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With his usual skill, Frank Clune weaves history and contemporary fact into an exciting and significant pattern that will delight armchair travellers who accompany him on this unusual tour through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Greece, by plane, train and jeep. The primary reason for Clune's journey was to learn something about the work of the International Refugee Organisation, to see the migrant camps and to see displaced persons go through the initial stages that prepared them to become new Australians and listens to their hopes and dreams of Australia. With black and white photographs. -
With his usual skill, Frank Clune weaves history and contemporary fact into an exciting and significant pattern that will delight armchair travellers who accompany him on this unusual tour through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Greece, by plane, train and jeep. The primary reason for Clune's journey was to learn something about the work of the International Refugee Organisation, to see the migrant camps and to see displaced persons go through the initial stages that prepared them to become new Australians and listens to their hopes and dreams of Australia. With black and white photographs. -
Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century? As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of himself, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more: a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances, just as Hitch did in his own films. Grace Kelly, Carey Grant and James Stewart despair of his detached directing style, and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren endures cuts and bruises from a real-life fearsome flock of birds. Peter Ackroyd wrests the director's chair back from the master of control and discovers what lurks just out of sight...in the corner of the shot. -
From the author of I Can Jump Puddles. It's time to visit Alan Marshall's Australia: sitting on the sliprail exchanging yarns, driving a buggy down long dusty trails. And meet such wonderful characters as Lance Skuthorpe, who tethered a bull in Bourke Street and offered five quid to anyone who could ride him for half a minute and Binjarrpooma, the terror of Arnhem Land. Make a visit to an Australia that is now gone. -
Menzies was Prime Minister of Australia from 1939-41 and 1949-66. This is a collection of reminiscent essays about Baldwin, Chamberlain, Atlee, DeValera, Roosevelt, Truman, JFK, and more lengthily about his friends Felix Frankfurter and Dean Acheson, as well as his hero Churchill. He reviews his participation in the Suez Committee of 1956 and upholds Eden's action. Menzies seems to take himself less seriously than most statesmen in that he has an evident sense of humor. He was virtually obsessed with retaining Australia's whites-only immigration policy, and opposed intervention from any quarter in Rhodesian and South African affairs because it would be a dangerous precedent. His 1960 correspondence with Verwoerd on such topics is included. The other essays - on the virtues of the monarchy, the British form of government, and cricket, are frankly Old Boyish. -
Actress Judy Cornwell has delighted audiences for nearly fifty years and is very well-known for her role as Daisy in Keeping Up Appearances. Her memoir describes her childhood growing up in Britain during the war, and then in Australia where her family emigrated. Retruning to England at the age of 12 she became a professional dancer and comedienne in her teens. Her long and diverse career includes radio roles (The Navy Lark); film roles opposite greats such as Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole and Dudley Moore; a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company and a great many appearances on classic television shows such as Midsomer Murders, Marple, Doctor Who and Eastenders , not to mention her own comedy series Moody and Pegg. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
Milligan takes his unwary reader from the outbreak of war in 1939 - 'it must have been something we said' - through his attempts to avoid enlistment - 'time for my appendicitus, I thought' - and his gunner training in Bexhill -'There was one drawback. No ammunition' - to the landing at Algiers in 1943 'I closed my eyes and faced the sun. I fell down a hatchway.' And of course, his mission to cause Hitler's downfall...'At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked "This is your enemy". I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train...' Loads of bathos, pathos and gales of ribald laughter, this is a barely sane helping of military goonery and superlative Milliganese. -
Acting My Life: Ian Holm
$10.00After making a brilliant impact at the RSC in the 1960s, Ian Holm consolidated his reputation with work for Harold Pinter then turned to film, appearing in cult/popular classics such as Alien, Chariots of Fire, The Fifth Element and Lord Of The Rings. His varied career has seen him play an android, Napoleon, King Lear, Hercule Poirot, Lewis Carroll, a hobbit and much more. Large Print edition. -
Kenneth Williams, star of stage, radio, screen and Carry On put together a collection of witty, wicked put-downs, retorts, comebacks - and all those great responses we never think of at the time! These have been collected from far and wide across the world of film, literature, politics and celebrity. From Dorothy Parker, observing a notorious society flirt: That woman can speak eighteen languages and can;t say 'No' in any of them. Or Groucho Marx, to a delighted author: From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter...some day I intend to read it... After W.C. Fields made his feelings about children widely known, he was asked how he really liked children: His response? "Boiled or fried..." Illustrated by ffolkes. -
Ten noted anthropologists examine the evolution of Aboriginal power from pre-white contact to the 1980s. The first five chapters deal with power relations and ideologies in traditional and tradition-oriented Aboriginal societies and power in relation to myth, land rights, leadership and socialisation. The remaining chapters focus on Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders are are more integrated into Australian society, mainly urban dwellers; the political middlemen, internal colonialism, the formation of a pan-Aborignal identity and the question of Aboriginal power in an urban setting in general. As a whole, the book offers a wide-ranging examination of the power possessed by Aborigines and how Aborigines perceive power among themselves and in relation to others. The contributors are: Michael. C. Howard; E. Kolig; D.H. Turner; K. Maddock; F.R. Myers; R. Tonkinson; J. Beckett; J.C. Pierson; and D.J. Jones; J. Hill-Burnett. -
On April 6, 1924, eight courageous young Army airmen too off on a 26,000 mile journey into the record books. Three years before Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris, they set out from Seattle in four open-cockpit bi-planes, determined to circle the globe - and they did it. They were battered by blizzards and typhoons, lost in sandstorms and blinding fog and had even given up two of their number for dead. Here is the epic story of the first around-the-world flight. -
Mrs. Ritter left a very comfortable home to keep house for her husband and a Norwegian trapper in a hut that measured 12ft x 6 ft on Spitzbergebn, some 60 miles from the only neighbour. She was there for a year, often alone for long periods of time while the men were about their affairs - she was alone during her first Arctic blizzard; at other times she went with them on their journeys across snow and ice. Although she came to the experience reluctantly, she fell in love with the lonely island wilderness and all its marvels - from its dark and violent winter to the rose and violet hues of the Arctic summer. Here are stories of bear hunts, blizzards, hazard trekking, making friends with a white polar fox which she named Mikkl as well as the domestic scenes of life within four narrow walls. At this time, the Arctic was regarded as for men only - but Christiane proved this to be all wrong.
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George Barrington (1755 - 1840) a notorious pickpocket, was sentenced to seven years transportation to Botany Bay. In return for his aid is suppressing a mutiny aboard ship, he was released and made superintendent of convicts in the colony. This is an account of his life, in his words, with all the romance and adventure, hardship and danger of a life and the times. No dry facts or dates here - it's an enthralling story by one of our most fascinating early citizens - a talented and outrageous rogue who tells of crime and punishment in England; a perilous sea journey; the battle for survival in a new, undeveloped colony; the interactions with the aboriginal population; and the manners, customs, language and beliefs of the day. Illustrated with beautiful colour plates and black and white sketches. -
Ben Rutherford was brought up on a high country sheep station in New Zealand, and brought up the old fashioned way. Here he shares his stories of high country farming, swaggers, station cooks and their eccentric temperament, dog trials, horse racing, pig and deer shooting and other rumbustious elements of the New Zealand way of life...a way of life so rumbustious that a farmer member of the Christchurch Club was once heard to exclaim: "It's not the rabbits I'm worrying about, it's the Rutherfords!" -
Shot down in 1942, young Australian fighter pilot John Williams DFC became a POW in the notorious Stalag Luft III camp in Germany. John had joined the air force shortly before the outbreak of war and, in the larrikin tradition, led his squadron into air combat over the deserts of Libya and Egypt dressed in sandals and shorts. John and his best mate Rusty Kierath were among the 76 POWs who tunnelled their way out of the supposedly escape-proof camp under the noses of their German guards in what later became the Hollywood blockbuster, The Great Escape. Their families never learned what really happened once the pair made it out into the forest. John's niece Louise Williams has pieced together his life, from his upbringing in a tight-knit family hit hard by the Depression, to his exploits in the air, and the many missing details of the tragic escape. It is a powerful and intimate story of one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
Like a tramp, a pilgrim or a wandering scholar, an 18 year-old boy set out one wet December day in 1933 to walk to Constantinople. In that year, when Hitler came to power, adventure beckoned and youth was golden for Patrick Leigh Fermor as he tramped up the Rhine and down the Danube towards the mysterious gateway to the East - sleeping barns, or in fairy tale castles, losing his possessions and being showered with gifts. But there was more to discover than freedom and the camaraderie of the road: the arts, landscapes, religions, languages, histories and above all, the people of a dozen civilisations unfolded before his hungry young mind - sharply outlined before the gathering storm. This volume covers his journey from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube. -
Dickens' Mr Micawber solved his problems by emigrating to Australia; his example was followed by Dickens' own sons. Alfred arrived in 1865 and younger brother Edward three years later. They both became managers and part-owners of stations in the far west of New South Wales, and stock and station agents. Alfred moved to Victoria and lectured both in Australia and overseas. Edward went to live in Wilcannia which he represented in Parliament. They may not have won fame or fortune, but their story, partly told through family letters, is still absorbing and would be of interest to any fan of Dickens. -
Originally published in twelve volumes, this edition revised by the author and Jane Caplan is the essence of that original work. It is also a redrafted, revised and updated version. Chapters: The Shape Of History; The Geneses Of Civilisations; The Growth Of Civilisations; The Breakdown Of Civilisations; The Disintegrations Of Civilsations; Universal States; Universal Churches; Heroic Ages; Contacts Between Civilisations In Space; Contacts Between Civilisations In Time; Why Study History? With over 500 illustrations. -
First published in 1954. With his trademark wit and inquisitive eye, H. V. Morton travels through a Spain unspoilt by tourism. Interspersed with episodes from Spain's rich history, this is a journey of discovery that would appeal to those with a sense of adventure and who appreciate a striking introduction to Spanish history and culture. "The stranger who wishes to approach Spain with sympathy and appreciation," H. V. Morton wrote, "must do so through its history." He takes the reader on a leisurely tour through a country where the past is very much alive, revealing a rich tapestry of events related with humor, charm, and sincerity. The Spain of the Christian kings and the caliphs of Córdoba, of Philip II, and the tragic Hapsburgs, the Spain of Columbus, of St Teresa, of Cortés and Pizarro, Velázquez, and Goya, is the thread of Morton's narrative. With colour and black and white illustrations. -
Peter Fitzsimon's account of growing up on the rural outskirts of Sydney in the 1960s is first and foremost a tribute to family. It's also a salute to times and generations past, when praise was understated and love unstinting; work was hard and values were clear; when people stood by each other in adversity. Days were for doing. Here is a childhood full of mischief, camaraderie, eccentric characters, drama, love, loss and billy-carts.
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Wells intended this volume to be straightforwardly, almost as a novel is read. It gives, in a most general way, an account of our present knowledge of history, shorn of elaborations and complications. Its special end is to meet the needs of the busy general reader who 'wishes to repair his faded or fragmentary conception of the great adventure of Mankind.' This edition was revised from the 1922 edition and prepared b y Professor G.P. Wells (H.G. Wells' son) and Raymond Postgate. Five new chapters have been added and the original maps are redrawn, with two new maps added. Cover: Detail from Prismes électriques by Sonia Delaunay. -
Sir Alec Guinness (1914 - 2000) makes his observations on Britain, taken from his journal at the tumultuous times of Princess Diana's death, the election of Tony Blair and comments on his quintessentially English country life with Mrs Guinness. A follow up to My Name Escapes Me, this volume covers 1996 - 1998. Sir Alec offers frank and surprising reflections on appearing in Star Wars and hilarious reminiscences of Humphrey Bogart and Noel Coward. -
The fascinating and true story of a 20th century bush legend. Known only from fleeting glimpses to the people of South Australia's Riverland region who gave him his name, the Possum deliberately turned his back on society to live almost entirely off the land as a recluse on the banks of the Murray River. It took Max Jones, country detective, almost thirty years to solve the mystery behind the man called Possum. From chance encounters, brief meetings and full scale conversations with the man himself - and from the testimony of others - the author pieced together Possum's extraordinary life story. Illustrated with photographs, sketches, newspaper articles and entries from the Possum's own diary. -
In 404 B.C., the Spartans demolished the famous Long Walls of Athens, signalling the complete victory of the city of Lycurgus and the subordination of all Greece to the Spartan interest. Yet within forty years, the pride of Sparta had been humbled, their glory gone for ever. Xenophon lived through this time; despite being Athenian he was intimate with some of the most influential people in Sparta, including King Agesilaus. Here is the on-the-spot documentation of the last years of the independent cities of Hellas, by someone who saw it all. Translated by Rex Warner. https://cosmiccauldronbooks.com.au/p/imperial-caesar-rex-warner/
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The author, director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts University Medical Center, draws from the careers and personal plights of such notable leaders as Lincoln, Churchill, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, and others from the past two centuries to build an argument that the very qualities that mark those with mood disorders - realism, empathy, resilience, and creativity - also make for the best leaders in times of crisis. By combining analysis of the historical evidence with the latest psychiatric research, Ghaemi demonstrates how he thinks these qualities have produced brilliant leadership under the toughest circumstances.individuals and society at large-however high the price for those who endure these illnesses. -
This first volume of Ruth Park’s autobiography is an account of her isolated childhood in the rainforests of New Zealand, her convent education which encouraged her love of words and writing and the bitter years of the Depression. She then entered the rough-and-tumble world of journalism and began a reluctant correspondence with a young Australian writer. In 1942, she moved to Sydney and married that writer, D’Arcy Niland. There she would write The Harp In The South, the first of her classic Australian novels. A Fence Around the Cuckoo is the story of one of Australia’s best storytellers and how she learnt her craft. Illustrated with black and white photographs. https://cosmiccauldronbooks.com.au/p/fishing-in-the-styx-ruth-park/ -
A unique study of Vietnam from prehistory to 1972 which places the Vietnam War and Western involvement in perspective. Geography and environment have had a profound effect on Vietnamese history - the Vietnamese have had to contend with the power of neighboring China, a coastline that facilitated French conquest and mountains that divide the Red River delta in the north from the Mekong River valley in the south. Also covered is the legendary origin of the Vietnamese and their emergence before the advent of Chinese influence in the 1st century B.C.; the forces that shaped the centralised Vietnamese state during the era of independence after the expulsion of the Chinese in A.D. 939; and the century of French exploitation, during which nationalist movements arose in the north and south.
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