Mark Colvin is a broadcasting legend. He is the voice of ABC Radio's leading current affairs program PM; he was a founding broadcaster for the groundbreaking youth station Double J; he initiated The World Today program; and he's one of the most popular and influential journalists in the twittersphere.Mark has been covering local and global events fo... Read more...

In 1908 English gentleman, Ernest Westlake, packed a tent, a bicycle and forty tins of food and sailed to Tasmania. On mountains, beaches and in sheep paddocks he collected over 13,000 Aboriginal stone tools. Westlake believed he had found the remnants of an extinct race whose culture was akin to the most ancient Stone Age Europeans. But in the remo... Read more...

March 1797. Ninety Mile Beach, Victoria. Five British sailors and twelve Bengali seamen swim ashore after their longboat is ripped apart in a storm. The British penal colony at Port Jackson is 700 kilometres to the north, their fellow-survivors from the wreck of the Sydney Cove stranded far to the south on a tiny island in Bass Strait. To rescue the... Read more...

Celebrated for her vibrant and distinctive pictures of indigenous flowers, artist Margaret Preston was an equally colourful and outspoken personality. Less well known is her legacy as a generous and insightful teacher and keen cook, and her deep sense of civic duty. She was passionate about the need for a modern national culture that reflected every... Read more...

Medical science now allows us to live longer than ever before. So living with pain and dying well have become major concerns for the general community, health practitioners, church groups and politicians. Should these issues be decided in private by individuals or must we legislate ethical guidelines? Rodney Syme has been an advocate for medically a... Read more...

In this new history of the Australian Workers' Union, prominent author Nick Dyrenfurth traces the fortunes of the nation's oldest continuously operating trade union from its origins in the shearing sheds of the late nineteenth century through to it present-day representation of modern Australia's diverse workforce. The 131-year-old AWU's coverage of... Read more...

Foundations of Clinical Psychiatry is the trusted introductory text for students of medicine and other health professions, including psychiatric nursing, psychology, social work and occupational therapy. It has also been the essential reference for family doctors for over quarter of a century.Foundations of Clinical Psychiatry: Fourth Edition has be... Read more...

Writing Home explores the literary representation of Australian places by those who have walked them. In particular, it examines how Aboriginal and settler narratives of walking have shaped portrayals of Australia's Red Centre and consequently ideas of nation and belonging.Central Australia has long been characterised as a frontier, the supposed div... Read more...

'I am not a born writer, but I must say that when I have actually launched myself I get the profoundest and most passionate satisfaction from writing.'—Christina SteadA Web of Friendship is a collection of Christina Stead's intimate correspondence with influential literary figures such as Stanley Burnshaw, Ettore Rella, Nettie Palmer, Clem Chr... Read more...

We are not born readers, we learn to turn words into worlds. But why is fine writing lauded while excellent reading is ignored?In The Art of Reading, philosopher Damon Young reveals the pleasures of this intimate pursuit through a rich sample of literature: from Virginia Woolf's diaries to Batman comics. He writes with honesty and humour about the b... Read more...

The Forgotten People challenges the assumption that constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians is a project of the left in Australia.It demonstrates that there may be a set of reforms that can achieve the change sought by indigenous leaders, while addressing the critical concerns of constitutional conservatives and classical liberals. More... Read more...

Some of our strongest, most lasting relationships are hidden in plain view—those we have with objects. What do our possessions do for us? And how do they do it?In The Promise of Things, Ruth Quibell explores what our possessions say about us: who we think we are, what we long for and struggle against. It invites us to think about how we use th... Read more...

This provocative book examines the vision of Australia in nineteenth-century English literature. The industrial revolution destroyed the myth of an idyllic rural way of life in England, and writers like Charles Dickens, Bulwer Lytton and Charles Reade created it anew in the improbable environment of Australia. The popular image of Australia in Engli... Read more...

Olive King was born in Sydney in 1885. She offered her services as an?ambulance driver soon after war broke out in 1914. She joined a small?private organization early in 1915 and went to Belgium. In May 1915 she joined the Scottish Women's Hospitals and her letters, until now?unpublished, date from that time.She joined the Serbian Army in 1916 and s... Read more...

This volume was the first book devoted entirely to an investigation of the many problems associated with the relation between the 'stolne and surreptitious copies' of which Heminge and Condell complain in their address 'To the great Variety of Readers,' and the corresponding plays of Shakespeare printed by them in the first folio.For nearly two and ... Read more...

'In May 1994, while I was going through pre-selection for the seat of Williamstown, I sat down at my desk at home and I wrote a note. I was thirty-nine years old and in that note I mapped out what I hoped would happen in my life.'By the time he was forty-eight, Steve Bracks had achieved the goal he'd set himself nine years earlier. He was premier of... Read more...

The writer's life ... it's not an easy one. In the autumn issue of Meanjin Australian literary giant Frank Moorhouse describes the often-difficult path followed by those hardy souls who take 'the writer's oath'. For the man behind Days of Wine and Rage, Forty Seventeen, Dark Palace and the rest of the soon-to-be televised 'Edith Trilogy', it has bee... Read more...

George Pell is the most recognisable face of the Australian Catholic Church. He was the Ballarat boy with the film-star looks who studied at Oxford and rose through the ranks to become the Vatican's indispensable 'Treasurer'. As an outspoken defender of church orthodoxy, Pells ascendancy within the clergy was remarkable and seemingly unstoppable.The... Read more...

Moana Hope is one of fourteen children. No fan of dolls or dresses, footy has always been her passion, and she would spend hours playing kick-to-kick with her dad and brothers at the local park. When her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Moana cared for him until his death four years later.Footy and cricket provided an escape from the deman... Read more...

The Muslim community that is portrayed to the West is a misogynist's playground; within the Muslim community, feminism is often regarded with sneering hostility.Yet between those two views there is a group of Muslim women many do not believe exists: a diverse bunch who fight sexism from within, as committed to the fight as they are to their faith. H... Read more...