While most Australians live in cities clinging to the coastal fringe, our sense of what an Australian is, or should be, is drawn from the vast and varied inland called the bush. But what do we mean by 'the bush', and how has it shaped us? Starting with his forebears' battle to drive back nature and eke a living from the land, Don Watson explores the bush as it was and as it now is: the triumphs and the ruination, the commonplace and the bizarre, the stories we like to tell about ourselves ...

Perfect for fans of Dave Eggers, Martin Amis, and David Foster Wallace, this fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy about two lifelong friends—one a failed-writer-turned-reluctant-cop, the other an unlucky criminal—is “a delightful literary novel” (Psychology Today) from Man Booker Prize finalist Steve Toltz.Liam is a struggling writer and a failing cop. Aldo, his best friend and muse, is a haplessly criminal entrepreneur with an uncanny knac...

A “beautifully written, heartbreaking” (S. J. Watson) literary novel about a gifted boy obsessed with physics who uncovers the truth about his past—and the devastating family secret his overprotective single mother has tried to hide.“Original, compassionate, cleverly plotted, and genuinely difficult to put down.” —Graeme Simsion, New York Times bestselling author of The Rosie ProjectTwelve-year-old Ethan F...

First published in 1941, Eleanor Dark's classic novel of the early settlement of Australia is a story of hardship, cruelty and danger. Above all it is the story of conflict: between the Aborigines and the white settlers. In this dramatic novel, a large cast of characters, historical and fictional, black and white, convict and settler, brings alive those bitter years with moments of tenderness and conciliation amid the brutality and hostility. All the while, behind the veneer of British civ...