Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.
Audiobooks Narrated by David Tredinnick
Browse audiobooks narrated by David Tredinnick, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
Forged in Fire takes us inside the secretive world of the Australian commandos.
Garry made a report on the radio: 'I see around 200 women and children heading north up the valley.' Less than 400 metres below us, a steady stream of women and kids were hurrying away in single file.
'Where are all the men?' I asked Garry. 'Waiting for us,' he responded, with a look of concern I had not seen on his face before. My heart skipped a beat—we were on.
From the age of 12, Scott Ryder knew he wanted to join the army, and he signed up as soon as he could. After serving as a paratrooper and in East Timor with 3 RAR, he wanted more. He trained all summer and took the gruelling selection course for the commandos, earning the prized green beret on his second attempt.
Forged in Fire takes us inside the secretive world of the commandos. Ryder shares battlefield stories from his tours to Afghanistan, where his regiment saw some of the heaviest fighting Australian forces have experienced since the Vietnam War. After being seriously injured in a shocking Black Hawk helicopter crash in Kandahar, he was the only survivor to return to active service.
Frankly written, with self-deprecating humour, it reveals the qualities of strength and mental resilience that characterise special forces operators.
'Scott is not famous; his chest is not bedecked with the grandest tin and ribbon. His voice is from among us rather than up on high. And his account of the DNA of the commando, the lesser sung super-soldier, is all the better for it.' - from the foreword by Chris Masters, author of Flawed Hero
The shocking story of the case against Australia's most highly decorated soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG, and the defamation trial of the century.
With a Victoria Cross and Medal for Gallantry, Ben Roberts-Smith was the most highly decorated Australian soldier, the best of the best. When he returned to civilian life, he became a poster boy for a nation hungry for warrior heroes. He embodied the myth of the classic Anzac, seven-foot-tall and bulletproof. But as his public reputation continued to grow, inside the army rumours were circulating.
Gold Walkley Award winning journalist Chris Masters was the first to investigate the rumours of summary executions, bloodings and bullying, and began to examine more closely the man we wanted to hero-worship. When the stories hit the headlines, and with a billionaire media baron's backing, Ben Roberts-Smith sued. So commenced the defamation trial of the century, a courtroom contest of tightrope tactics and fierce wit.
Chris Masters tells the extraordinary story of Ben Roberts-Smith, the man at the centre of this de facto war crimes trial, from the battlegrounds of Afghanistan to the front lines of the Federal Court.
‘After 40 years of producing landmark journalism, Masters is still doing it. And he's still obsessive about the truth, relentless and fearless.' Nick McKenzie
'If there was a Victoria Cross for bravery in journalism, Chris Masters deserves to receive it.' Phillip Adams
'There's seriously no one else in Australia with the knowledge that Chris Masters has in relation to Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan.' Former Commando Major
A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church.
When Brendan Watkins was eight years old, his parents told him he was adopted. In his late twenties, he discovered the identity of his birth mother - a woman who had been a Catholic nun when he was born - but she wanted nothing to do with him. For thirty years he only managed limited communication with her, and had no clues to the identity of his birth father.
In 2018, a DNA test led him to the truth: he was the son of a celebrated missionary priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, had a career as a builder, was a Bondi Lifesaver, a trophy-winning ballroom dancer, was a landscape painter, a fine chocolate maker, met Mother Teresa and toured the world.
An astounding story had been uncovered which simply had to be told. After decades of searching, Brendan Watkins had discovered that his birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from this hidden past.
This is the untold story of a remote garrison of Allied soldiers on New Guinea during WWII who stood up to the Japanese invasion despite insurmountable odds.
When the Japanese invade in 1942, the Australian men and women stationed at the New Guinea port of Rabaul flee into the jungle. Written off by their government as ‘hostages to fortune', the little-known garrison on Australia's tropic frontier has been left with no modern equipment, no lifeline to the outside, and no means of escape. Most are captured and killed in the sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru, which remains Australia's worst sea disaster. But the surviving soldiers and nurses carry on, to fight the Japanese on other fronts, or to witness the collapse of the Japanese Empire from the inside. Having borne the brunt of defeat, their letters and diaries also record the turning point of the war and the march to victory.
Rich in detail drawn from first person accounts, Should We Fall To Ruin illuminates this untold period in military history. It is a compelling tale of bravery and resilience in the face of a seemingly unstoppable enemy.
Full of misadventure and mystery, Men Without Country is a sweeping history of exploration and rebellion in the South Seas - told by a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, the man who led the infamous mutiny on the Bounty
A mission to collect breadfruit from Tahiti becomes the most famous mutiny in history when the crew rise up against Captain William Bligh, with accusations of food restrictions and unfair punishments.
Bligh's remarkable journey back to safety is well documented, but the fates of the mutinous men remain shrouded in mystery. Some settled in Tahiti only to face capture and court martial, others sailed on to form a secret colony on Pitcairn Island, the most remote inhabited island on earth, avoiding detection for twenty years. When an American captain stumbled across the island in 1808, only one of the Bounty mutineers was left alive.
Told by a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian, Men Without Country details the journey of the Bounty, and the lives of the men aboard. Lives dominated by a punishing regime of hard work and scarce rations, and deeply divided by the hierarchy of class. It is a tale of adventure and exploration punctuated by moments of extreme violence - towards each other and the people of the South Pacific.
For the first time, Christian provides a comprehensive and compelling account of the whole story - from the history of trade and exploration in the South Seas to Pitcairn Island, which provided the mutineers' salvation, and then became their grave.
Praise for Men Without Country
'Men Without Country shows what a writer can produce when he has real skin in the game ... Harrison Christian sets the record straight on the Bounty mutiny with forensic fervour, including the before, the during - and the after.' - Adam Courtenay, author of The Ship that Never Was
Elizabeth posts a 'room for rent' notice in Trevor's bookshop and is caught off-guard when Trevor answers the advertisement himself. She expected a young student, not a middle-aged bookseller whose marriage has fallen apart. But Trevor is attracted to Elizabeth's house because of the empty shed in her backyard, the perfect space for him to revive the artistic career he abandoned years earlier. The face-blind, EH Holden-driving Elizabeth is a solitary and feisty book editor, and she accepts him, on probation ...
Miles Franklin finalist Philip Salom has a gift for depicting the inner states of his characters with empathy and insight. In this poignant yet upbeat novel, the past keeps returning in the most unexpected ways. Elizabeth is at the beck and call of her ageing mother, and the associated memories of her childhood in a Rajneesh community. Trevor's Polish father disappeared when Trevor was fifteen, and his mother died not knowing whether he was dead or alive. The authorities have declared him dead, but is he?
The Returns is a story about the eccentricities, failings and small triumphs that humans are capable of, a novel that pokes fun at literary and artistic pretensions while celebrating the expansiveness of art, kindness and friendship.
Praise for Philip Salom's writing
'Philip Salom ... dissects the vulnerabilities of the human condition (loneliness, fear of intimacy, powerlessness, guilt), the power of the past to haunt us, the fear of the future to mire us, and the redemptive effects of love and acceptance.'
Miles Franklin Award Judges
What if you met the love of your life and he wasn't your husband? An AusRom Today People's Choice Award winner that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty, viewers of Offspring, The Good Wife and movies like Up in the Air.
Mel is living the dream. She's a successful GP, married to a charming anaesthetist and raising a beautiful family in their plush home in Perth. But when she boards a flight to Melbourne, her picture-perfect life unravels. Seated on the plane she meets Matt, and for the first time ever she falls turbulently in love. What begins as a flirty conversation quickly develops into a hot and obsessive affair, with consequences that Mel and Matt seem incapable of facing. As the fallout hits friends and family, Mel's dream romance turns into a nightmare. She learns that there are some wounds that never heal and some scars that you wouldn't do without.
LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT will take everything you believe about true love and spin it on its head.
'I thought this was terrific -- passionate, sexy and wise, with a continual ebb and flow of emotion and utterly persuasive characters. I loved it' Rosie de Courcy, UK editor of author Maeve Binchy
'Love at First Flight is no light romp in the hay. It's a mature, finely drawn effort that examines the emotions and motives behind an affair -- and, ultimately, its ramifications. I dare you to resist' Jennifer Ammoscato, author of Dear Internet: It's Me Avery.
What if you met the love of your life and he wasn't your husband? An AusRom Today People's Choice Award winner that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty, viewers of Offspring, The Good Wife and movies like Up in the Air.
Mel is living the dream. She's a successful GP, married to a charming anaesthetist and raising a beautiful family in their plush home in Perth. But when she boards a flight to Melbourne, her picture-perfect life unravels. Seated on the plane she meets Matt, and for the first time ever she falls turbulently in love. What begins as a flirty conversation quickly develops into a hot and obsessive affair, with consequences that Mel and Matt seem incapable of facing. As the fallout hits friends and family, Mel's dream romance turns into a nightmare. She learns that there are some wounds that never heal and some scars that you wouldn't do without.
LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT will take everything you believe about true love and spin it on its head.
'I thought this was terrific -- passionate, sexy and wise, with a continual ebb and flow of emotion and utterly persuasive characters. I loved it' Rosie de Courcy, UK editor of author Maeve Binchy
'Love at First Flight is no light romp in the hay. It's a mature, finely drawn effort that examines the emotions and motives behind an affair -- and, ultimately, its ramifications. I dare you to resist' Jennifer Ammoscato, author of Dear Internet: It's Me Avery.
Frank and Leon are two men from different times, discovering that sometimes all you learn from your parents' mistakes is how to make different ones of your own.
Frank is trying to escape his troubled past by running away to his family's beach shack. As he struggles to make friends with his neighbors and their precocious young daughter, Sal, he discovers the community has fresh wounds of its own. A girl is missing, and when Sal too disappears, suspicion falls on Frank.
Decades earlier, Leon tries to hold together his family's cake shop as their suburban life crumbles in the aftermath of the Korean War. When war breaks out again, Leon must go from sculpting sugar figurines to killing young men as a conscript in the Vietnam War.
What do three dogs and a cat have to say when a baby kookaburra is found in their yard? Buddha, the cat, starts by asking, 'What the blooming tail is it, mate?' Hoover, one of the dogs, thought it looked like lunch. Ajax thought it was a toy. But Stelze, an aging Doberman, informed everyone it was a baby, and she planned to protect it in every way possible. A very Australian audio book complete with sounds of the bush, big Australian accents (but easily understandable), and characters who say 'bloody'. Sections of the story are punctuated leisurely by pleasant and cheery bush-folk music.
Lancelot, an orphaned kangaroo adopted by a farmer and his wife, is the constant figure across these stories. He is also disabled, after losing one of his arms in an accident. His quest is to discover his kangaroo-ness and find love and acceptance among his fellow creatures. A funny, exciting but also heart-warming tale about loneliness, courage - and most of all - true friendship. Based on true events!
