AustLit

'It's Miss Corker's first day at her new school (in fact, it's her first day at anyschool) and she is looking forward to meeting her class. Leigh Hobbs turns his sharply observant eyes to the oddballs and misfits in Grade 4 in this absolutely hilarious illustrated story for 7-11 year olds.' (Publication summary)

 

'Data theft, internet memes, advertising, terrorism, indigenous sovereignty, drone warfare, opium addiction, syphilis, the moon landing, mining, oil slicks, climate change, giant octopuses: nothing is spared in this collection. Nic Low's stories go beyond satire, aiming for the dark heart of our collective obsession with technology, power and image.

'Set variously in London, an Indian village, remote Mongolia, the West Australian outback and mountainous New Zealand, these are prescient visions of the future and outlandish reimaginings of the past. Arms Race is an arresting debut from a fierce, playful new voice in Australian writing.' (Publication summary)

'His selection of 40 poems from Australia's print and online journals captures a sense of poetry as passion, as lived experience, and momentary distillations into action.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'The poems in Judith Wright's Birds volume have long been recognised as among the best-loved poems written in Australia. Many people have grown up with the beguiling rhythms of 'Black Cockatoos', or the jauntiness of 'The Wagtail'. Now, in this new edition, commemorating 25 years since the poems were last published as a single collection, these works appear with six additional poems and a personal introduction by the poet's daughter Meredith McKinney, for whom many of the poems were written. The poems are complemented by full-colour illustrations drawn from the National Library's Pictures Collection, featuring the work of artists such as John Lewin, Lionel Lindsay, Lilian Medland, William T. Cooper and Betty Temple Watts. 'Birds' is both a celebration of Judith Wright (1915-2000) as writer and passionate environmentalist, and of the centrality of birds in the poet's imagination. ' (Publication summary)

'Ten stories that delight, shock, intrigue, amuse and move the reader to tears with their imaginative reach, their dark humour, their subtlety, their humanity and depth of feeling: As part of a public execution, a young boy forlornly helps to sing his sister down. A servant learns about grace and loyalty from a mistress who would rather dance with Gypsies than sit on her throne. A terrifying encounter with a demonic angel gives a young man the strength he needs to break free of his oppressor. On a bleak and dreary afternoon a gleeful shooting spree leads to tragedy for a desperate clown unable to escape his fate.'

'Black Juice offers glimpses into familiar, shadowy worlds that push the boundaries of the spirit and leave the mind haunted with the knowledge that black juice runs through us all.'

'In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire on turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland, and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a fourteen-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise" an ageing New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.' (From the author's website.)

'Written in the 1920s, Brumby Innes confronts the turbulent relations between the sexes and the races in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. It is published with another Prichard play from the 1920s, Bid Me To Love which, by contrast, is set among the fashionable rich in the lush hills outside Perth.'

'The two plays are compelling for their dramatic styles and for their insight into the novels which followed: Coonardoo and Intimate Strangers. And both had to wait more than forty years for their first production.' (Source: Reading Australia website)

'On a sultry summer night Murray Whelan is in the Botanical Gardens tasting Salina Fleet's apricot lips. Meanwhile the body of an artist is being fished from the ornamental moat outside the Art Gallery. The papers called it suicide. The police say it's an accident.

'Political minder, brushed-off lover and art buff on the make, Murray goes looking for the big picture. He finds there's more than meets the eye among the self-made millionaires, ruthless culture vultures, and cool operators of Melbourne's art world. He learns that when you dabble with death there's nothing abstract about a loaded gun.

'Murray Whelan, the hero of Stiff, Shane Maloney's brilliant debut novel, is back at his richly futile best. A romantic comedy and drop-dead thriller, The Brush-Off mixes high art with low blows.' (Publication summary)

'When Agnelli is demoted to Minister of Arts and Water, he decides to earn brownie points by raising funds for the next election campaign. Murray is on the case, meeting with philanthropists and arts connoisseurs. This is where the trouble begins.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 5/4/2013)