Author Autographed

//Author Autographed
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  • "Shane O'Donnell" was born to almost total deafness, yet he grew up to play an important part in the development of the Ord River Dam area and in conserving the natural life of that fascinating environment.  The "O'Donnell" family are real.  Their names were changed for the publication of this book. This is a case history of how to do the best for profoundly deaf children but more, it is a story of a fight against the odds - and winning.

  • Edward Francis "Eddie" Charlton,  AM (31 October 1929 – 8 November 2004) was an Australian professional snooker and English billiards player. He won the Australian Professional Championship numerous times, was the Pot Black Champion three times and winner of the Kronenbrau 1308 Classic and the Limosin International. He will be remembered fondly by Australians  as 'Steady Eddie' and his appearances on the BBC-TV programme Pot Black.      
  • Larry Adler raised the mouth-organ from children's toy and music-hall turn to big time film and show business.  He appeared alongside Eddie Cantor, Fred Astaire, George Gershwin; he played at special performances for President Roosevelt, the King of Sweden and the Prince of Wales.  He toured with Jack Benny and Ingrid Bergman during the war.  Then came McCarthyism and the destruction of his career.  He moved to England and continued into journalism, and was nominated for an Oscar for his film score of Genevieve. Billie Holliday once remarked of his talent: "Man, you don't play that f***ing thing, you SING it!"  Autographed by Larry Adler.  
  • The world of Ben Bartholomew...a world of standover gangs and armed terrorists, a world in which a P.I. For hire must carry a gun if he wants to live beyond lunchtime. It is a world of religious fanatics, petty tyrants, spies and nightmares, which explodes with intrigue and danger when a corpse disappears from a sealed tomb.  The ultimate locked-room mystery.
  • "If people turn to look at you in the street, you are not well dressed, but either too stiff, too tight, or too fashionable." So said Beau Brummell, the first metrosexual, 200 years before the word was even invented. His name has become synonymous with wit, profligacy, fine tailoring, and fashion. A style pundit, Brummell was responsible for changing forever the way men dress - inventing, in effect, the suit. He cut a dramatic swath through British society, from his early years as a favorite of the Prince of Wales and an arbiter of taste in the Age of Elegance, to his precipitous fall into poverty, incarceration, and madness, creating the blueprint for celebrity crash and burn, falling dramatically out of favor and spending his last years in a hellish asylum. But for nearly two decades, Brummell ruled over the tastes and pursuits of the well heeled and influential - deemed more important than Napoleon and the inspiration for Byron's Don Juan. Through love letters, historical records, and poems, Ian Kelly reveals the man inside the suit, unlocking the scandalous behavior of London's high society while illuminating Brummell's enigmatic life in the colorful, tumultuous West End. A rare rendering of an era filled with excess, scandal, promiscuity, opulence, and luxury, 'Beau Brummell' is the first comprehensive view of an elegant and ultimately tragic figure whose influence continues to this day.
  • A charming Australian story of two little rock sprites who fall into the hands of Octo the Octopus  and escape, only to be captured by Pegler the Pirate, a seagull with a lame leg, who sails  a ship with the black sails, with a ban of queer little animals of the bush with gipsy blood in them, who were wandering on the sea because they were tired, of the land. Peglar imprisons them in his sea castle. Can Marl the fairy rescue them? Told and illustrated by Pixie O'Harris.
  • The author of these beautiful indigenous poems is also known as Ken Canning. Powerful titles, including: Fair Skin - Black Soul; Man Of Peace; Mind Installation; Spiritless Man; Temporary Town and more. Burraga Gutya (Ken Canning) is a Murri activist, writer and poet, whose people are from the Kunja Clan of the Bidjara Nation in south west Queensland, Australia. Canning now lives and teaches in Sydney. Ken works with the Rainbow Lodge program where he supports Aboriginal men leaving custody. He first started writing poetry in Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane in the early 1970s. Writing led him to tertiary studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, where he completed his BA in Communications in 1987.
  • Armed robbery, murder, lies, treachery, 'confession' and legal tangle that ended in a sensational trial, followed by three executions - all the ingredients of a callous crime committed on the New Zealand goldfields in 1866. A gang of brutal Londoners - Richard Burgess, Tom Noon (Noonan), Joseph Sullivan and Phil Levy waylaid five gold-laden prospectors on a lonely track on Maungatapu ('Sacred Mountain'), killed them and hid the bodies before going on a spree. The prospectors were missed, and suspicion fell on the four. Hoping for a free pardon, Sullivan 'dobbed' on his mates and Burgess wrote a confession but implicated Sullivan. Clune traces the lives of the four and shows the influences played such an important role in shaping their twisted lives - the overcrowded Thames-side slums created by the Industrial Revolution, the laws that punished rather than reformed, the rotting prison hulks, the transportation system and the mental cruelty in the prisons of the day.
  • Higham alleges that "Errol Flyn could have been tried for treason. The world-famous star could have ended his life on a hangman's noose." Dramatic? Definitely.  He also alleges that he has seen documents, now declassified and therefore available to the public, that prove the star of Robin Hood, They Died With Their Boots On, Captain Blood and many other films was in fact a spy for the Gestapo, working together with Dr. Hermann Erben, leading SS man, and that the film industry was involved in the cover up.  And yet more - Higham also claims Flynn the Infamous Womaniser also had affairs with Howard Hughes, fellow heart throb actor Tyrone Power and Truman Capote. Manslaughter, drug running and gold smuggling are also alleged.  The declassified documents that Higham claims are not reproduced in this book - only listed.
  • Poet and author Colleen Burke’s memoir takes the reader into the post World War II decades of the 20th century and a working-class Irish-Catholic background in Bondi, at a time when strict social, religious and family prohibitions were particularly onerous to women. To escape a problematical childhood, Colleen immersed herself in books and stories of lives in worlds far removed from her own. Leaving school at 15, she worked as a shorthand typist in the Public Service as she questioned everything and sought an education, both formal and informal. She explores the stimulating yet confronting era of the Sixties, encountering a broadening political sphere, folk music, poetry and literature which expressed the frustration of the young against injustice. Racism, popular sentiment, American commercialisation, feminism and of course, the Vietnam War. It was during this turbulent times she met her future husband, Declan Affley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declan_Affley. This memoir includes a selection of Colleen’s poems.

  • Jaxie Clackton dreads going home.  His mum's dead, his old man bashes him mercilessly and he wishes he was an orphan. Then in one terrible moment his life is stripped to what he can carry and ow he can keep himself alive.  There's just one person in the world who would understand hi  and what he still dares to dream for. But to reach her he has to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only a dreamer or a fugitive would dare to attempt.
  • Reid’s collection of poems relate to the beauty of the Australian countryside, creating realistic images. He also offers humor and vision in his observations of people, animals, philosophy, emotions and of course, love.

  • Here is a collection of poems all based on real events, highlighting the spirit of Australians.  There is humor, history, mystery;  past events and characters that were part of the landscape of Australia and who,  sadly, are seen no more.  Just some of the titles: Mona Vale Surf Rescue; The Wilga Ghost; Outback Library Man; The Old Camp Oven; Barnado Boy; The Anzacs; Cyclone Tracy and many more. Beautifully illustrated by Jenny Colless.
  • Nevare Burvelle, second son of a new-made lord, is getting ready to enter the Cavalla Academy, serve on the frontier and then on to an advantageous marriage.  At the Academy he will encounter prejudice from the old aristocracy as well as injustice, discrimination and foul play in a hostile and competitive  environment.  His world view will be challenged by his unconventional girl-cousin Epiny and by bizarre dreams which come to him at night. He will learn about the Speck people - dapple-skinned forest dwellers, who worship trees and retain the last traces of magic in the progressive and technologised world. Sexual congress with Specks is regarded  as filthy - they harbour disease. And then, on Dark Night, the carnival comes to Old Thares, bringing with it the first Specks Nevare has ever seen.
  • Eunnonia: tough, widowed, loyal and at 83, still a pillar of Savannah society, the matriarch still guiding her brood. Lucille: Nonnie's youngest and prettiest daughter, now an aging Southern belle, ever hungry for male adoration, yet whose secret resentments and unfulfilled yearnings threaten to destroy her charmed life. Cordy: Lucille's restless daughter who had accepted the standards of womanhood with which she was raised; then at 30, and now a mother, she faces a cheating husband she must leave, a career she must build, a self she must find - but will she find it at home, in Savannah? This is not only a story about the bonds of family; it is a story of the struggle for personal freedom; of rebellion and tradition; of reality versus the myths of gentility, kinship, allegiances and love; and the modern issues of marriage, sex and love clashing with the Southern society image of ladies and family.
  • For the first time since its establishment in 1917, the Imperial War Museum has produced a substantial, fully illustrated volume of largely unpublished material from its almost endless reserve of pictures, posters, postcards, art, photographs, films, pamphlets, books, diaries, letters, and documents that detail the massive British effort to fight and win 'the war to end all wars'.  This is the voice of the individual caught up in this cataclysmic conflict: the vivid experiences of the fighting fronts and the home fronts from soldiers, factory workers, nurses at the Front; early pilots, civilians in the Zeppelin raids, the gunners behind the howitzers, prisoners of war, sailors, the bereaves, the wounded, the brave, the bemused and much, much more.  Illustrated with colour and black and white photographs and art.
  • Jamal and Bibi have a dream - to lead Australia to soccer glory in the next World Cup. But first they must face landmines, pirates, storms and assassins. Can Jamal and his family survive their incredible journey and get to Australia? Sometimes - to save the people you love - you just have to go overboard.
  • The hilarious story of how Graham 'Screw' Turner established a bus touring company using old converted double-decker buses. From humble beginnings in London 1973, Screw, together with a crew of colonial larrikins, builds up a fleet of 100 deckers. Screw, Spy, Bill Speaking, Wombat. Filthy, Grilly, Budgie, the mysterious Graham James Lloyd and other incorrigible crew members lead their unsuspecting punters on riotous escapades to the far flung, exotic corners of the world. Today, Graham 'Screw' Turner is one of Australia's wealthiest men and is the CEO of Flight Centre, which he began in the 1980s.  With caricatures by Bill Leak and cartoons by Warren Brown. Illustrated with black and white photographs and newspaper clippings.
  • Have you killed any strangers lately? Try it - it can be fun! All you have to do is make a friend; because every time you make a friend you kill a stranger. Each person whose story is in this book has learnt this exciting, valuable lesson.  Many people, able-bodied and disabled, find it hard to make friends.  The book issues the challenge to the claim that normal (?) people are responsible for the non-acceptance of disabled folk in the full life of the community.  The disabled can equally be at fault. "It's a bit like the generation gap - both sides must be willing to walk some of the way across the bridge of communication." Here are REAL people willing to share their hidden scars and their joyous victories.
  • Martin Fartingale hates English weather, hates Cornwall and most of all, hates his name. He is staying with his mother and batty grandmother in a small fishing village over looking St. Cecils Mount, an intriguing rocky blob at the end of a causeway out to sea. Ignoring the warnings of  his new school friends Danny and Charlotte (Charlie) that no-one has ever escaped from St. Cecils Mount, Mart5in decides to break into the ancient building and explore. He finds himself face to face with Gregor, the Mad Monk, Ursula, a black witch - and he must defeat Sir Bullimore Fergus in sword fighting and the Black Knight in a joust, with unexpected allies the ghost of Uncle Septimus Fartingale (who appears as a foul-smelling green vapour) and a white witch who looks remarkably like Charlie.
  • Book I of the Jelindel Chronicles. An all-powerful, enchanted mailshirt from the stars...and six links are missing. An orphan, a streetwise urchin and a swordsman must find the links before the greatest evil known descends upon Qzar. Jelindel dek Mediesar led a charmed life until Lindrak assassins murdered her family. Fleeing to the markets, Jelindel dresses as a boy to avoid detection. Here she teams up with Zimak, a street-wise urchin, and Daretor, a warrior on a quest to destroy an alien artifact. Murder, betrayal and deceit are just some of the hurdles they must face in order to find the missing links from a star-dwellers' mailshirt six powerful links, whose individual powers are nothing compared with that of the complete mailshirt. Cover art by Cathy Larsen.
  • An ancient Egyptian tomb - sealed from the outside world for centuries, deep inside solid rock...the sarcophagus is opened...and inside is a freshly murdered corpse! Legendary detective G.K. Chesterton investigates the mystery  and reveals the amazing solution - but not before there are more deaths and deadly dangers. Take this trip down the Nile, past the ancient temple of Karnak, the Valley Of The Kings and the city of Luxor, to an archeological  dig in the valley of Deir el-Bahri in the year 1919...and into a surprise world of suspence and romance.
  • When Alan Davies (Jonathan Creek, QI and so much more...!)  was growing up he seemed to drive his family mad. 'What are we going to do with you?' they would ask - as if he might know the answer. Perhaps it was because he came of age in the 1980s. That decade of big hair, greed, camp music, mass unemployment, social unrest and truly shameful trousers was confusing for teenagers. There was a lot to believe in - so much to stand for, or stand against - and Alan decided to join anything with the word 'anti' in it. He was looking for heroes to guide him (relatively) unscathed into adulthood. From his chronic kleptomania to the moving search for his mother's grave years after she died; from his obsession with joining (going so far as to become a member of Chickens Lib) to his first forays into making people laugh (not always intentionally), this is a touching and funny return to the formative years that make us all.
  • Red In The Centre III. Are they really turning the old atomic testing site at Maralinga into a tourist park? Why did Gulflanders know 2011 was going to be a monster wet season? And what exactly is the H Chord anyway? Freelance multimedia journo and storyteller Monte Dwyer is in search of the answers to these questions as he travels through the Queensland floods of 2010, through the Great Victoria Desert and the Kimberley, across the Top End into Arnhem Land and then back into Queensland just in time for the 2011 wet season.  An exploration  of the 'cobwebby corners' of this great land. Illustrated with colour photographs.
  • So, anyway...how did a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare become a self-confessed legend? These things happen. And en route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python. Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.  With fabulous black and white photographs.
  • In the mid-1840s a thirteen-year-old British cabin boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in by aborigines. Sixteen years later he steps out of the bush and inadvertently confronts the new white settlers, hopeful yet terrified, staking out their small patch of home in an alien place. To them, Gemmy stands as a different kind of challenge: he is a force that at once fascinates and repels. His own identity in this new world is as unsettling to him as the knowledge he brings to others of the indigenous people who cared for him.
  • A shadow is looming over the hot southern land of Ashdod - the shadow of Threshold, the Pyramid which the Magi are building to send them into Infinity.  Thousands of slaves have been used in the construction of Threshold. Tirzah, a young glass worker, has a secret gift - she can communicate with glass. And what the glass screams at her every time she touches her drives  her to despair.  Because something is waiting in Infinity - waiting for the final glass plate to be laid, for the capstone to be cemented in blood - waiting to use Threshold to step from Infinity and into Ashdod. Boaz, Master Magus, is watching Tirzah.  He knows she's hiding something and he'll do whatever it takes to discover it. Cover art by Shaun Tan.