Vasily Sukhomlinsky was an extremely influential Ukrainian educator, whose work is still widely read in Ukraine, Russia and China. His idealistic vision of human development, and his deep love for children, led him to develop a holistic system of education that emphasised the moral and aesthetic dimensions of a child's growth, as well as the physical, intellectual and vocational. His school in the village of Pavlysh was visited by thousands of schoolteachers, and his books were read by millions. This is the first major study to present Sukhomlinsky's educational legacy to an English-speaking a... View More...
This is a true story. . . It is a terrible story; but it is also a story of hope and of beauty. Written by Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend tells the story of young Peter Pendragon and his lover Louise Laleham, and their adventures traveling through Europe in a cocaine and heroin haze. The bohemian couples binges produce visions and poetic prophecies, but when their supply inevitably runs dry they find themselves faced with the reality of their drug addiction. Through the guidance of King Lamus, a master adept, they use the application of practical Magick to free themselves from addicti... View More...
Ned Kelly - Australia's beloved national icon - was once just a bushranger who had to be punished for his crimes. In 1880, everyone wanted him dead. There are many stories that form the Kelly myth. But the side of the story rarely told is what really happened in the 137 days between Ned's last stand at Glenrowan and the day the hangman's noose was placed around his neck. Who was with him in his last hours, and why did he have so many powerful enemies? Ned Kelly's Last Days exposes the blatant cover-ups, the corruption and the rampant press baying for blood that were ultimately Ned Kelly's deat... View More...
Andrew grew up in the 1970s with his funny, loving but deeply unstable mother. Life with her was totally chaotic. She left him alone in motel rooms at night and took him with her when she went house burgling. But Andrew's mother wasn't bad, she was just lost herself and one thing she did was always tell him she loved him. Gradually, though, the bad times got worse. One day Andrew, aged seven, found his mother in the bathroom in the middle of a breakdown, the walls covered in her pleas for help all written in the blood from the cuts she'd inflicted on herself. He was taken into care and put wit... View More...
The camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau were an important part of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. Over one million people were murdered in its gas chambers and tens of thousands of prisoners were worked to death in the nearby sub-camps. Others were held in the quarantine area before they were deported to work in the Third Reich. This is the story of the development of Auschwitz from a Polish prison camp into a concentration camp, and a thorough account of the building of Birkenau and the gas chambers, which grew into industrial killing machines. Rawson relates what life was like for... View More...
The laugh-out-loud, reach-for-your-hanky story of one of Australia's best-loved comedians. Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing - not murderous pirates, nor the imminent threat of death by hunger, disease or dehydration as they drifted for days - could quench their desire to make a better life in the country they had dreamed about. Life in Australia was hard, an endless succession of back-breaking work, crowded rooms, ruthless landlords and make-do eve... View More...
The story of an urban-based high achieving Aboriginal woman working to break down stereotypes and build bridges between black and white Australia. I'm Aboriginal. I'm just not the Aboriginal person a lot of people want or expect me to be. What does it mean to be Aboriginal? Why is Australia so obsessed with notions of identity? Anita Heiss, successful author and passionate campaigner for Aboriginal literacy, was born a member of the Wiradjuri nation of central New South Wales, but was raised in the suburbs of Sydney and educated at the local Catholic school. She is Aboriginal - howeve... View More...
In June 1975, Australian couple Annette and Win Henderson find themselves stranded in Libreville, Gabon, after travelling halfway across Africa. When a thief robs their Kombivan, they are left penniless - with no way to go back and no way to go on. They are saved by a chance meeting with a local expat, who offers them jobs in a remote mining camp in the mountains, close to the Congo border, in a region never visited by tourists, accessible only by canoe. At the camp, Annette battles isolation, culture shock and the challenges of a job for which she is ill-prepared. She finds solace and joy in ... View More...
In SCAR TISSUE Anthony Kiedis, the charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself. He tells of his childhood living in LA with his unconventional father; an early life spent hobnobbing with celebrities and becoming a child film actor; setting up the band with his school friend Flea in the early 80s; discovering a love of live performance and songwriting; and the years spent struggling with a drug addiction that left him a homeless multi-millionaire living on speedball mixtures of heroin and cocaine... View More...
This biography of Frank Cobbold opens when Frank goes to sea on a Clipper aged 14. It follows him through inexperience as a Fijian trader who escaped the cannibals' cook pot and survived one of the worst hurricanes in living memory. In Australia he learned the skills of a surveyor and quickly became a sought-after and trusted station manager. Despite problems that would have defeated a less resolute man he took droughts, cheats and unyielding land tenure regulations in his stride to become one of Australia's great pioneering pastoralists. Admired by fellow bushmen, trusted by his partners a... View More...
Arthur William Upfield is well known as the creator of Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) who features in 29 crime detection novels, most set in the Australian outback. He also wrote more than 220 short stories and articles, based on his experiences in the bush between 1911 and 1931. Up and Down the Real Australia is the second published collection of Upfield's short works. Kees de Hoog has selected 45 autobiographical articles, ranging from humorous outback anecdotes to personal experiences at Gallipoli and the Somme during the First World War. Kees has added The Murchison Mu... View More...
Arthur William Upfield is well known as the creator of Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) who features in 29 crime detection novels, most set in the Australian outback. He also wrote more than 220 short stories and articles, based on his experiences in the bush between 1911 and 1931. Up and Down the Real Australia is the second published collection of Upfield's short works. Kees de Hoog has selected 45 autobiographical articles, ranging from humorous outback anecdotes to personal experiences at Gallipoli and the Somme during the First World War. Kees has added The Murchison Mu... View More...
Arthur William Upfield is well known as the creator of Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) who features in 29 crime detection novels, most set in the Australian outback. It is not well known that he also wrote about 250 short stories and articles, drawing on his experiences in the bush between 1911 and 1931. Up and Down the Real Australia is the second published collection of Upfield's short works. Kees de Hoog has selected 45 autobiographical articles, ranging from humorous outback anecdotes to personal experiences at Gallipoli and the Somme during the First World War. Kees ha... View More...
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father - a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man - has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life... View More...
He was 42 and one of Australia's most successful criminal barristers. She was 14, a runaway with nowhere to go. She later learnt the barrister had paid her grandmother. She had been sold... So begins Barbara Biggs' inside account of the dark side of the permissive seventies. The episode is to haunt her for years. But it is only one part of an extraordinary family story told with black humour and unflinching honesty. At 13 she runs away from home for wayward girls. At 16 she admits herself to a psychiatric hospital. At 18 she escapes Cambodia as it falls to the Khmer Rouge. At 19 she is a pro... View More...
"The Miners traces the Australian mining industry and its turning points of discovery and development, the booms and the busts. It tells this story through the eyes of those involved in it, from the captains of the industry, managing directors of small and mid-tier companies, the financiers, the service companies and lobbyists. From exploration to the mining tax and from oil to iron ore, this is a book of dreams, praise, criticisms, anger and laughter." View More...
Real-life all too rarely offers stories that are quite as satisfying as fiction. "Bringing Down the House" is one of the exceptions. Cheating in casinos is illegal; and card-counting - making a record of what cards have so far been dealt to enable the player to make some prediction of what cards remain in the deck - is not. But casinos understandably dislike the practice and make every effort to keep card-counters out of their premises. "Bringing Down the House" tells the true story of the most successful scam ever, in which teams of brilliant young mathematicians and physicists won millions o... View More...
In the 1970's, the Swedish musical phenomenon known as ABBA, Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, succeeded in reinventing the world's perception of pop. They produced hit after catchy hit, each one instantly recognizable, infectious, and irresistible. Nearly a quarter of a century later, these beloved songs gave birth to the blockbuster musical MAMMA MIA!, which became a legend in its own right. It opened in 85 cities and has since been seen by more than 20 million people throughout the world. This officially sanctioned book tells the double story of ... View More...
English Language. Sri Ramana Gita is one of the important works on the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, composed by his premier devotee Vasishtha Ganapati Muni. It records the instructions of the Maharshi on various themes of spiritual importance and mode of sadhana in answer to serious queries addressed to him by sincere devotees and aspirants. Most of the queries belong to the period of 1916 and 1917. The questions taken up in Ramana Gita are often intricate relating as they do to the deepest experiences in yoga and involve very subtle perception and analysis. Fortunately the commentary... View More...
Nat Buchanan was the first European to cross the Barkly Tablelands from east to west and first to take a large herd of breeding cattle from Queensland to the Top End of the Northern Territory. Buchanan created a droving record when he supervised 20,000 head over this route. Critique: If he was an American they would build a Hall of Fame in his honour, but Australians haven't heard of him. At last, a fitting tribute to one of the truly great Australians. Ted Egan View More...