Stella Rimmington Stella Rimington worked for MI5 between 1969 and 1996, one of the most turbulent and dramatic periods in global history. Working in all the main fields of the Service’s responsibilities – counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism – she became successively Director of all three branches, and finally Director-General of MI5 in 1992.
She was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director-General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. In Open Secret, she continues her work of opening up elements of the work of our security services to public scrutiny, revealing the surprising culture of MI5 and shedding light on some of the most fascinating events in 20th century history from the ultimate insider viewpoint.
Akuch Anyieth A moving, confronting and ultimately uplifting story about a young girl’s escape, with her family, from war-torn South Sudan to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, and then to Australia.
In 1996, when Akuch Kuol Anyieth is five, her mother flees to Kakuma with her children, intent on finding safety and freedom for her family, while her husband stays behind in South Sudan to fight in the civil war. The family spends nine years in the camp, eking out an existence amidst famine, disease, unbearable heat, and chronic violence. Despite their suffering, Akuch never loses hope or her sense of humour. She’s a bright student who loves learning and does well at the local school.
In 2005, the family is finally granted humanitarian visas to Australia. They are on the way to paradise. But the reality of their new lives in Melbourne is complex. As Akuch’s brother’s behaviour spirals out of control, the family find themselves isolated and struggling with various forms of racism.
But Akuch is determined. She learns English from scratch, excels in her educational achievements, and tries to live the life of a regular teenager. Above all she does everything she can to help her family emerge from the bonds of violence.
Akuch Kuol Anyieth’s Unknown is a remarkable memoir. It’s a homage to the strength of her mother in protecting her family against all the odds, a story of sadness, anger, humour, determination, survival and love.
Julianne Schultz Former publisher of Griffith Review Professor Julianne Schultz challenges our notions of what it means to be Australian and asks timely and urgent questions about our national identity. Maybe, because Australia has been so rich for so long, complacency and entitlement, rather than innovation and aspiration, have become the norm.
Maybe, because the habit of not looking back has become so ingrained, we are incapable of imagining what we might become, as we have little idea of how we got here. Maybe, because we have for so long accommodated bullies, we retreated to smaller dreams in manageable spaces. Maybe, because so few of our political leaders have had courageous imaginations, they are in fact led by others. Maybe, because we are ashamed of our racialist past, we forgot how to hold onto the good bits. Maybe, Australia being home to the world’s oldest continuous culture is just too difficult for its white settlers to comprehend. Australia needs to address these issues if it is to become more than a half-formed idea.
What is the ‘idea of Australia’? What defines the soul of our nation? Are we an egalitarian, generous, outward-looking country? Or is Australia a nation that has retreated into silence and denial about the past and become selfish, greedy, and insular?
A lifetime of watching the country as a journalist, editor, academic and writer has given Julianne Schultz a unique platform from which to ask and answer these big and urgent questions. The global pandemic gave her a time to study the X-ray of our country and the opportunity for perspective and analysis.
Schultz came to realise that the idea of Australia is a contest between those who are imaginative, hopeful, altruistic and ambitious, and those who are defensive and inward-looking. She became convinced we need to acknowledge and better understand our past to make sense of our present and build a positive and inclusive future. She suggests what Australia could be: smart, compassionate, engaged, fair and informed.
Braiding her personal experience with often untold stories from our poorly understood history, Schultz finds a resourceful and creative people who have often been badly served by timid and self-interested leaders: a people eager to meaningfully recognise First Australians and address the flaw at the heart of the nation. A people who are not afraid of change and put culture ahead of politics. She tells us revealing stories that we rarely hear from our media or leaders. This important, searing and compelling book explains us to ourselves and suggests ways Australia can realise her true potential. Urgent, inspiring, and optimistic, The Idea of Australia presents the vision we need to fully appreciate our country’s great strengths and crucial challenges.
P.D. James A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem.
It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate. Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable. Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house. They have two fine sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles. Elizabeth’s sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy’s sister Georgiana. And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball.
Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered. A coach careens up the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley. She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered. With shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery.
Di Morrissey Monsoon is a journey into the hearts and memories of those caught in a certain time in a particular place. Sandy Donaldson has been working for a volunteer organisation in Vietnam for the past four years. As her contract nears its end, she is reluctant to leave so she invites her oldest friend, Anna, to come for a holiday and discover its beautiful tourist destinations.
Both girls have unexplored links to this country. Sandy’s father is a Vietnam vet and Anna’s mother was a Vietnamese boat person.
During their travels, they meet Tom, an old Australian journalist who covered the war and plans to report on the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. It is Tom who tries to persuade Sandy’s father to return to Long Tan and settle the ghosts that have haunted him for 40 years, and suggests that Anna should delve into her mother’s past.
But the girls are reluctant, swept up in their own concerns, relationships, and a business deal that has the potential to go horribly wrong. However, it is the near-blind Buddhist nun living alone in the pagoda atop one of the karsts in Halong Bay who might hold the key.
Fleur McDonald Detective Dave Burrows returns in another breathtaking tale of rural suspense from the bestselling Voice of the Outback. Dave Burrows is fighting to see his children and suffering from the guilt and trauma of his mother-in-law being shot by his nemesis, Bulldust. He’s being told by Mel’s lawyer that his job puts his children at risk and therefore he shouldn’t see them.
After a phone call suggesting to his partner, Bob Holden, there could have been some sheep stolen north of Carnarvon, they head north and Dave tries to put his children out of his mind. Especially when Shannon, a forensic pathologist, turns up to investigate the first body on the beach. Shannon and Dave have always had a close friendship and, on the beautiful beaches of the north, that friendship grows into something more.
A ferocious storm comes, uncovering another body, buried deep in the sand, and a truckload of drugs is discovered nearby as they recover the second body. It’s then that the sheep investigation takes a back seat.
Barry Maitland When the Russian wife of the owner of one of the most valuable private collections of modern art in the UK is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock is drawn into a world of high-end art, a world very different to his own. From the dealers and galleries in London’s West End, his investigations take him to Miami and New York on the trail of international forgery and fraud.
At the same time his ex-partner Detective Chief Inspector Kathy Kolla who now leads one of the Metropolitan Police Murder Investigation teams, finds herself at the wrong end of a corruption charge. With her whole career in the balance, she will do almost anything to clear her name.
Mark Sulllivan Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.
In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.
Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.
Jessica Stanley John Clare was a titan in Australian politics. The head of a powerful union and a key player in the election of Kevin Rudd as prime minister in 2007, he had long been tipped as a future leader himself. Supporting him in his push for power were his elegant wife Grace, his troubled children Sophie and Toby, and Tessa, the mistress he thought would stay secret.
But now John has fallen, brutally, to his death. A terrible accident – or was it?
In the wake of losing John, his inner circle mourn and rage, remembering and trying to forget the many ways he’d loved and disappointed them. An adoring and unreliable father; a grateful and selfish husband; a besotted and absent lover; an authoritative and compassionate leader; a failed politician in an era when party politics failed a nation. As those around him reassess everything they knew of and felt for John, a new idea of what love and power really mean begins to emerge – as does the true cause of his death.
Simon Scarrow Macro and Cato now find themselves members of the elite Praetorian Guard, charged with defending the emperor himself against harm.
Yet, they rapidly find that the Guard is riddled with conspiracies aimed at bringing the ageing emperor Claudius down, and raising either of his two sons, one by birth, Britannicus, the other by adoption, Nero, to the purple. Needless to say, the two centurions manage to find themselves in the thick of the action. In the background is the Machiavellian figure of Narcissus, well known to both legionnaires, and also his rival for control of the emperor, Pallas.
