In the blazing heart of the Australian outback, survival is a matter of grit, luck, and sheer willpower. Welcome to the opal fields—where fortunes are won and lost, and the land itself is as unforgiving as it is mesmerising. For those drawn to the hunt for precious stones, the desert offers both promise and peril. When a man awakens alone, injured, and with no memory of who he is, he finds himself stranded in a vast, sun-baked wilderness. Hunted by relentless dingoes and haunted by questio...

Against the grim backdrop of WWII London, a destitute young street urchin named Tyke stumbles upon an unconscious railway worker one fateful night. Though tempted by money left unattended, Tyke chooses to save the man's life instead of stealing the cash. This single act of selflessness sparks a chain of miraculous events that could forever change the course of Tyke's difficult life. When the railway man, Mr. Thomas, resolves to find and reward his young hero, a city-wide search ensues. Jus...

**Winner of the 2019 Interim Test Site Poetry Series Prize"Dew is an exciting and complex new voice in contemporary poetry."** —Publisher's WeeklyThe beautifully crafted poems in Riddle Field explore two parallel themes, the impact of the impending destruction of a dam on a small town and the trauma of sexual abuse and eventual recovery from it. This work focuses on the environment, human and physical, in which the loss of nature ...

This rattling good yarn has now been made into a major movie: Hunt For the Wilderpeople, directed and written by Taika Waititi, and starring Sam Neill and Julian Dennison. When Social Welfare threatens to put Ricky into care, the overweight Maori boy and cantankerous Uncle Hec flee into the remote and rugged Ureweras. The impassable bush serves up perilous adventures, forcing the pair of misfits to use all their skills to survive hunger, wild pigs and the vagaries...

"As authentic as it gets." Australian Outback Books'Heartbreaking one moment but full of hope with the turn of the page.' Adelaide Advertiser'An epic that will touch all hearts and inspire others.' Bendigo AdvertiserDiverging PathsTwo branches of the McAllister family lead very different lives on cattle stations in Central Australia. Rob, a stickler for correctness, ...

At the age of six, Kerry McGinnis loses her mother. Her father, left with four young children to raise, gathers up his family and leaves the city to go droving. For the next fifteen years, the McGinnis clan travels the continent, droving, horse breaking and living off the land. Kerry grows up in the harsh outback, and the animals that inhabit the land are her closest friends.With the memory of her absent mother ever present, Kerry begins her difficult journey into young womanhood.

We Come with This Place is a remarkable book, as rich, varied and surprising as the vast landscape in which it is set. Debra Dank has created an extraordinary mosaic of vivid episodes that move about in time and place to tell an unforgettable story of country and people.There is great pain in these pages, and anger at injustice, but also great love, in marriage and in family, and for the land. Dank faces head on the ingrained racism, born of brutal practice and harsh legislation, t...

After seven years on the road with her family, Kerry McGinnis is tired of the wandering life and yearns for a proper home. When her father, the irascible but loveable Mac, buys a property in Queensland's Gulf Country, it seems like she might have found one.But not everything goes smoothly. In their struggle to make a go of things, the McGinnis family encounters fire, flood, a three-metre python, and other, human obstacles. Sian, the eldest son, is at loggerheads with his father, wh...

"Fantastical . . . Through the thoughts of a rare black goat and the couple who adopt it, readers witness famines, death, and moments of beauty." — National GeographicLonglisted for the National Book Award for Translated LiteratureAs he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, Perumal Murugan explores a side of India that is rarely considered in the West: the rural lives of the country's farming community. He paints a bucolic yet som...

A quintessential Australian bushman, Brian Taylor has spent most of his life on the land. Working as a drover, a stockman, a fencer, a shearer and a saddler, he has gathered a swag of stories over the years as he travelled way out past the Barcoo, along the dusty plains and beside the dry creek beds under the endless southern sky.In A SWAG OF MEMORIES Brian Taylor shares with us these stories, of the people he has met, the places he has been and the moments, long-gone, that define ...

Can anyone really stay hidden from the world? A powerful novel of solitude, survival, and psychological suspense from the author of Unravelling Alice . . .For three years, Ida has been living in the remote Welsh countryside to stay safe from a world ravaged by illness. The only person she has contact with is Cal, her fiancée, who brings supplies and news about their crumbling society before returning to his military work.When she wakes up in a stra...

In the literary tradition of 'good keen man' Barry Crump, this book charts the single years of young Rolly, when having a good dog and a good mate were the most important things in life. After an unfortunate incident with a bulldozer and the boss's car, Rolly and Jim hit the road to seek new adventures. They nurse an injured dog back to health and discover he's a champion pig hunter, so life quickly revolves around learning to hunt and survive in the bush. The story of Rolly's experiences ...