Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • A guide book for those things that could only be found in Australia:  Snake Gully's 'Dad and Dave' statues near Gundagai; the famous 'Dog on the Tuckerbox'; The Big Cod at Tocumwal and the Big Yabby at Wentworth; The Big Sapphire near Anakie and much more...and not forgetting the infamous 'Furphy.'    This book is definite proof that Australians really are a 'weird mob'. Illustrated with cartoons and colour and black and white photographs.
  • First published in 1950 and costing 9/6, this book addresses Australia's Fuel and Power problem and studies the provision of energy and its effect on national development.  It also covers the production of oil from coal and the prospect of finding oil in Australia. Illustrated with maps and diagrams.
  • Set in New Zealand's far north, it is the story of Michael, a motherless 'bait boy' who is happiest when netting flounder, swimming with a friendly seal or messing about in boats. No-one seems very rich, yet no one starves, with summers that last almost all year, fruit for the picking and fish for the catching.  When Michael runs away he finds unexpected friends, from Maori sea weed pickers to the captain and the cook of a coastal scow.  Billed as having a simple yet unexpected ending.

  • 'Henry Handel Richardson’s' debut, published in London in 1908, is set in the music scene of Leipzig, a cosmopolitan centre for the arts drawing students from around the world - among them Maurice Guest, a young Englishman, who falls helplessly in love with a 'highly unsuitable' Australian woman, Louise Dufrayer.  The novel was deemed too controversial to be published as Richardson intended, and she was forced to cut twenty thousand words from the original manuscript and tone down its language.

  • I lost my own father at 12 yr of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false....The legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semi-literate yet magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to her lover, a famous horse thief, Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. There is almost a sensation of Ned speaking from beyond the grave.

  • Hudson explores the forces responsible for bringing about the Renaissance, which he describes as...the West's transition from the medieval to the modern world. Voyages of discovery, inventions, the revival of classical learning and the advent of science contribute to the intellectual upheavals of this creative period which are reflected in its literature and art. Hudson focuses on the one thread of continuity which he sees as both the seed and the fruit of this exciting era: the awakening of secular humanism and the emergence of the individual.  Chapters: The Renaissance In General; The Age Of Invention And Discovery; The Revival Of Learning; The Renaissance In Religion: The Reformation; Science And Philosophy;  Art, Literature And Education. Illustrated.
  • A novel based on historical fact, it tells the complete story of the part played in the Bounty mutiny by the man known as Alexander Smith - real name John Adams - his subsequent fate and that of the eight other mutineers together with their Maori women and friends who finally sailed from Tahiti in the Bounty in search of a secret sanctuary. The book offers adventure and excitement as well as the idea that the popular legend  of Fletcher Christian as a hero and liberator and Bligh being branded as a bullying, inhuman monster may not be accurate; far from being an apologia for Bligh, it presents a logical, commonsense view of events that have intrigued historians since Bligh's first dispatches from Timor reached London. Cover art by Frank Norton.
  • Published in 1973, this book has now become an interesting social and historical document. All things Australian are covered: our economic stability and strength; the vastness and sunshine of the land; our urban and industrialised life and our unique flora and fauna geography. Also covered are our political parties; our slang and currency; our living standards; private and public businesses; education; transport; arts, sports and amusements - all of which have developed with our unusual historical background.
  • Part Three  of the famous Flying Doctor adventure series. Dr. James is called to the north coast of Australia - into the pearling area.  He's involved in a medical crisis when he dons a diving suit to examine the foot of a diver which has been caught in a giant clam. There's more intrigue and adventure when  Dr. James  is drawn into the troubles of a man who has discovered how to produce cultured pearls in tropical waters and who is being threatened by competitors. Cover art by R.E. Hicks.