If you got a call that Batman was assaulting Spider-Man and the person who called it in was Marilyn Monroe, who is actually a 6'3" transvestite, there's only one place you could be: nothing is too weird in Los Angeles. For the cops of Hollywood Station, policing crack-heads dressed as cartoon characters is business as usual. But when there's a diamond robbery connected to the Russian Mafia and a pair of totally clueless and ambitious crystal meth addicts, the pieces have got to be put together by the sergeant they call the Oracle and his squad of street cops. There's Budgie Polk, a twenty-something firecracker with a four-month-old at home; Wesley Drubb, a rich boy who joined the force seeking thrills; Fausto Gamboa is the tetchy veteran; and Hollywood Nate, who never shuts up about movies. They spend their days in patrol cars and their nights in the underbelly of a city that never sleeps. From their headquarters at Hollywood Station, they see the glamour city for what it is: a field of land mines, where the mundane is dangerous and the dangerous is mundane.
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Lake Eyre, at Australia's centre, is a paradox: both hostile and inviting, by turns a pitiless salt plain and a riot of colour and pattern. Its beauty, mystery and astonishing variety are captured here by photographer Peter Elfes who has been travelling to the Lake Eyre region, documenting the people, the landscape, the floods, the animals and wildlife. His spectacular images re-define landscape photography, taking it into the realm of art. Where others have only found an unchanging Australian desert, Peter's lens reveals the spectrum of colours, the dramas and infinite changes which countless artists and writers have sought to explain. With accompanying text by renowned author and critic Peter Timms, this is Australia as few have seen it: a strange and intoxicating land which occasionally becomes a green desert. -
After Singapore falls to the Japanese early in 1942, 70 000 prisoners - including 15, 000 Australians - are held as POWs at the notorious Changi prison, Singapore. To amuse themselves and fellow inmates, a group of sportsmen - led by the indefatigable and popular `Chicken' Smallhorn - created an Australian Football League, complete with tribunal, selection panel, umpires and coaches. The final game of the one and only season was between `Victoria? and the `Rest of Australia', which attracted 10, 000 spectators and a unique Brownlow Medal was awarded in this unlikely setting under the curious gaze of Japanese prison guards. Meet the main characters behind this spectacle: Peter Chitty, the farm hand from Snowy River country with unfathomable physical and mental fortitude, and one of eight in his immediate family who volunteered to fight and serve in WW2; `Chicken' Smallhorn, the Brownlow-medal winning little man with the huge heart; and `Weary' Dunlop, the courageous doctor, who cares for the POWs as they endure malnutrition, disease and often inhuman treatment. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
The sequel to Below Stairs. From the grand houses of Brighton to imposing London mansions, life as a kitchen maid could be exhausting and demoralising. It’s not just being at the beck and call of the people upstairs, when even the children of the family can treat you like dirt, but having to deal with temperamental cooks, starchy butlers and chauffeurs with a roving eye. Marriage is the only escape, but with one evening off a week Margaret has no time to lose. Between Perce the bus conductor (who brings his mother on dates) and Mr Hailsham the fishmonger (who looks – and smells – a bit like his wares), her initial prospects are hardly the stuff of dreams. But then she meets Albert; a butcher boy-turned-milkman. Could he be the perfect husband? And can she make the perfect wife when, as she soon discovers, years spent serving others don't prepare you for managing your own life? Soon Margaret begins to wonder – how can someone like her ever improve their station? Told with her trademark sharp wit and warmth, Climbing the Stairs is a uniquely observant autobiography of a time when the idea of masters and servants began to lose its sway and of a remarkable woman who grasped the opportunities of this brave new world with both hands. -
Art Linkletter was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. In 1954, under the spell of Harold Holt's infectious evangelism for Australia as a land of opportunity, Linkletter and some celebrity friends formed a syndicate and prepared to go prospecting in the land where winter is summer and the soldiers wore wide brimmed hats turned up on one side. They were sure to meet koala bears and kangaroos and perhaps see some Stone-Age aboriginals wandering across the vast deserts, but beyond vague trivia, these 'babes' knew literally nothing about the 'land down under.' What they did meet was wild ducks and water buffalo who refused to give up their squatters' rights in the investment rice fields; plenty of sheep and plenty of Australians. A revealing, though dated, character sketch of Australia and its people. Illustrated by Paul Rigby. -
This is the official film tie-in companion: behind-the-scenes with the cast and crew, secrets of monsters and make-up and how Middle Earth was created. With fabulous colour photographs. -
Did you know that the first game of ladies' cricket took place in 1745? Here is a fascinating book for sports fans and history buffs - an early history of the women's game written by two highly-regarded cricketers, Rachael Heyhoe Flint (Baroness Heyhoe Flint, 1939-2017) and Netta Rheinberg, MBE (1911-2006). All aspects of the game covered, in Britain and worldwide. With black and white archival photos. -
Snapshots of Australian history. A selection from Frank Clarke's weekly history radio quiz and discussion programme, The Big Question in Australian History...some of the little known tales from Australia's colourful past, such as: The first female Aboriginal bush ranger; the Governor of New South Wales who kept a white slave; how the Duke of Edinburgh's braces saved him from an assassination attempt; the origin of the expression 'Buckley's chance' and much more. Illustrated with black and white photographs and sketches. -
Published in 1940, Daphne du Maurier turned from fiction to write the true stories of everyday English people who, while following the common round of their daily lives, have given their best to their country and done deeds of gallantry in their respective spheres in a time of war. The mother who triumphed over bereavement, the London grocer who settled labor disputes at the pithead - all were able to turn the difficulties of war time into opportunities to spread a spirit of victory on the Home Front. -
Nancy Wake: Peter Fitzsimons
$15.00In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. From that moment, she declared that she would do everything in her power to rid Europe of the Nazis. What began as a courier job here and there became a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by Nancy's high-society life in Marseille. Her network was soon so successful - and so notorious - that she was forced to flee France to escape the Gestapo, who had dubbed her "the white mouse" for her knack of slipping through its traps. But Nancy was a passionate enemy of the Nazis and refused to stay away. Supplying weapons and training members of a powerful underground fighting force, organising Allied parachute drops, cycling four hundred kilometres across a mountain range to find a new transmitting radio - nothing seemed too difficult in her fight against the Nazis.Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
Eric Linklater, famous as novelist, playwright and historian was one of Orkney's most distinguished sons and knew the topography and the past and present of Orkney and Shetland as few other people. The author, who died in 1974, wrote about them with both understanding and affection. Orkney and Shetland have a unique place in British history. Indeed the two groups of islands did not become part of Scotland in any sense until the fifteenth century. They still retain that feeling of separation that has long since disappeared from other islands off the Scottish mainland. Both Orkney and Shetland are a delight for the archaeologist (the Stone Age remains are collectively the finest in the United Kingdom), the fisherman, and above all for anyone with a feeling for the remote and unspoilt. Here is landscape, sometimes rugged, sometimes gently undulating, but always hung between sea and sky, peopled with individualists, men of strength and endurance. Linklater saw the island communities as a product of geography and history, not as relics of the past but a society struggling to retain its identity, but at the same time moving with the twentieth century. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
Antonino is an abandoned child struggling for survival in the dark alleys of Naples. He is one of thousands whose waking hours are spent in petty crime and whose bed is a street grating above a baker's oven. At eight years old, his body is so small, his face so pinched, you would take him for five or six. Yet there is hope, in the shape of a young priest, Mario Borrelli. In a journey of self-transformation and love, Father Borrelli befriends the street children and sets up a support network for them: The House of the Urchins. Morris West spent time in the slums of impoverished postwar Naples. His chilling account of the local street urchins in his international bestseller Children of the Sun drew the world's attention to their plight, and offers a timeless insight into child poverty. West's portrayal of Father Borelli has inspired many others to follow in Borelli's footsteps. -
My name is Waipuldanya or Wadjiri Wadjiri. (If they twist your tongue too much, you may call me Phillip Roberts. That is my white-feller name.) I'm a full blood Aboriginal of the Alawa tribe in the Northern Territory. My body has been through the fire of tribal initiation. I have been subjected to many taboos. As a child I was 'sung' to death by a malevolent Dr. Blackfellow, a medicine man who wished to destroy me in order to punish my clan. I was saved by another. I have worshipped Kunapipi, the Earth Mother...I believe in the Rainbow Serpent... Douglas Lockwood wrote this book about my life. He is my countryman. Enjoy it - and understand us better. Here is the autobiography of Waipuldanya, a full-blood Aboriginal of the Alawa tribe at Roper River in Australia's Northern Territory, as told to Douglas Lockwood. In his youth, Waipuldanya was taught to track and hunt wild animals, to live off the land, to provide for his family with the aid only of his spears and woomeras. This is the gripping story of his boyhood and youth, and how he trained as a skilled medical assistant, to become a citizen of both the Aboriginal and whitefella worlds. -
Fatty: Andy Edmonds
$12.00Many people remember Roscoe Arbuckle as 'the fat comedian who raped that girl'. He was one of the highest paid actors of his day and Hollywood was at his feet. On September 5 1921 he threw a lavish party to celebrate his $3 million Paramount contract. It got wildly out of hand and ended abruptly when a starlet named Virginia Rappé let out a terrifying scream. Rappé died five days later and Arbuckle was charged with first-degree murder . Three trials later, he was finally acquitted - and by then his multi million dollar career was devastated and his life was ruined. Recreating the glittering Hollywood of the 1920s, Edmonds draws on new and hitherto unpublished evidence to determine what really happened on that fateful day. Illustrated with photographs. -
The oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, only to be kept a tightly held secret for nearly fifty more years, until the Huntington Library unleashed a storm of controversy in 1991 by releasing copies of the Scrolls. Baigent and Leigh set out to discover how a small elite of orthodox biblical scholars gained control over the Scrolls, allowing access to no outsiders and issuing a strict "consensus" interpretation. The authors' questions begin in Israel, thence to the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition. With the help of independent scholars, historical research and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity that challenge the Church's version of the "facts" and present a new, highly significant perspective on Christianity. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
At the heart of this wonderful biography is the relationship between two great American women whose lives were bound together for all time: Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. Lash follows this gifted, passionate and humanly flawed pair for 100 years, from Annie's childhood in an almshouse in the 1860s, through decades of international fame, to Helen's death in 1968. Among the vivid characters associated with their lives are Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Charlie Chaplin, and Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
When Margaret Evans found herself running Maesyneuadd, an old historic manor in the foothills of coastal Merioneth, as a family hotel, she had one small son, was pregnant with another, knew absolutely nothing about catering and couldn’t speak a word of Welsh – and the first guests were due in a few weeks...This is the lively and engaging story of how she coped. Margaret and her husband James first found the redoubtable Mrs Ridley, a Yorkshirewoman, a fountain of hardwoork, information and reliability, who acted as general handywoman and chambermaid and who, with the aid of a permanent wave and set of false teeth, was also able to double as a waitress. As they increased their staff and sacrificed their comfortable beds to the guests, Margaret learnt how to strain custard for thirty, transform burnt chickens into a palatable Easter dinner and simultaneously changing little Tim’s nappy on the vast kitchen table while fishing Nick’s collection of worms out of the milk saucepan. And when it all got too much she would dash outside and and look down at the ancient stones of Maesyneuadd, with Snowdon towering in the north and again find tranquility and the strength to continue. -
A travelogue of Waugh's travel adventures: a journey by sea throughout the eastern Mediterranean; a wry account of an impulsive visit to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) to witness the coronation of Haile Selassie; travels in Aden and East Africa and the crossing of Belgian Congo; British Guiana (Guayana) and Brazil; and a return to Abyssinia as a war correspondent in response to the war with Mussolini's Italy. His misadventures as a correspondent also formed the basis for his comic 1938 satiric novel Scoop. -
Here are the stories behind Australia's many, many strange, inappropriate and downright hilarious place names. From Dismal Swamp to Useless Loop, Intercourse Island to Dead Mans Gully, Mount Buggery to Nowhere Else, Australia has some of the strangest, funniest, weirdest and most out-of-place names going - now described and explained in one humorous and fascinating book. Australia's vast spaces and irreverent, larrikin history have given us some of the best place names in the world. Ranging from the less than positive (Linger and Die Hill, NSW), to the indelicate (Scented Knob, WA), the idiotic (Eggs and Bacon Bay, TAS) to the inappropriate and the just plain fascinating, this is a toponymical journey through this nation of weird and wonderful places. -
The Celts: Aedeen Cremin
$12.00A fascinating insight into the daily lives of the Celts - their beliefs, their creations, their flamboyancy, their love of nature, beauty, poetry and the family. Fabulous colour photographs and reproductions of Celtic art and illuminated manuscripts. -
Believed to be the first guide to the battlefield written in English by an English writer, who is probably also the greatest living expert on Waterloo. There's descriptions of the battle location, weaponry and tactics that were all implement in a few hours on June 187, 1815. Illustrated. -
I am the world's sexiest man. Mr Burton and Mr Sinatra take second place to me in the sex-appeal stakes. Sex appeal isn't just straight teeth, a square jaw and a solid torso. Look at me. I'm 63 and the first thing in the morning I have a face like a woollen mat. And yet I am the most desirable man in the world. Indeed, if I put my mind to it I am sure I could pass the supreme test and lure Miss Taylor away from Mr Burton... NEVER a believer in false modesty, Noel Coward was one of the most significant and witty figures in the world of the theatre. As a playwright, revue writer, lyricist, composer, actor and director, he made an unforgettable impression on the international scene - and continues to make it in contemporary culture today. here is the essence of his brilliant personality - the carefully studied insult...the polished repartee...the timely aphorism and of course, the rapier-like comment. -
The Barossa Valley is one of the most richly historical areas of Australia. During over a century, a unique community developed in this serene countryside, consisting mainly of the descendants of Germans who had emigrated to Australia in search of regligious freedom. The traditions of the old country were cherised by those who grew close to the soil as they developed a different way of life that flourished like the vineyards they planted on the hillsides. Thiele’s often witty and sometimes poetic prose tells of the people, the customs and the winemakers as Jeanette McLeaod’s illustrations capture the atmoshphere. -
A comprehensive and informative guide to Australia';s fascinating, sometimes-deadly and very abundant wildlife. Understand how many of AUstralia's native and introduced creatures have the capacity to harm humans; identify potentially dangerous species of spiders and snakes; Avoid risking your safety and the safety of others by learning where these creatures can be found; and survive encounters with dangerous wildlife by knowing what to do in emergency situations. With fabulous colour photographs and a wealth of information. -
Tuesday, 20 October: Everyone but the lift boy was playing the market and there was every reason for the party to go on forever. In the centre of the action were the freewheeling entrepreneurs whose spectacular deals encapsulated every virtue and vice of the 80s. Then Wall Street went down in a heap and that was the cue for anyone holding shares in Australia and New Zealand to freak out... This is the only book to explain what happened and to look at the forces that shape the age - the psychology of greed, the politics of money, the cult of the yuppie, the rise of the market hero and the mind-boggling phenomenon of all that easy money to be had. This is a story of damnation and redemption of those who dared to tap into all that tremendous power...a book that no self-interested economist or financier would dare to write, a marshalling of fact and opinion - clear and wickedly mischievous - that will fascinate both insider and outsider alike. -
Many A Flower: Ron Dixon
$50.00A boy's experience of wartime is vividly recalled in this recollection of a childhood spent in a Sunderland mining community. Living with his older married sister, he recounts the hardships facing a young boy growing up, suffering terrifying air-raids at night, a tough regime at school, difficult times at home and food rationing at the shops. During his adolescent years, his life becomes easier as he returns to his family home in Romford, Essex. His interest in science grows and when he leaves school he becomes a trainee chemist in the East End of London, combined with a college course, later going on to become a research chemist. Student life in 1950s Britain provides opportunities for new experiences, travel and love. Marriage follows, along with a new life in Wickford. The large garden he buys as part of his first home gives him the idea of becoming involved in horticulture. Eventually, landscape gardening and lecturing become his work as his life takes a different path once again after the recession of the 1980s. Wwith heart-warming and amusing recollections from the past, this story of how circumstances change through a lifetime is an intriguing read. -
The mystery of the Man behind the Iron Mask has intrigued people for over 250 years, inspiring as much fantasy as serious conjecture. This is the story of the story, so to speak; an account of the theories and counter-theories, from the claim that he was the twin brother of Louis XIV to the recognition that he was Eustache Dauger, with diversion by way of such candidates as the Duke of Monmouth, Richard Cromwell, Molière, Nicholas Fouquet, an Armenian archbishop, an Italian astrologer and many more. Complete and comprehensive, this is a presentation of all the known facts of the prisoner's existence chronologically, as they have been discovered, together with all the myths as they have flourished from the preposterous stories put about by his gaoler in 1669 to the alleged discovery of his skeleton in a tower in Cannes in 1977. As the various stories are revealed, the reader may accept or reject the assorted evidence and develop his own views before the author presents his own conclusions. Illustrated.
