First there was Girt. Now comes ...

True Girt

In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier.

This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep.

True Girt introduces Thomas Davey, the hard-drinking Tasmanian governor who invented the Blow My Skull cocktail, and Captain Moonlite, Australia's most infamous LGBTI bushranger. Meet William Nicholson, the Melbourne hipster who gave Australia the steam-powered coffee roaster and the world the secret ballot. And say hello to Harry, the first camel used in Australian exploration, who shot dead his owner, the explorer John Horrocks.

Learn how Truganini's death inspired the Martian invasion of Earth. Discover the role of Hall and Oates in the Myall Creek Massacre. And be reminded why you should never ever smoke with the Wild Colonial Boy and Mad Dan Morgan.

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia ...

In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.

Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of felony of sock, and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia.

It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia's only military coup.

Our nation's beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us.

Not to read it would be un-Australian.

About the author: David Hunt is an unusually tall and handsome man who likes writing his own biographical notes for all the books he has written (one). He has worked as an historical consultant and comedy writer for television, and also has a proper job.

A sneaky, sometimes shocking peek under the dirty rug of Australian history.
John Birmingham

Hilarious and insightful -- Hunt has found the deep wells of humour in Australia's history.
Chris Taylor, The Chaser

Almost half of the convicts who came to Australia came to Van Diemen's Land. There they found a land of bounty and a penal society, a kangaroo economy and a new way of life.

In this book, James Boyce shows how the convicts were changed by the natural world they encountered. Escaping authority, they soon settled away from the towns, dressing in kangaroo skin and living off the land. Behind the official attempt to create a Little England was another story of adaptation, in which the poor, the exiled and the criminal made a new home in a strange land.

This is their story, the story of Van Diemen's Land.

Winner of the 2009 Tasmania Book Prize, the 2008 Colin Roderick Award and the H.T. Priestley Memorial Medal

Shortlisted for the 2009 Prime Minister's Literary Award, the 2009 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the 2010 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, the 2008 Age Book of the Year Awards, the 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the 2008 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, the 2008 NSW Premier's History Awards and the 2008 Australian Book Industry Awards

'People would have known about Australia before they saw it. Smoke billowing above the sea spoke of a land that lay beyond the horizon. A dense cloud of migrating birds may have pointed the way. But the first Australians were voyaging into the unknown.'

Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian's inquiring mind, he embarks on a journey through time, seeking to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent.

Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. It investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the twentieth century, and the uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia. It explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership

David Hunt tramples the tall poppies of the past in charting Australia's transformation from aspiration to nation -an epic tale of charlatans and costermongers, of bush bards and bushier beards, of workers and women who weren't going to take it anymore.

Girt Nation introduces Alfred Deakin, the Liberal necromancer whose dead advisors made Australia a better place to live, and Banjo Paterson, the jihadist who called on God and the Prophet to drive the Australian infidels from the Sudan 'like sand before the gale'. And meet Catherine Helen Spence, the feminist polymath who envisaged a utopian future of free contraceptives, easy divorce and immigration restrictions to prevent the 'Chinese coming to destroy all we have struggled for!'

Thrill as Jandamarra leads the Bunuba against Western Australia, and Valentine Keating leads the Crutchy Push, an all-amputee street gang, against the conventionally limbed. Gasp as Essendon Football Club trainer Carl von Ledebur injects his charges with crushed dog and goat testicles. Weep as Scott Morrison's communist great-great-aunt Mary Gilmore holds a hose in New Australia. And marvel at how Labor, a political party that spent a quarter of a century infighting over how to spell its own name, ever rose to power.

A gripping reckoning with the bloody history of Australia's frontier wars

The Age Book of the Year 2012
'A first-class piece of historical writing' - The Sunday Age

Shortlisted for the Australian History Prize in the 2012 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the History Prize in the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards, and the Non-Fiction Prize in the 2012 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, 2012 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and 2011 WA Premier's Book Awards.

With the founding of Melbourne in 1835, a flood of settlers began spreading out across the Australian continent. In three years more land - and more people - was conquered than in the preceding fifty.

In 1835 James Boyce brings this pivotal moment to life. He traces the power plays in Hobart, Sydney and London, and describes the key personalities of Melbourne's early days. He conjures up the Australian frontier - its complexity, its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today. And he asks the poignant question largely ignored for 175 years: could it have been different?

With his first book, Van Diemen's Land, Boyce introduced an utterly fresh approach to the nation's history. 'In re-imagining Australia's past, ' Richard Flanagan wrote, 'it invents a new future.' 1835 continues this untold story.

'Boyce is a graceful and robust stylist and a fine storyteller and he organises his material beautifully. His book ... deserves a wide audience.' The Sunday Age

'1835 is a date to be remembered and this is a book to be pondered.' The Sun-Herald

About the author

James Boyce's first book, Van Diemen's Land, won the Tasmania Book Prize and the Colin Roderick Award and was shortlisted for the NSW, Victorian and Queensland premiers' literary awards, as well as the Prime Minister's award. Tim Flannery described it as 'a brilliant book and a must-read for anyone interested in how land shapes people.' Boyce wrote the Tasmania chapter for First Australians, the companion book to the acclaimed SBS TV series. He has a PhD from the University of Tasmania, where he is an honorary research associate of the School of Geography and Environmental Studies.

Is Australia fair enough? And why does inequality matter anyway?

After a long period of high inequality, from English settlement to World War I, inequality in Australia fell for about half a century. In the past generation, the gap between rich and poor has widened again. The top twenty Australians now have twice as much wealth as the bottom two million households. The typical house cost four years' average earnings in the 1980s, but eleven years' average earnings in the early 2020s.

In this updated edition of Battlers and Billionaires, Andrew Leigh tells you everything you need to know about trends in Australian inequality, and explains why inequality matters. Too much inequality risks cleaving us into two Australias, with little contact between the haves and the have-nots. And the further apart the rungs on the ladder of opportunity, the harder it is for a child born into poverty to enter the middle class. Battlers and Billionaires sheds fresh light on what makes Australia distinctive, and what it means to have - and keep - a fair go.

'Fun, fascinating and fundamentally important. A must-read for anyone who cares about bridging our divides.' -Julia Gillard

'Be warned: this book will open your eyes and prick your conscience.' -Ross Gittins

'A thought-provoking book which emphasises how far we have strayed from confidently discussing public policies that seek to give meaning to our egalitarian spirit.' -Laura Tingle

'To be Indian growing up in Australia is to tread the narrow line between here and there, to constantly code-switch and navigate between filling the needs and aspirations of your family, your community - and yourself.'

'Indian-Australian' is not a one-size-fits-all descriptor. Given the depth and richness of diversity of the Indian subcontinent, it is fitting that its diaspora is similarly varied.

Growing Up Indian in Australia reflects and celebrates this vibrant diversity. It features contributions from Australian-Indian writers, both established and emerging, who hail from a wide range of backgrounds, religions and experiences. This colourful, energetic anthology offers reflections on identity, culture, family, food and expectations, ultimately revealing deep truths about both Australian and Indian life.

Contributors include Sunil Badami, Swagata Bapat, Kavita Bedford, Elana Benjamin, Tejas Bhat, Nicholas Brown, Michelle Cahill, Tasneem Chopra, Shaheen De Souza Hughes, Hardeep Dhanoa, Rakhee Ghelani, Kavita Ivy Nandan, Rachael Jacobs, Jessica Joseph, Joseph Jude, Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, Meenal Khare, Sneha Lees, Daizy Maan, Preeti Maharaj, Kishor Napier-Raman, Zoya Patel and Ikebal Patel, Mia Pandey Gordon, Natasha Pinto, Shamna Sanam, Priya SaratChandran, Shreya Tekumalla and Sharon Verghis.

Khin's sister Theda has a strange illness and a euthanasia drug locked in a box under her bed. Her doctor thinks her problem is purely physical, and so does she, but Khin is not so sure. He knows what they both went through growing up in Perth - it wasn't welcoming back then for a Burmese-Australian family.

With Theda's condition getting worse, Khin heads off to the United States. He needs to sort things out with his ex-partner. Once there, events take a very odd turn, and he finds himself in court.

This is a family story told with humour, wonderment and complete honesty. It's about care, truth and the hardest choices - and what happens when realities clash. How do we balance responsibility for others with what we owe ourselves? Fragile Creatures will sweep you up and leave you stunned at its power.

'The miracle of this book is the writer's tone: calm, patient and searching, steadfast in the face of unthinkable suffering' - Helen Garner, author of The Spare Room

'Compelling and compassionate. Your heart will ache as you read Khin Myint's beautiful, poetic prose. Such wisdom and grace in these pages - an extraordinary story I will keep thinking about for a long time to come.' -Alice Pung, author of One Hundred Days

'A fearless and incisive exploration of masculinity, families and racism. Khin Myint brings a sharp emotional intelligence and a gentle sensibility to this extraordinary story that is at once quietly devastating and uplifting. A new and compelling voice in Australian non-fiction.' - Kristina Olsson, author of Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir

A world-famous Australian writer, an inspiration to Robert Hughes and Clive James, a legendary war correspondent who also wrote bestselling histories of exploration and conservation . . . and yet forgotten? In this dazzling book, Thornton McCamish delves into the past to reclaim a remarkable figure, Alan Moorehead.

As a reporter, Moorehead witnessed many of the great historical events of the mid-20th century: the Spanish Civil War and both world wars, Cold War espionage, and decolonisation in Africa. He debated strategy with Churchill and Gandhi, fished with Hemingway, and drank with Graham Greene, Ava Gardner and Truman Capote. As well as being a regular contributor to the New Yorker, in 1956 Moorehead wrote the first significant book about the Gallipoli campaign.

With its countless adventures, its touch of jet-set glamour and its tragic arc, Moorehead's story is a beguiling one. Thornton McCamish tells it as a quest - intimate, perceptive and superbly entertaining. His funny, ardent book reveals an extraordinary Australian and takes its place in a fresh tradition of contemporary biography.

'The best short fiction writers place their pens down and leave you with a haunting: a deep shifting of self, precipitated by impossibly few words.' --Maxine Beneba Clarke

In The Best Australian Stories 2017, Maxine Beneba Clarke - author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Hate Race and award-winning short story collection Foreign Soil - selects the most remarkable short fiction of the past year.

A woman sails to unfamiliar shores to start her life with a stranger. A boy goes to school one day and returns home twenty years older. The government erects a wall across the country and right down the middle of a marital bed.

Diverse in style and voice, these exceptional stories have been chosen by Clarke because they 'push and pull at our hearts, demanding entry into their chambers'.

Contributors include Dominic Amerena, Madeline Bailey, Tony Birch, Verity Borthwick, Raelee Chapman, Elizabeth Tien An Flux, Cassie Hamer, John Kinsella, Julie Koh, Melissa Lucashenko, Myfanwy McDonald, Jennifer Mills, Joshua Mostafa, Ryan O'Neill, David Oberg, Allee Richards, Mirandi Riwoe, Josephine Rowe, Joe Rubbo, Beejay Silcox and Ellen van Neerven.

Australia is home to many animals and plants found nowhere else on earth, making Australians caretakers of a unique heritage in a land that tolerates few mistakes. Yet, in After the Future, Tim Flannery shows that this country is now on the brink of a new wave of extinctions, which threatens to leave our national parks as marsupial ghost towns. Why are species becoming extinct despite the tens of millions of dollars being spent to protect nature? And what more should be done?

In this passionate and illuminating essay, Flannery tells the story of the human impact on the continent. He revisits his Future Eaters hypothesis, discussing how firestick farming helped to shape the ecology and preserve native fauna. He looks at the way recent governments, in tandem with an indifferent populace and a rabid libertarian right, have let environmental knowledge and commitments erode. Finally, he describes new approaches to wildlife conservation and argues that Australia must take the lead on these. This is an essay that rings the alarm on behalf of the natural world, and asks us to think again about protection of its irreplaceable riches.

Such is the depth of public ignorance about Australia's extinction crisis that most people are unaware that it is occurring, while those who do know of it commonly believe that our national parks and reserves are safe places for threatened species. In fact the second extinction wave is now in full swing, and it's emptying our national parks and wildlife reserves as ruthlessly as other landscapes.-Tim Flannery, After the Futurei

Correspondence

This issue also contains correspondence relating to the previous issue QE47 Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott by David Marr.

The eighties were my formative years, and while other teenagers were gyrating to rock 'n' roll, we were praying for revival. We were taking communion, not cocaine. We treated virginity like a wedding present, not a cold sore.

And why wouldn't we? We were told we could be, we already were, anything we wanted to be... We were armed and dangerous. Armed with the power of God and dangerous in the eyes of Satan.

Tanya Levin grew up in the church that became Hillsong-the country's most ambitious, entrepreneurial and influential religious corporation.

People in Glass Houses tells how a small Assemblies of God church in a suburban school hall became a multi-million dollar tax-free enterprise and a powerful force in Australia today - and now the world.

Opening up the world of Christian fundamentalism, this is a powerful, personal and at times very funny exploration of an all-singing, all- swaying mega church.

Be delighted, be infuriated, be inspired - but above all be entertained This is the ultimate puzzle book: a year's worth of Mungo MacCallum's cryptic crosswords from The Saturday Paper, plus a preface from the maestro himself.

MUNGO MacCALLUM wrote cryptic crosswords for the Bulletin and the Weekly. He is the author of The Whitlam Mob and The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely: Australia's Prime Ministers. He has long been one of Australia's most influential and entertaining political journalists, in a career spanning more than four decades. He has worked with the Australian, the Age, the Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and numerous magazines, as well as the ABC, SBS, Channel Nine and Channel Ten.

'One of the best long reads on housing and possible solutions that you can come across' -Rafael Epstein

An updated and expanded edition of the bestselling Quarterly Essay.

One of the great mysteries of Australian life is that a land of sweeping plains, with one of the lowest population densities on the planet, has a shortage of land for houses. As a result, Sydney is the second most expensive place to buy a house on Earth, after Hong Kong.

The escalation in house prices is a pain that has altered Australian society; it has increased inequality and profoundly changed the relationship between generations - between those who have a house and those who don't. It has caused a rental crisis, a dearth of public housing and a mortgage crunch.

Things went seriously wrong at the start of the twenty-first century, when there was a huge and permanent rise in the price of housing. In this crisp, clarifying and forward-looking book, Alan Kohler tells the story of how we got into this mess - and how we might get out of it.

This new edition adds material on homelessness, how much house prices in each city need to come down to be affordable, and lessons from overseas.

'A timely contribution from a master communicator' -Cameron Murray, Crikey