Showing titles in Australia, New Zealand & Oceania

The story of the clipper ships, and the tens of thousands of migrants they brought to the Australian colony of the 19th century, is one of the world's great migration stories. For anyone who travelled to Australia before 1850, it was a long and arduous journey that could take as much as four months. With the arrival of the clipper ships and favourable winds, the journey from England could be done in a little over half this time.

In 1768 Captain James Cook and his crew set out on a small British naval vessel in search of a missing continent. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of that voyage, and Cook's 'discovery' of Australia. Captain Cook's Epic Voyage reveals the hardships and adventure of this remarkable quest, and the...

How an ancient land became a great democracy. Longlisted for Best Non Fiction in the Indie Book Awards 2026 'Tony Abbott should be congratulated ... This history of Australia is vivid, readable, provocative' Geoffrey Blainey, historian 'A fascinating book ... that negotiates all kinds of...

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.

Delve into the fascinating history of Norse mythology with these thrilling tales of battle and magic.... What do you think of when you hear the words "Norse mythology"? Chances are, your mind goes straight to Thor or Odin, some of the most well-known Nordic gods. But their stories barely scratch the surface of the complicated and fascinating myths of ancient Scandinavia.

In the past the elders had encyclopaedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across the landscape and the stars in the sky, too. Yet most of us struggle to memorise more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines as the key, Lynne Kelly has identified the powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world.

"We are the people our parents warned us about" is the motto of the Bandidos, one of the world's most feared outlaw motorcycle gangs. For ten years, Steve Utah was a Bandidos insider. He arranged the security of their clubhouses. He 'cooked' ecstasy and ice for them. He was at meetings where interstate and overseas drug and weapons smuggling was planned. He saw stolen military weapons being sold. He witnessed vicious beatings, helped dump corpses.It all became too much and, in an attempt to regain control of his life, Utah resorted to the unthinkable....

A lively history of the 'First Fleet' which took convicts from Britain to Australia in 1787; Sydney's early years as 'an open-air prison'; and the colonisation of New South Wales. The story of modern Australia begins in 18th-century Britain, where people were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife, and the gaols were bursting. From this situation was born the Sydney experiment, with criminals perceived to be damaging British society transported to Sydney, an 'open air prison with walls 14,000 miles thick'.

Bloomsbury presents Dark Waters, Starry Skies by Jeffrey Cox, read by John Chancer. Esteemed Pacific War historian Jeffrey Cox has produced a fast-paced and absorbing read of the crucial New Georgia phase of the Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign during the Pacific War. Thousands of miles from...

Colditz Castle was Nazi Germany’s infamous ‘escape-proof’ wartime prison, where hundreds of the most determined and resourceful Allied prisoners were sent. Despite having more guards than inmates, Australian Lieutenant Jack Champ and other prisoners tirelessly carried out their campaign to...

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death. In 1864, Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies and relentless rain, Captain Musgrave inspires his men to take action.

Australia is often seen as a young nation, defined by British colonization and modern settlement—but its story stretches far beyond European arrival. Home to one of the world's oldest continuous human cultures, Australia's Indigenous peoples developed sophisticated societies, laws, and land management practices over thousands of years, long before the First Fleet arrived in 1788.

Sharkey Ward commanded 801 Naval Air Squadron, HMS Invincible, during the Falklands war of April to June 1982 and was senior Sea Harrier adviser to the Command on the tactics, direction and progress of the air war. He flew over 60 war missions, achieved three air to air kills, and took part in or witnessed a total of 10 kills; he was also the leading night pilot and was decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry.

The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimons In September 1939, young Australian...

The updated edition of a bestselling classic, with a new introduction from award-winning author Chris Hammer. Australia's major river system is collapsing. Parts of it are dying; parts of it are already dead. Australia's most significant river no longer reaches the sea. I look out into the dim autumn light and wonder once again how it has come to this . . . Join award-winning author Chris Hammer on a journey through Australia's largest river system, the Murray-Darling Basin.

Brought to you by Penguin. **WINNER of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024** Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Endeavour, written by Peter Moore, read by Ric Jerrom. An inventive biography of one of the most famous ships of all time – from the oak tree it was made from to its last voyage in the American War of Independence The Enlightenment was an age of...

Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become. Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial...

This bestselling book, the triumphant fruit of careful research, wide reading and judicious assessment, is the unchallenged contemporary reference on the history of New Zealand. New Zealand was the last country in the world to be discovered and settled by humankind. It was also the first to...

'Pentridge was a place of murder and mayhem. A bluestone hell. The worst prison Australia has ever seen.' Andrew Kirby, former inmate Welcome to Pentridge, Australia's most infamous prison. In the long-awaited return to his bestselling true crime series on life behind bars, James Phelps has...