Thomas Keneally
In this companion volume of Thomas Keneally’s widely acclaimed history of the Australian people, the vast range of characters who have formed our national story are brought vividly to life. Immigrants and Aboriginal resistance figures, bushrangers and pastoralists, working men and pioneering women, artists and hard-nosed radicals, politicians and soldiers all populate this richly drawn portrait of a vibrant land on the cusp of nationhood and social maturity.

From the 1860s to the great rifts wrought by World War I, an era commenced in which Australian pursued glimmering visions- of equity in a promised land. It was a time of social experiment and reform, of industrial radicalism and women’s rights. We were a society the world had much to learn from, or so we believed. But as much as we espoused we were a special people and celebrated a larrikin anti-authoritarianism, we retained provincial objectives that saw ultimate respect for society’s structures. There was no Australian revolution.
With a rich assortment of contradictory, inspiring and surprising characters, Tom Keneally brings to life the people of a young and cocky nation. This is truly a new history of Australia, by an author of outstanding literary skill and experience, and whose own humanity permeates every page.

Thomas Keneally
In this widely acclaimed volume, bestselling author Thomas Keneally brings to life the vast range of characters who have formed our national story. Convicts and Aborigines, settlers and soldiers, patriots and reformers, bushrangers and gold seekers, it is from their lives and their stories that he has woven a vibrant history to do full justice to the rich and colourful nature of our unique national character.
The story begins by looking at European occupation through Aboriginal eyes as we move between the city slums and rural hovels of eighteenth century Britain and the shores of Port Jackson.

We spend time on the low-roofed convict decks of transports, and we see the bewilderment of the Eora people as they see the first ships of turaga, or ‘ghost people’. We follow the daily round of Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, and the tribulations of warrior Windradyne. Convicts like Solomon Wiseman and John Wilson find their feet and even fortune, while Henry Parkes’ arrival as a penniless immigrant gives few clues to the national statesman he was to become. We follow the treks of the Chinese diggers – the Celestials – to the goldfields, and revolutionaries like Italian Raffaello Carboni and black American John Joseph bring us the drama of the Eureka uprising.
Were the first European mothers whores or matriarchs? How did this often cruel and brutal penal experiment lead to a coherent civil society? Tom Keneally brings to life the high and the low, the convict and the free of early Australian society.
This is truly a new history of Australia, by an author of outstanding literary skill and experience, and whose own humanity permeates every page.

Bill Gammage
Reveals the complex, country-wide systems of land management used by Aboriginal people in presettlement Australia. Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park, with extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands, and abundant wildlife. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than most people have ever realized.

For more than a decade, he has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire, the life cycles of native plants, and the natural flow of water to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and this book reveals how. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires Australians now experience. With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, this book rewrites the history of the continent, with huge implications for today.

Lee Child
The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child. The plan: It’s coming Fall 2022. No Plan B. In Gerrardsville, Colorado, two witnesses to the same tragedy give two different accounts. One guy sees a woman throw herself in front of a bus in what authorities will call a suicide. The other witness is Jack Reacher. And he sees what actually happened: A man in a gray hoodie and jeans, moving like a shadow, pushed the victim to her death—before swiftly grabbing the dead woman’s purse and strolling away.

Reacher follows the killer on foot, not knowing that he is part of something much bigger and far-reaching . . . a secret conspiracy with many moving parts, with powerful people on the take, all involved in an undertaking that leaves no room for error. If any step is compromised, the threat will have to be quickly and quietly and permanently removed.

Because when the threat is Reacher, there is No Plan B….

David Baldacci
Memory man FBI agent, Amos Decker, returns in this action-packed thriller to investigate the mysterious and brutal murder of a federal judge and her bodyguard at her home in an exclusive, gated community in Florida.

Things are changing for Decker. He is in crisis following the suicide of a close friend and receipt of a letter concerning a personal issue which could change his life forever. Together with the prospect of working with a new partner, Frederica White, Amos Decker knows that this case will take all of his special skills to solve.

Peter Robinson
One of the world’s greatest suspense writers returns with the 27th novel featuring the legendary detective Alan Banks in the mystery series Stephen King calls “the best now on the market.” When property developer Connor Clive Blaydon is found dead, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his Yorkshire team dive into the investigation. As luck would have it, someone had installed a cache of spy-cams all around his luxurious home. The team hope that they’ll find answers—and the culprit—among the video recordings.

Instead of discovering Connor’s murderer, however, the grainy and blurred footage reveals another crime: a brutal rape. If they can discover the woman’s identity, it could lead to more than justice for the victim; it could change everything the police think they know about Connor and why anyone would want him dead.

Meanwhile, tensions are rising between Banks and his friend, Zelda. A super recognizer—able to recognize faces significantly better than most people—Zelda is determined to bring the men who abused her to justice. But stirring up the murky waters of the past will put her in far greater danger than ever before, and Banks worries that he won’t be able to stop her from plunging too deep before it’s too late.