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The frank, honest and heartbreaking true story of parents faced with the unimaginable—a terminal diagnosis for their young adopted daughter. What follows is an extraordinary tale of sacrifice, resilience, and the power of love to overcome. Jia-Mei was the child Sharon Guest and Stuart Neal had always wanted and, following a protracted adoption process, they excitedly traveled to China to collect her from a Chinese orphanage. Friends and family affectionately called her Jessie Mei Mei and welcomed her to a new life in Australia. Jessie was the perfect eighteen-month-old child—gregarious and funny and easy to love. But, from the beginning, Sharon, in that way that parents do, suspected something wasn't quite right about Jessie. She was too serious and immobile and learned quite slowly. When they adopt Bi Bi, another Chinese baby, Jessie's behavior worries them so much that they seek medical help only to hear what no parent is ever prepared to hear—their beautiful daughter has a degenerative condition that means she will be lucky to see her twelfth birthday. What happens next is the all too common and shocking story of how a country as rich as Australia shamefully fails to provide assistance to families in need. The bureaucratic silliness of government departments and their systemic inadequacy in supporting high needs children and adults leads to extreme actions on the part of their exhausted families. Illustrated with colour photographs. -
NASA astronaut Michael Collins trained as an experimental test pilot before venturing into space as a vital member of the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 missions. In Carrying the Fire, his account of his voyages into space and the years of training that led up to them, Collins reveals the human tensions, the physical realities, and the personal emotions surrounding the early years of the space race. Collins provides readers with an insider's view of the space program and conveys the excitement and wonder of his journey to the moon. As skilled at writing as he is at piloting a spacecraft, Collins explains the clash of personalities at NASA and technical aspects of flight with clear, engaging prose, withholding nothing in his candid assessments of fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Buzz Aldrin, and officials within NASA. A fascinating memoir of mankind's greatest journey told in familiar, human terms.
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Unlike the mostly reverent literature on Australia's most popular sporting hero, this book explains how Sir Donald Bradman's iconic status was created and sustained. How does his popularity and heroism relate to Australian nationhood? Brett Hutchins' unique analysis reveals the mythical character of so many representations of "the Don," and connects them to broader social phenomena and the cultural contexts in which they were created.Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
The sequel to Pieces Of Blue. 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, while Mac soon develops itchy feet. And Kerry and her sister Judith discover that life in a man's country is far from easy. At a time when young women are expected to settle down and have a family, Kerry must make some difficult decisions about love, marriage and her passionate desire to write. -
Since that first brave adventurer left the great Afro-Asian homeland to travel the long chain of islands to Australasia, human beings have consumed the resources they would need for their own future. The Aboriginals, Maoris and Polynesian peoples were the world’s original future eaters. They changed the flora and fauna in ways that now seem inconceivable. Europeans have made a much great impact. Today, future eating is a universal occupation. In this illustrated ecological history, acclaimed scientist and historian Flannery follows the environment of the islands through the age of dinosaurs to the age of mammals and the arrival of humans, to the European colonisers and industrial society. Penetrating, gripping, and provocative, this book combines natural history, anthropology, and ecology on an epic scale. -
The people you’ll meet will touch your heart as Swampy brings to life to all the dram and delight of life in outback Australia. There’s Frederick Aloysius Millard, the only dog ever to become a member of a Citizens’ Club; the man who refused to go to the doctor because he’d been hit an a rather unfortunate spot that made it clear he was running away; the hapless bloke who tried to blow a snake out of the dunny and almost took himself out of existence – and much more. -
Book Two contains the text of seventeen interviews heard ion the award winning programme The Search For Meaning. They reflect the diversity of society and include: Poet Kevin Gilbert; management consultant Margot Cairns; former father of the Federal Parliament, Hon. Tom Uren; natural therapist Dorothy Hall; and others whose stories are equally of interest, for all participants reflect on the meaning which shapes their lives. They speak from the authenticity of their own experience. -
Still convinced that the only true modern traveller is the business traveller, Peter Biddlecombe takes the reader on another irreverent global tour. He snubs his nose at the 'gimmick tourists', eschews crossing the Sahara naked on a skateboard and carries on doing what he does best - business, all over the world, with a wonderfully diverse range of characters. Power-players in Milan, storm-trooping language police in Toronto, and just general chaos in a mere selection of the obstacles the international businessman must face as he struggles to get to grips with the local way of doing things. But it's all in the name of commerce, and whether he's trapped in a luxury hotel during the riots in Bombay or working his way through a Good Food Guide to Ouagadougou in one of the poorest countries in the world, Peter Biddlecombe usually comes up trumps...not necessarily with the deal he was after, but always with a hilarious tale to tell.
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Innings Of Grace: Janet West
$15.00A life of Bishop W.G. Hilliard. ‘The Bishop’, as he was known in the media, was a household name in the Sydney of the forties and fifties. Poet, orator and headmaster, he excelled in many fields of endeavour, not least in his ministry to men. He rose from the humblest of origins by sheer force of personality, unremitting dedication to his work and depth of faith. He was equally at home with the leaders of the land and the man in the street. He loved cricket, once describing it as his ‘second religion.’ To play the game in life, according to God’s rules, was his aim at all times. He left an imperishable mark on the Australian and New Zealand Church and on the boys of Trinity Grammar School. This biography published on the centenary of his birth and the 75 th anniversary of the school.
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