A book of poems, all of which were written in 2023/4, in a variety of styles and approaches. All of them are short (no more than one page).The content is varied, but perhaps the best way to describe their overall style or flavour might be to say that they concern themselves with many of the themes of traditional Romanticism: nature, madness, love, nostalgia, childhood, memory, loss, melancholia, dreams, the supernatural, beauty. Many have a philosophical tone.About a fifth ...

About the BookLife is fab for gay white men on the beaches of Bali, where a beer or a boy is never far away. At the heart of Kuta's gay scene stands Klub Aloha, where Jack and his troupe of ageing western queens perform tacky drag each week. But the arrival of a strange and secretive tourist, and news about the murder of one of the local moneyboys, shakes their complacent existence to its roots. After eight years of sunshine, sand, and sex, and the constant flow of alcohol, Jack gro...

Less than a month after the celebrations of Millennium Night, the island of Lombok – sister to its famous neighbour, Bali – is torn apart by riots, part of the religious and ethnic tensions that are threatening the stability of the whole of Indonesia.After a life spent wandering the world, Denise Laing has settled in the tourist resort of Senggigi and seems to have found a fragile inner peace. But the riots, and the arrival of her estranged daughter, set off a personal crisis that ...

Graham Young’s gin-soaked life in Jakarta is a dull but comfortable existence, even after the bloody riots that mark the fall of the Soeharto regime. But a chance meeting in a bar with an obnoxious and creepy ex-pat hurls him headlong into a nightmare from which there seems no escape. Hounded by the police, courted by shadowy figures from some kind of political resistance, and visited in the night by ghouls from the military, he sees no choice but to flee from them all. Can he get out of t...

It took a year to drag myself out of the mess. A year in which I lost my dearest friend and then promptly lost my way. A year in which I ran away overseas, came back and then ran away again. A year in which I learnt to let go, learnt to forgive and learnt to grow up. It was a big year. It was a lot of work. And I head-butted two people. Accidentally.Lessons in Letting Go is an honest, uproariously funny and sometimes moving memoir of the year in which Corinne Grant decides...

Haunted by the brutal murder of a local couple, David heads to his weekend shack with his new lover, Lydia, and his children from his recently crumbled marriage. Together they find escape, if only briefly, in the ocean and the bush.The Bodysurfers, the title story of Robert Drewe's classic first collection, is a vivid evocation of love, passion, terror and the beauty of the beach.

A contemporary twist on a classic story of forbidden love, set in Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia.When Vic accepts a teaching position in Jakarta, she has already been working and travelling in Asia for many years; she thinks she knows what to expect. However, before long she becomes troubled by the casual coexistence of vast wealth and woeful poverty, and by the stark differences in freedom and power between the men and the women. It also becomes apparent that there will be no ...

Millionaire Michael Denver fiercely guards his privacy. The breathtaking views from his cliff-top castle and the dark, thunderous elements provide the solitude this enigmatic writer needs to lick his wounds from a bitter past.Secretary Jenny Mansell may be unworldly and shy, but her approach has always been strictly business. However, on her first day working for the elusive Mr. Denver she's a little hesitant crossing the castle threshold. But it's not the imposing building that se...

Marooned in paradise with a beautiful woman…is surely the only way for a truly committed playboy to get shipwrecked! Ideally, however, Rob Dalton would have chosen a slightly friendlier companion! Prickly conservationist Honor Brier clearly just wants to be left alone with her birds and turtles.Honor's had more than her fair share of heartbreak, and the isolated island has been a perfect place to recover in peace. She has no time for accidental tourists. Yet Rob is...

One year. Four continents. And a love-crazed travel writer going off the beaten track...SPA SPA SILVER MEDAL WINNER, BEST NON-FICTION BOOK 2015"…another action-packed and funny memoir from Frank Kusy…""…fast moving, highly engaging, informative and hysterically funny…""...scratches the hilarious underbelly of travel journalism and makes it purr...""…I know I will read again just because it was so much fun the first time…"OFF THE BEATEN TRACK...

Reluctant to observe a new family tradition, a boy finds himself stranded outside a graveyard on the night before Christmas...Three farming brothers, forced to relocate to the city by poor harvests, discover an unexpected demand for their green-fingered talents...Residents of a new apartment block are woken in the early hours by the eerie sound of a table saw that once operated on the building’s grounds...Iceland is a land of stories; from the epic sagas of its myth...

From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, a collection of thoughts—always adroit, often acerbic—on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.Ursula K. Le Guin on the absurdity of denying your age: “If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.”On cultural perceptions of fantasy: “The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusati...