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Books : Biographies & Memoirs : Ethnic & National : Australian
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The Wayward Child is the true story of an Australian family, set in the WWII years and beyond. You will instantly warm to Rita, the wayward child, and her older sibling Joan. These two children share the common bond of a pitiful existence, played out with a rough diamond father who clearly wanted sons instead of daughters.
Their ladylike, demure mother was instrumental in the keeping of matrimonial harmony, with her sweet genteel nature, but lacked the fortitude to oppose any unfitting decisions that served to make their lives more difficult in times of tremendous hardship. With a strong-willed paternal Grandmother, whose love and loyalty to her only son knew no bounds, this story will keep the reader entranced from start to finish. The WWII era in Australia is a sadly neglected piece of history in the literary world. It is a story that needs to be told with passion, and deep respect for the love of a nation.
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~Review by Warwick Fry, Nimbin Good Times Journal, Australia~
It’s not often that you get the unsullied memories of a child growing up in the Australian countryside during the years of the Second World War published raw and unvarnished over sixty years later. This is the achievement of long term Nimbin resident, Rita Carter (Lowther).
A Wayward Child begins with Rita’s country girlhood in Tumut where her father worked as a guard at the open prison farm. It describes the traumatic effects of the Second World War years on her mind and on her family, and the harsh values that informed a generation that was emotionally and intellectually starved. Rita survived with those values. This is a testimony of how difficult it is for precocious children to try to grasp problems that adults have difficulty in grasping themselves – a situation not uncommon in the isolated communities of the Australian country.
She has a writer’s eye for detail. Some of her descriptions are almost Dickensian. A writerly touch is apparent in the last sentence of a paragraph devoted to a magnificently detailed description of her grandfather and his clothing: “I think I liked him most for the way he dressed…”
We get these flashes of ‘child’s eye views’ throughout the book, all the more poignant for being written over sixty years later. And the wealth of iconic Australiana (country meals, social settings) should be mined by any producer worth his salt, of an Australian period film.
And just when you think this is a catalogue of social country life, with schoolgirl tiffs and jealousies, Rita introduces her ‘imaginary friend’ Edna, and the narrative of the Odyssey across the Australian countryside, when her father is forced to seek work, first as a shearing supervisor, and then as a rabbit trapper.
Over all this is the background of the Second World War. It looms over Rita’s childhood, it is the trauma she sees as being to blame for hardship that hard work and endurance could not prevent. The propaganda newsreels of the time had her running out of the theatres in a panic that the Japanese were on our doorstep, a constant state of childhood anxiety that voided her of any compassion at an accidental sight of Japanese prisoners during a visit to Sydney, and perhaps affords us a sympathetic glimpse of the roots of One Nation xenophobia.
It is a remarkable achievement by a remarkable, local, all Australian mature aged resident of Nimbin. As someone approaching mature age myself, I can only admire Rita’s achievement.
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In October 1966, 28 soldiers were chosen to form Australia’s first specialist Reconnaissance Platoon in the Vietnam War. One of this platoon’s section commanders was a 20-year old regular soldier called Bob Kearney, who led a series of deadly patrols, operating in isolation and extreme danger ahead of the main Australian forces.
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My job description, given to me by my dad, the priest, was to greet people and make them feel welcome. I was very good at what I did. I happen to be quite an attractive dog and I love everyone and everyone loves me. That's the way it ought to be, don t you think?
So begins Martin in the Narthex, written by Martin the dog, an Australian Shepherd and the official greeter at St. Barnabas in Fredericksburg, Texas, for almost five years. With canine insight, he describes his joyful role in helping to make the church a friendly, caring community. Readers of all ages will enjoy and understand this story of love and redemption.
The book's cheerful, engaging illustrations are the work of twelve-year-old Riley Cohn, who brings Martin's story to life with drawings that reflect her own unique way of viewing the world.
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Published in 1918, written by the Anzac Scout Intelligence Officer, Fifteenth Australian Infantry.
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Trackers is a gritty and moving story that reveals the Australian Army's little-known use of combat tracker dogs during the Vietnam War. A war veteran tells his story with vivid and compelling immediacy, blending the terror of hunting and encountering the elusive Viet Cong with the tender relationship between a naive young Australian soldier and his dog. A graphic portrayal of the timeless reality of war—the horror, the madness, the tedium, the dark humour—Trackers hurls you into a surreal world of seething jungles, random minefields, and lethal friendly fire. Amid the mayhem, the author finds vital refuge in the innocence of his larrikin labrador-kelpie cross, Caesar. Also an human interest story with enormous widespread appeal, both men and women of all ages will be touched by this special bond between man and dog.
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Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother’s birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but aborigineinformation that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author’s mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.
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On May 15, 2010, after 210 days at sea and more than 22,000 nautical miles, 16-year-old Jessica Watson sailed her 33-foot boat triumphantly back to land. She had done it. She was the youngest person to sail solo, unassisted, and nonstop around the world.Jessica spent years preparing for this moment, years focused on achieving her dream. Yet only eight months before, she collided with a 63,000-ton freighter. It seemed to many that she’d failed before she’d even begun, but Jessica brushed herself off, held her head high, and kept going.
Told in Jessica’s own words, True Spirit is the story of her epic voyage. It tells how a young girl, once afraid of everything, decided to test herself on an extraordinary adventure that included gale-force winds, mountainous waves, hazardous icebergs, and extreme loneliness on a vast sea, with no land in sight and no help close at hand. True Spirit is an inspiring story of risk, guts, determination, and achievement that ultimately proves we all have the power to live our dreams—no matter how big or small.
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As described by one critic: "This book is gripping, has much humor, ribald and subtle, and much pathos, but understated."
It is the story of a boy born and growing up in Sydney, who was drafted into the Australian Army at age eighteen in 1951. He remained in the army and first served overseas alongside the British Army fighting against the Communist terrorists in Malaya in the mid-nineteen-fifties. After a period as an instructor at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, he spent three years with the Pacific Islands Regiment in Papua New Guinea during the time of Confrontation with Indonesia and Indonesia's takeover of West New Guinea from the Dutch. Following this he led an infantry company of troops in Vietnam in 1966-67 and in this well illustrated book he tells the story of those men during the early stages of the Australian occupation of Nui Dat at the time of the Battles of Long Tan and later Bribie. He returned to Vietnam in 1970 for further service there totaling 809 days.
David Black says: "...very well written, humorous, descriptive, and for a civilian, easy to understand."
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Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up and taken to settlements to be institutionally assimilated. In Rabbit-Proof Fence, award-wining author Doris Pilkington traces the story of her mother, Molly, one of three young girls uprooted from their community in Southwestern Australia and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement. There, Molly and her relatives Gracie and Daisy were forbidden to speak their native language, forced to abandon their heritage, and taught to be culturally white. After regular stays in solitary confinement, the three girls planned and executed a daring escape from the grim camp.
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Scapegoats of the Empire- by George Witton tells the story of court martial of Harry -Breaker- Morant.
Harry Morant was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, poet, and soldier whose renowned skill with horses earned him the nickname -The Breaker.- Articulate, intelligent, and well-educated, he was also a published poet.
During service in the Second Boer War - 1899 to 1902,- Morant was responsible for shooting prisoners of war, which he claimed he was ordered to do. Morant and the author George Witton and one other were court-martialed by the British Army.
In the century since his death, Morant has become a folk hero in Australia. His story has been the subject of several books and a major Australian feature film
This book was originally published in 1907 but was suppressed by the Australian government. (There is no right of freedom of the press in Australia - even today). Many copies of the Scapegoats of the Empire were burned and for a long time the book was unavailable. Prior to its reprint in 1982 there were only seven copies of the book which had survived in various Australian libraries and in the possession of Witton's family.
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After "Unreliable Memoirs", "Falling Towards England" and "May Week Was in June" comes the next instalment in the ongoing saga that is Clive James's life. His fourth - and eagerly awaited - volume of autobiography promises to be every bit as eventful, entertaining, engrossing and honest as the previous three. At the very end of "May Week Was in June", we left our hero sitting beside the River Cam one beautiful 1968 spring day, jotting down his thoughts in a journal. Newly married and about to leave the cloistered world of Cambridge academia for the racier, glossier life promised by Literary London, he was, so he informed his journal, reasonably satisfied. With his criticism beginning to appear in magazines and newspapers such as the "New Statesman", and his poetry published in Carcanet, as well as a play then being performed to rave reviews at the Arts Theatre, James had good reason to be content. But what happened next? This is the question posed, and answered by, North Face of Soho. Intelligent, amusing and provocative - the words apply to the man himself as much as his memoirs - it's a book that can't come soon enough for the legions of Clive James fans worldwide. "His proses mixes together cleverness and clownishness, and achieves a fluency and a level of wit that makes his pages truly shimmer." - "Financial Times."
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Twenty-one of Australia's most startling real-life crimes, from the late 1800’s to the present day are collected here in one gripping volume. Using exhaustive research, court records, police statements and original interviews, Larry Writer offers fascinating new insights into the lives of some of Australia’s most notorious villains and their victims.
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This is the captivating story behind Schindler’s List, the Booker Prize–winning book and the Academy Award–winning Spielberg film. Keneally tells the tale of the unlikely encounter that propelled him to write about Oskar Schindler and of the impact of his extraordinary account on people around the world.
Thomas Keneally met Leopold “Poldek” Pfefferberg, the owner of a Beverly Hills luggage shop, in 1981. Poldek, a Polish Jew and a Holocaust survivor, had a tale he wanted the world to know. Charming, charismatic, and persistent, he convinced Keneally to relate the incredible story of “the all-drinking, all-screwing, all-black-marketeering Nazi, Oskar Schindler. But to me he was Jesus Christ.”
Searching for Schindler is the engrossing chronicle of Keneally’s pursuit of one of history’s most fascinating and paradoxical heroes. Traveling throughout the United States, Germany, Israel, Poland, and Austria, Keneally and Poldek interviewed people who had known Schindler and uncovered their indelible memories of the Holocaust. Keneally’s powerful narrative rose quickly to the top of bestseller lists. Steven Spielberg’s magnificent film adaptation went on to fulfill Poldek’s dream of winning “an Oscar for Oskar.” (Keneally’s anecdotes about Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and other cast members will delight film buffs.)
Written with candor and humor, Seaching for Schindler is an intimate look at Keneally’s growth as a writer and the enormous success of his portrait of Oskar Schindler.
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Thousands of convicts were transported to Australia. This Little Red Book shows what became of the most dangerous and desperate of those incarcerated in Australia, and records their deeds both foul and fascinating. Some arrived here with serious criminal records; many more escaped and became hardened criminals...
This is the story of the worst of them and those that ran the system. Multiple murderers, bushrangers, cannibals, conmen and the desperately criminal fought lifetime battles with a prison system that was often no better, managed by the incompetent, the sadistic, the ignorant and the foolhardy.
This story of the worst of Australian convicts and the system that created them is a meticulously researched insight into the tragedy, treachery, drama and characters that founded our nation.
This book is part of Exisle Publishing's Little Red Books series.
Every title in the Little Red Books series provides an overview of key events, people or places in Australian history. They cover the essentials, bringing the reader up to speed on the most important, fascinating or intriguing facts. Appealing to everyone from students to pensioners who've always wanted to "know a bit about that", they're an essential part of every Australian bookshelf.
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With compelling style and suspense this true-crime book reconstructs the bizarre, bloody journey of a mesmerizing but sinister young man named Charles Sobhraj. Sweeping back and forth over half the globe -- from the boulevards of Paris to the slopes of Mount Everest to the underbellies of Bangkok and Hong Kong -- Sobhraj left in his wake a trail of baffling mystery and inexplicable horror. He also led the police of a dozen nations on a chase that ended at least twelve and possibly twenty-four corpses later with a mere seven-year prison sentence in Delhi. Besides offering a riveting narrative of serial murder and a years-long manhunt, this singular volume examines the lives not only of the intelligent, charismatic, conscienceless, and thoroughly dangerous Sobhraj but also of the unsuspecting victims that he drugged, robbed, sometimes tortured, and without a qualm often killed. A chilling tale of deadly coincidences set in exotic, glamorous locales, Serpentine offers a reading experience as frightening as it is unforgettable.
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“A fascinating well-told tale of heroism and adventure, told by a master of the craft.”—Harper’s
In 1860, an expedition set out from Melbourne, Australia, into the interior of the country, with the mission to find a route to the northern coast. Headed by Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, the party of adventurers, scientists, and camels set out into the outback hoping to find enough water and to keep adequate food stores for their trek into the bush. Almost one year later, Burke, Wills, and two others from their party, Gray and King, reached the northern shore but on their journey back, they were stranded at Cooper’s Creek where all but King perished. Cooper’s Creek is a gripping, intense historical narrative about the harshness of the Australian outback and the people who were brave enough to go into the very depths of that uncharted country.
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One man, one bike, a whole lotta trouble—a biker memoir
Meet Slim. He bought his first motorcycle, a Bridgestone 175 cc, at age 16 in 1968. Since then, he's been in and out of trouble—mainly in—and experienced the thrills and perils of riding on the highway. He has been a guest inside some of Australia's toughest jails, where he learned a lifetime's worth of human behavior, and handy life skills, such as how not to do an armed hold-up. Never one to shy from a punch or retreat from a fight, Slim is as tough as they come. If something's worth doing, it's worth overdoing. He sees no point in fearing the unknown, whether it be cops, brothers, or betrayers. Slim's first-hand account takes readers into the world of bikers' clubs, built around motorcycles and the men who ride. And the moral of the story? Just a life lived on Slim's terms, through fists and boots, but always with an unswerving loyalty to the international brotherhood.
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It was 1786 when Arthur Phillip, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy, was assigned the formidable task of organizing an expedition to Australia in order to establish a penal colony. The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of shipping off its convicts to a largely unexplored landmass at the other end of the world.Using the personal journals and documents that were kept during this expedition, historian/novelist Thomas Keneally re-creates the grueling overseas voyage, a hellish, suffocating journey that claimed the lives of many convicts. Miraculously, the fleet reached the shores of what was then called New South Wales in 1788, and after much trial and error, the crew managed to set up a rudimentary yet vibrant settlement. As governor of the colony, Phillip took on the challenges of dealing with unruly convicts, disgruntled officers, a bewildered, sometimes hostile native population, as well as such serious matters as food shortages and disease. Moving beyond Phillip, Keneally offers captivating portrayals of Aborigines, who both aided and opposed Phillip, and of the settlers, including convicts who were determined to overcome their pasts and begin anew.With the
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