As Australia's first female Governor-General, Quentin Bryce handwrote more than fifty letters each week. She wrote to those she had met and connected with as her role took her from palaces to outback schools, from war zones to memorials, from intimate audiences to lavish ceremonies. She received even more letters from every corner of the country. Ge... Read more...

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...

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, 'Big George's' ascendancy within the clergy was remarkable and seemingly unstop... 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...

In Life As I Know It, Michelle Payne tells her deeply moving story. It will lift your spirits, stir your heart and give you courage. Michelle was six months old, the youngest of eleven children, when the family was hit with the tragic death of their mother, Mary. Their father, Paddy, a renowned horseman, raised his children alone. As a family, they ... Read more...

These days, families come in all shapes and sizes. They move from one state to create a family in another. They combine into new homes, take holidays with blends of children and parents from different households. They invent routines and rituals to establish their own rhythms. And don't forget the double sets of school uniforms and pyjamas under dif... 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...

Many of the most spectacular and interesting astronomical objects are found in the magnificent southern skies. Professor E. J. Hartung first produced a comprehensive and highly respected guide for southern observers in 1968. The book was thoroughly revised, expanded in 1995, enhancing its essential character as an indispensable source of information... Read more...

Green Stuff for Kids is a young readers' guide to what's up with the planet and what they can do to make a difference. Jam-packed with fun facts, eco-activities, information and green tips, this book covers a huge range of environmental issues and hot topics, including air pollution, biodegradability, climate change, e-waste, litter, natural disaste... Read more...

Senator Edward Millen, who conveived and nurtured Australia's repatriation system, described repatriation of returned service personnel as just as much 'an emanation of the heart' as a cause 'worthy of the last shilling'. It had been a concern to Australians since the Boer War, but it was not until 1918 that an entire government department (now... Read more...

Northern Australia remains one the most remote areas of the world. To all its early visitors—Macassan fishermen, white explorers, soldiers, government officials, settlers and missionaries—it was their farthest coast. For all it was an alien and difficult place to reach.Campbell Macknight outlines the history of the exploration and settle... Read more...

The prime ministership remains the main prize in Australian politics, but it is a precarious one. Leadership turnover in recent years has seen more prime ministers rise and fall than at any time since the decade after federation. What explains this volatility? The Pivot of Power is the second volume in a unique blend of collective biography and in... Read more...

On a winter's day in 1943, 22-year-old Mischka Danos chanced on a terrible sight as he skied through Latvian woods—a pit filled with the bodies of Jews killed by the occupying Germans. The world was full of such atrocities, which makes Mischka's decision to escape conscription to the Waffen-SS by going on a student exchange to Germany all the ... Read more...

Visitors to the Red Centre come looking for the real Australia. What they find is both beautiful and disturbing: wilderness, desire, an ancient philosophy of home, and the confusing countenance of the Australian frontier, a meeting place of black and white, ancient and modern.Songlines and Fault Lines explores the stories of six epic walks that shap... Read more...

Women Leading smashes tired prescriptions that women should lead like men, highlighting a long history of innovative female leadership. Christine Nixon and Amanda Sinclair draw on their own and thousands of others' experiences to argue it is women who provide new inspiration for change towards inventive, inclusive and productive organisations and co... Read more...