of Cheese and Chutney
Essays, selected from Voice magazine, on a diverse range of issues, from the human rights of refugees, Indigenous reconciliation and the environment, to global conflict and economic rationalism. The elegantly expressed passion of the twenty-one pieces attacks the moral vacuum of right-wing arrogance with a search for humanity.
‘The thrust of the essays is no less powerful for being pushed forward by passionate belief rather than by a cooler approach to concepts and structure.’ - Canberra Times
‘The world-weary idealism of Ian McFarlane’s thoughtful essays on the Howard years deserves to reach a wider audience. He examines everything...from writing, the media, cricket, war and refugees’ rights with a keen intellect and discerning conscience and, despite the dark nature of some of the subject matter, a quirky sense of fun.’ - Judges’ report, ACT Writing & Publishing Awards 2010
Runner-up, Non-fiction, ACT Writing & Publishing Awards 2010
978 1 74027 583 5, 72pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Peter McIntosh
Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Sonnets?
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
With these immortal lines Shakespeare begins his most famous sonnet and perhaps the most famous love poem of all time. But this poem, and over one hundred others, first published in a slim volume called Shakespeare’s Sonnets 400 years ago, was written by Shakespeare not about a beautiful young woman, but about a beautiful young man. Shakespeare addresses this man as ‘my lovely boy’.
Shakespeare did not write a diary and the Sonnets are the closest he comes to telling us about his personal relationships. But what in fact do the Sonnets reveal? If Shakespeare was infatuated with a ‘lovely boy’, who was this handsome young man? If he was a rich aristocrat, as the Sonnets seem to suggest, how did Shakespeare, an actor on the fringes of respectability, living in lodgings in London, make his acquaintance? What was the nature of the relationship between Shakespeare, his wife, the young man, and the Dark Lady of the later sonnets? What is the meaning of the Sonnets’ enigmatic dedication that refers to the mysterious Mr. W.H. and why is the Dedication written in such odd language? And who was Mr. W.H. and was he the same person as the young man?
These questions and innumerable others have perplexed readers for centuries. Shakespearean scholars have concentrated on explaining certain allusions in individual sonnets or groups of sonnets, but no comprehensive answers to all the immensely puzzling questions raised by the poems have ever been presented.
This meticulously researched but highly readable book challenges conventional views. It takes a fresh approach to the difficult issues presented by the Sonnets, and upsets many cherished assumptions about the handsome young man, the Dark Lady, Mr. W.H., and Shakespeare himself.
‘McIntosh presents his startling case in a clear-headed, engaging and lively style. The book will delight, tease and provoke the many people who remain fascinated by the Shakespeare phenomenon.’ - Professor Michael Bennett, University of Tasmania
978 1 74027 663 4, 76pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Humphrey McQueen
Framework of Flesh
McQueen uses labourers' own words to retell their battles around scaffolding and shithouses, for the safe removal of asbestos, prompt and adequate compensation, and a decent burial. The stories start in convict times and cover the six states and the ACT. The labourers' struggle for health and safety is followed into their dismantling of the framework of fear erected by the Building and Construction Commission. By tracking on-the-job experiences of demolishers, dog-men, hod-carriers and navvies, McQueen confirms the conviction of an early official of the BLF, Ben Mulvogue: 'A union constitutes a school for the working class, wherein they learn self-reliance, learn their rights, privileges, opportunities, as well as their possibilities. Every new demand for better physical protection of the workers ensures a great ideal development for a future generation.'
'...lively and impressively researched... It is the mixture of historical narrative with theory that grounds and enlivens this book...' - Journal of Occupational Health and Safety
978 1 74027 545 3, 338pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Humphrey McQueen
We Built This Country: Builders’ Labourers and Their Unions
We Built This Country is a broad-brush look at builders’ labourers and their unions since the convict era. Builders’ labourers build this country socially and culturally as well as with concrete. McQueen pictures them as ‘improvising nomads’ who contributed to the Australian legend. We follow the membership as it shifts between ‘Weird Mobs’ of Irish and Italians. Led by Norm Gallagher and Jack Mundey, the BLF became the most controversial union to erupt out of the rebellious Sixties. Builders’ labourers rocked Australian cities with green bans and worker control. Their struggles are retold by digging into campaigns from each State. The stories are pitched against the demands of Messrs Construction Capital. The experiences of the builders’ labourers thus open a window into the making of the Australian working class.
‘…should be compulsory reading for new and old union officers and organisers…’ - Australian Options
978 1 74027 697 9, 364pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Kerry O’Regan
The Things My Best Friends Told Me
A woman sets out to walk the Camino, the ancient pilgrimage across the north of Spain. No longer young, she walks alone, leaving family and friends behind. But she also carries them with her, in the messages they’ve written on her stick. Each day she walks and each day she reads the messages, and muses on them. These are her musings, on the places she sees, the people she meets, the events she lives. They’re whimsical, witty, and wise.
978 1 74027 546 0, 76pp, $18.00 BUY NOW
Joe Rich
Refugee: a kind of Jewish childhood
In the 1930s, many children fled the rising menace of Nazism in Europe. This book is the story of one such who with his parents left Berlin in February 1939 to make his way to Sydney where, although welcomed by some, they attracted the hostility of many others who saw such immigrants as a threat to Australia’s relatively homogeneous culture and, during the war with Germany, distrusted them as enemy aliens. With the return of peace in 1945, this distrust morphed into a tide of anti-Semitism as Australians, whose patriotism was still at that time strongly tinged with an immense pride in their British origins, learned of the lethal attacks on British servicemen, who had fought against Hitler, by Zionist insurgents prepared to stop at nothing in their resolve to carve out a Jewish state in Palestine. Interwoven with these experiences are the unique, more personal elements of the equation, as this ill-matched and increasingly dysfunctional trio struggled to re-establish itself firstly in the alien environment of a large Australian city and then in the isolation of a Victorian country town.
978 1 74027 618 4, 218pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Leann Richards
Houdini's Tour of Australia
When escapologist Harry Houdini toured Australia in 1910 he brought magic, mystique, his wife and an aeroplane. Houdini conquered crowds and nearly caused riots, he escaped straitjackets and shackles and flew through the air. Some said he was supernatural, to others he was a fraud, but Houdini confounded them all.
'A well researched book of great interest...' - History Magazine
978 1 74027 396 1, 60pp, $17.50 BUY NOW
Leann Richards
The First Merry Widow: The life of Carrie Moore
Born near the docks in Geelong, Carrie Moore was destined to become the queen of the Edwardian stage. From the bright lights of London to the vaudeville halls of Hobart, Carrie captivated audiences around the world. She danced across stages adorned in diamonds but died penniless and alone in Sydney. This is the story of Australia’s own Carrie Moore, the Merry Widow.
978 1 74027 620 7, 74pp, $18.50 BUY NOW
Stephen Roche
Don’t Tell: Toowoomba Prep - the case which broke the silence on child sex abuse in Australia
Told through the eyes of a lawyer, Stephen Roche, this is a compelling account of the most important sexual abuse civil trial in Australian history. It begins when a young girl’s life is torn apart while attending a prestigious Anglican preparatory school, suffering repeated sexual abuse at the hands of her boarding master. After a complaint by a fellow classmate, the man is charged. On the day he is to appear in court, he commits suicide. For the next eleven years the school and Church deny the abuse ever occurred and it seems as if Lyndal’s life will remain in ruins - her cries for help forever falling on deaf ears. It is not until she is twenty-one that her story is finally told in court, exposing the dark face of the Church and a shocking history of institutionalised denial and neglect. Lyndal’s story evokes a feeling of anger, outrage and contempt for the powers that be and the landmark legal decision brings the highest office in the country to its knees and forever changes Australian attitudes towards abuse.
978 1 74027 664 1, 256pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
John Sabine
Around the World in Eighty Ways
A book for travellers rather than a travel book. The author makes no attempt to extol the virtues of different and far-flung places, nor how to get there, nor what to do when you are there, nor – and what is usually worse – any mention of how much of a small fortune all of that would cost. By contrast we have here a veritable salmagundi of travel adventures – for both the armchair voyageur and the inveterate wanderer. You will accompany the author to places both near and far, sometimes with his family and sometimes not, to experience with him the ups and downs of his travels at home and abroad. And always with a smile on your face.
978 1 74027 553 8, 256pp, $27.50 BUY NOW
Don Selth
More Than a Game: Canberra’s Sporting Heritage 1854-1954
‘I read this manuscript as Don worked on it. Having read so much of it, I was desperately keen to see it one day published. Now that it has been published, my one remaining desire regarding it is this: please, young sports lovers and budding sports writers, read it and absorb it. This is a unique document about the history of ACT and Australian sport; it has been painstakingly researched, and it is written in a way that will enable all readers to easily comprehend and appreciate its contents. For that, at the very least, thank you, Don Selth.’ - Robert Messenger
‘Selth has admirably blended statistics, historical facts, photographs and anecdotes into a most enjoyable read. His research has been meticulous and his writing is organised and thorough.’ - Canberra Times
978 1 740127 622 1, 246pp, $28.00 BUY NOW
Janice Simpson
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
Rushing across eight countries on a bicycle sounded like a good idea before flying solo to Paris to begin the journey. The author knew how to mend a puncture and change a tyre, but did not reckon with how she might fill in the never-ending hours as the kilometres hummed by under her wheels. Humour and courage are brought to the test. Worries are juxtaposed against the backdrop of European life and the lives of her fellow riders as they pedal from Paris to Istanbul, following the route of the Orient Express. The story weaves between the present and the past, Europe and Australia, and the author’s life as daughter, mother and wife. Wry wit is always close to the surface in this emotionally engaging and wholly entertaining book.
978 1 74027 719 8, 186pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Ben Smith
No Time for the Smiths
A true account, constructed from journals, of the first year of a marriage fifty years ago. In 1959, Sydney was a kinder, slower place. In outer suburbs you could see koalas in the trees. Bandicoots still hunted through rubbish bins, black snakes basked on the lawn and kookaburras laughed at sun-up two days before it rained. The sea was clean, buildings smaller, cars rudimentary, freeways unknown. We had pounds and shillings, inches, yards, believed in cooking with lots of lovely fat and were able to travel to England restfully by sea. Labour-saving devices were the clothes prop, the mechanised ringer and the barrel lawnmower. The welfare state hadn't replaced the need to work and young couples getting married found things tough.
978 1 74027 527 9, 212pp, $28.00 BUY NOW
Debra Smith
In Prison
'The Bridge Foundation is unique...because it serves an important issue that most of society, including governments, would rather avoid: the provision of services for those released from custody. Why is it that we think custody is a solution and an end in itself? I have never met a more gutsy and generous group of people than those who serve The Bridge Foundation. Debra Smith has led the way but, oh boy, they have all brought their distinctive ethical passions to focus on those who need help. Abandonment is not their style and it is a pity that we cannot all recognise the worth and beauty of a local response to a worldwide problem.' - His Honour Peter Gebhardt
978 1 74027 521 7, 130pp, $22.00 BUY NOW
Harold John Solomon
The Queer Colony
Old agile brains are always evolving and while some may scheme for augmentation of estates, perhaps Joseph and Judah Solomon’s thoughts were elsewhere when they arrived in Hobart Town as convicts on 1 March 1820.
978 1 74027 687 0, 54pp, $16.00 BUY NOW
Stephany Evans Steggall
Bruce Dawe: Life Cycle
Acknowledges one of Australia's best known poets and one of his best known poems. His life cycles have been poverty, perseverance and personal happiness; the rhythms of his being are the rhythms of his poetry - persistently fearless in speaking out on social and political issues; consistently sensitive and lyrical about painful concerns; insistently witty and satirical on just about anything. His range of poetry resists wrong and reveals a great love of his fellow man and a deep understanding of life. This biography is the first time that Dawe's life has been interpreted in full through his poetry, and the poems take on new significance when read in this context. The subject is telling some of the story in his own words - in poems.
'...estimable and intriguing...sympathetic, carefully researched and fluently written...' - Canberra Times
'...a warm portrait of one of our greatest living writers.' - Brisbane News
'...an intimately personal account of a notable life...refreshingly free of psychological speculation and self-conscious interpositions.' - Australian Book Review
978 1 74027 567 5, 368pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Jenny Stewart
The Two Canberras: Essays on public policy
Public policy is all around us - it is, after all, what government is supposed to be about - but it is often difficult for citizens to sort out the spin from the substance, the values from the rhetoric. In these clearly written and highly enjoyable essays, Jenny Stewart (Professor of Public Policy in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy) tackles the core policy dilemmas of our time, from population growth to innovation, from a perspective that is both personal and analytical.
978 1 74027 675 7, 198pp, $25.00 BUY NOW
Peter Walters
The Perfumed Curriculum
This is a story about love and loss and the choices that are made in their name. As Peter Walters recovers from the painful treatment of a virulent cancer, he remembers a time when, as a young teacher, he experienced a series of hilarious, traumatic, magical and fateful episodes of love and loss. Flying in the face of conventional teaching practices of the sixties and seventies, Peter’s accounts of romantic involvement with fellow teachers and mothers of his students are intense, sensuous, funny and tragic and in stark contrast to the term of trial which he is undergoing.
978 1 74027 578 1, 194pp, $30.00 BUY NOW
Stephen Matthews Ginninderra Press PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015
stephen@ginninderrapress.com.au
www.ginninderrapress.com.au
ABN 42 447 290 724