As a farm boy in western Victoria, John Oddie would watch RAAF jets pass overhead as he ploughed hay fields, wondering what it would be like to fly such a machine. Thirty-five years later - having flown Hueys, Chinooks, Hercules, jets and C-17s in a range of operations - John had risen to the rank of Air Commodore.John's appointment as deputy commander of Aussie forces in the Middle East capped a remarkable career of service to Australia. Sadly, this honour also involved the heartb...

How Australian Marcus Lee and his wife, Julie, survived wrongful imprisonment, house arrest and five years of trials and tribulations in Dubai.In 2006 Marcus Lee moved to Dubai with his wife, Julie, to take up his dream job working for Nakheel, the emirate's largest property developer. Everything went swimmingly until one day in 2009 when Marcus was picked up by the state police and imprisoned in solitary over false charges of bribery. Marcus managed to get out of prison - and out o...

Ben Cousins has one of the most extraordinary stories in modern Australian sport. He's perhaps the most gifted player of his generation - a former captain of the West Coast eagles, a Brownlow medallist, a premiership winner, voted the AFL's Most Valuable Player - but he's best known for what he's done off the footy field rather than on it.Ben is a self-confessed drug addict, whose drug binges would last for days and involve incredible amounts of cocaine, crack and ice. But what's r...

Patty spent the first thirty three years of her life living with her family on remote outback station properties - Old Bando, Minetta, Old Outstation - in south west Queensland, Australia. When her brother, Kerry developed a brain tumor, they moved to live in Charleville - a small outback town. Patty has an understanding of the land, and a great love of reading. Look beyond the words to a life lived devoid of any luxuries, without ever a complaint, but full of simple joys, happiness and lo...

It looked bleak and predictable for little Keelen Mailman: an alcoholic mother, absent father, the horrors of regular sexual and physical assault and the casual racism of a small outback town in the sixties. But somehow, despite the pain and deprivation, the lost education, she managed to absorb her mother's lessons: her Bidjara language and culture, her obligations to Country, and her loyalty to her family.So it was no surprise to some that a girl who could hide for a year in her ...

How did a father with no criminal history come to be on trial for the brutal murder of his wife?It began with a phone call to Brisbane police on 20 April 2012. Allison, wife of real estate agent Gerard Baden-Clay, was missing.When investigating officers arrived at the family home, in one of the city’s wealthiest suburbs, a neatly dressed Gerard was about to send the couple’s three daughters off to school.Scratches on his face were shaving cuts, he t...

Want to know what really goes on on an aeroplane? Let's go behind the scenes and fly high with these tall tales and gossip from the galley!Everyone wants to be a flight attendant, or at least they want to know about the cushy lifestyle they lead – flying to exotic destinations, swanning about in five-star hotels, daytime lazing around the pool and night-time tabletop dancing with Bollywood stars. At last the lid is lifted. Come on board a real airline with a real f...

WINNER OF THE 2017 AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS, GENERAL NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE 2016 MELBOURNE PRESS CLUB LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD‘There will be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping.’–Tony Abbott, 15 September 2015Abbott’s performances in the party-room debates on education and climate change had ranged between woeful and pathetic. He sounded desperate, he was inconsistent, and — his colleag...

An unputdownable account of the courage and bravery under fire of our Australian soldiers on the frontline - from WWII to Afghanistan.From Gallipoli to Afghanistan, many Australians have been awarded military honours for acts of selfless courage. Others have missed out. Bestselling author Ian McPhedran uncovers new stories of extreme bravery in action from WWII to today, and hears from those on the front line about what courage really means. Some of these stories, including Medals f...

Politics, murder and sex push Hardy to the limit.'The godfather of Australian crime fiction.'When Cliff Hardy signs on as a bodyguard for charismatic populist Rory O'Hara, who is about to embark on a campaign of social and political renewal, it looks like a tricky job - O'Hara has enemies. A murder and a kidnapping cause the campaign to fall apart.Hired to investigate the murder, Hardy uncovers hidden agendas among O'Hara's staff as well as...

From Australia's favourite storyteller with new novel The Endless Sky coming December 2025.The Silent Country is a vast and beautiful wilderness, a place which holds secrets and stories that are rarely spoken.TV producer, Veronica Anderson, travels to the Northern Territory to retrace the journey of an expedition that had set out fifty years earlier to film the outback, but which mysteriously ended in tragedy.Of the group, led by the eccent...

The charming story of a young city nurse who found love in the outback.Thea Hayes trained as a Nurse in Sydney in 1959. A year later she was catapulted out of the safety of her city life into the unknown world of the Outback.Thea knew nothing of the place she was soon to call home, Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory, the second largest property in the world under one management. It covered four million acres!With nervous excitement, Thea ac...