Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Rules Of Backyard Cricket
Darren Keefe is in the boot of a car. The gag, the cable ties, the bullet hole in his knee – everything points towards a shallow grave. His story, now unrolling beneath him, starts with a boy wrestling his brother in a suburban backyard – all the fury in his small body poured into the
Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World
In 1788 a young gentlewoman raised in the vicarage of an English village married a handsome, haughty and penniless army officer. In any Austen novel that would be the end of the story, but for the real-life woman who became an Australian farming entrepreneur, it was just the beginning. John Macarthur took credit for establishing
Drylands
In the dying town of Drylands, Janet Deakin sells papers to lonely locals. At night, in her flat above the newsagency, she attempts to write a novel for a world in which no one reads – `full of people, she envisaged, glaring at a screen that glared glassily back.` `Drylands` is the story of the
An English Year: Twelve Months in the Life of England`s Kids
Meet Aman, Victoria, Amelia, Tandi and George – English children representing a multicultural blend of culture and race that typifies our beautiful country. They will take you through a year in the life of English kids, from celebrations to traditions to events, to our everyday way of life and the little things that make childhood
The Book Of Dirt
Jakub Rand flees his village for Prague, only to find himself trapped by the Nazi occupation. Deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he is forced to sort through Jewish books for a so-called Museum of the Extinct Race. Hidden among the rare texts is a tattered prayer book, hollow inside, containing a small pile of
Things You Get for Free
Things You Get for Free is a travelogue rich with charm and wisdom and sparkling with its author`s singular wit. As a priest, Michael McGirr decides to take his charming and inimitable mum on the honeymoon she and her late husband never got around to having. He uses his six-week vacation to take her on
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
In the 1600s Sara de Vos, a mother and painter, loses her young daughter suddenly to illness. In her grief, she secretly begins paintingh a dark landscape of a girl watching a group of ice skaters from the edge of a wood In 1950s New York, Martijn de Groot has At the Edge of a
Trail Magic: Going Walkabout for 2184 Miles on the Appalachian Trail
Going walkabout for 2,184 miles on the Appalachian Trail. Trevelyan Quest Edwards wore out two pairs of boots in five months. He walked `thru` the Appalachian Trail of 2,184 miles northwards from Atlanta, Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Quest is his real middle name. A Darwin-based, Australian life-saver and ex-cartographer, `Walkabout` was the Trail
The Last Great Australian Adventurer: Ben Carlin`s Epic Journey Around the World by Amphibious Jeep
In 1948, Ben Carlin set out from New York City with an audacious, lunatic plan to circumnavigate the world in an army surplus amphibious jeep called Half-Safe.Fuelled by cigarettes and adrenaline, the Australian army major pushed his fragile, claustrophobic vehicle through fierce Atlantic hurricanes, across uncharted North African desert, into dense South-East Asian jungle and
Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles, and Secrets from Timor-Leste
At the stroke of midnight on 20 May 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste became the first new nation of the 21st century. From that moment, those who fought for independence have faced a challenge even bigger than shaking off Indonesian occupation: running a country of their own. *Beloved Land* picks up the story where
The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
Iain McCalman`s brilliant history of the Great Barrier Reef, told in 12 extraordinary tales, charts its shifting status from labyrinth of terror to global treasure. Equal parts gifted storyteller and acclaimed historian, McCalman brings to life the people who`ve shaped our knowledge and perception of this World Heritage – listed site. He describes encounters between
Penang Local: Cult Recipes from the Streets that Make the City
Penang is an explorer`s dream and a food-lover`s paradise. It`s the nasi lemak or kaya toast eaten for breakfast, served with a hot cup of kopi `O` (black coffee), at one of the city`s bustling food courts. It`s the rejuvenative laksa after a morning`s sight-seeing, followed by a cooling cendol in the afternoon heat. It`s
Where`s Attenborough?
Since 1954, Sir David Attenborough has been gracing our TV screens to educate and celebrate the animal and natural worlds. In those nearly 70 years of broadcasting and documentary making, Attenborough became a national treasure in the United Kingdom and attained near-mythical status the world over. We only need to hear a word or two
Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour
An enthralling, behind-the-scenes account of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain. Citizens of London brings out of history`s shadows the three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking news reporter; Averell Harriman, the hard-driving millionaire who ran FDR`s Lend-Lease programme in London; and John G. Winant, the
The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade
The day before the underwater fancy-dress parade Alfie got that feeling’ฆSometimes it’s hard to be brave. Sometimes you get that feeling. Sometimes you’re just not ready’ฆ until one day, you are.
The Winterlings
Finalist for the Herralde Novel Prize Two sisters return to the small parish of Tierra de Cha in Galicia after a long absence, to the former home of their grandfather, from which they fled when they were just children. At Tierra de Cha, nothing and everything has changed: the people, the distant little house in
Berlin Syndrome
2006, Berlin. The once-divided city still holds its share of secrets. One afternoon, near the tourist trap of Checkpoint Charlie, Clare meets Andi. There is an instant attraction, and when Andi invites her to stay, Clare thinks she may finally have found somewhere to call home. But as the days pass and the walls of
Margaret the First
`I am as Ambitious as ever any of my Sex was, is, or can be; though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second, yet I endeavour to be Margaret the First.` When Margaret Cavendish addressed the Royal Society in 1667, Samuel Pepys recorded that her dress was `so antic and her deportment
