AustLit

'Tales of the strange, unnerving and downright bizarre from one of the weirdest places on Earth

'History is always written by the winners and about the winners. But what about the poor souls lurking in the shadows of history, the ones who were just as remarkable but perhaps didn't stick their chests out as they crossed the line?

'In SECOND BEST, Australia's foremost historian and comedian Ben Pobjie celebrates the nobility and altogether more fascinating stories of the silver-medal getters. What drove them on their incredible feats, why did they just miss out, and how did they cope with the oblivion of finishing second?

'From the Second Fleet, the second man on the moon and Australia's second prime minister whose name we consistently forget, SECOND BEST shines a light on those plucky men and women who, through no fault of their own - or at least only a little bit of fault of their own - didn't quite get there before everyone else, but did get there before almost everyone else.' (Publication summary)

'Ned Kelly’s tin helmet looms large over Australia’s bushranging past, but what about all the unsung outlaws of the Australian bush? What about Black Caesar, who escaped his tyrannous British overlords four times and indeed invented the great Australian tradition of bushranging? Or Mad Dog Morgan who set out to write his name in blood on history’s ledger, the dynamic Captain Thunderbolt and his loyal wife Mary Ann Bugg, bushranging’s greatest queen, and Matthew Brady, the gentleman bushranger, who showed us all the cilivised side of armed robbery?

'In Mad Dogs and Thunderbolts Ben Pobjie celebrates the derring-do and revolutionary passion of all the wild colonial boys and girls who raided our towns and stole our hearts, all while wearing sensible headgear.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'If you think you know all about Australia’s heroes (and villains), think again. In Aussie Aussie Aussie, Ben Pobjie burrows beneath the mythology to provide an intimate look at the Australians who helped make our nation great – as well as the ones who stopped us from being as great as we could have been but who have ended up with their own Wikipedia pages anyway.

'Meet pioneers such as Charles Kingsford Smith, whose groundbreaking efforts moved the country forward; artists and entertainers such as Joan Sutherland, who shaped our national cultural identity; captains of industry such as Rupert Murdoch, who inspired Australia’s love affair with people who amass phenomenal quantities of personal wealth; and humanitarians such as Mary MacKillop, who found fame by dedicating their lives to others and guilt-tripping the rest of us.

'Aussie Aussie Aussie is the book for any proud Australian seeking to learn more about the national heroes that make our own pathetic lives seem so insignificant.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'History, let's be blunt, is hilarious.'

'It's hilarious for the same reason life itself is hilarious: it's filled with weirdos and idiots screwing everything up in the worst ways possible.'

'But the beauty of history as a comedic resource is that it all happened ages ago, so you don't have to pretend to feel sorry for the people it happened to.'

'We’re engrossed with reality TV these days, yet we so often neglect the greatest reality of all: the reality of our nation and how it came to be. In Error Australis, TV columnist, comedian and history buff Ben Pobjie recaps the history of Australia from its humble beginnings as a small patch of rapidly cooling rock to its modern-day status as one of the major powers of the sub-Asian super-Antarctic next-to-Africa region. As thrilling as it is to see Delta Goodrem’s chair turn around, there’s an argument that World War Two was even more exciting and, like any good recapper, Pobjie provides an immediate, visceral sense of what it was like to be there in the moment at our nation’s defining events.

'It is only by looking at where we have been that we can understand who we are, what we stand for and why nothing seems to work. Error Australis is a scholarly and hilarious account of a young nation that has spent many years seeking its place in the world, and almost as many years not liking what it has found. (Publication summary)

'Neighbours (Eleven, 6.30pm) is really wheeling out the big guns with its guest stars these days...' (Ben Podjie).

'Janet King (ABC1, 8.30pm) is back! That's ... good? I guess so, if you're a diehard Janet King fan, but I'm not sure if there are any of those. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there are no diehard Janet King haters either, so you may call that a win for the show, which is a shiny, good-looking, well-cast legal drama entering its second season that still seems oddly short of compelling reasons to watch it...' (Ben Pobjie).