Cirrus@Austlit

'What happens when a 32-year-old first-generation Australian woman decides to chuck in a dream job, pack a sleeping bag and tent, and hit the long, dusty road for six months? Thirty-thousand kilometres later, Monica Tan had the answer. In mid-2016, Monica left Sydney unsure of her place in this country. As a Chinese- Australian city slicker she couldn't feel more distant from powerful Australian mythologies like the Digger, the Drover's Wife and Clancy of the Overflow. More importantly, she wondered how she could ever truly belong to lands that have been the spiritual domain of Indigenous Australians for 60,000-plus years.

'Stranger Country is the blow-by-blow account of the six months Monica drove and camped her way through some of Australia's most beautiful landscapes and shared meals with miners, grey nomads, artists, farmers, community workers and small business owners from across the nation; some Aboriginal, some white, some Asian and even a few who managed to be all three.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The killing times were barely over in the Kimberley.
What I knew, even as a small boy, was that no-one argued with a whitefella. People talked in whispers.
I was still so small.
This is the story of the early years of my life. The story of a boy who was taken away from his mother and his family forever when he was just six years old. He had no say in it. His family had no say in it. The government had all the say in everything.

'A memoir of boyhood by a man who was removed as a child – from country, from culture and language, from family, from his mother.

'Filled with surprises and unlikely fun, this is more than just a story of surviving. From hiding out from the Japanese in spring-fed caves in the deep Kimberley, to being let loose in a paddock just like a poddy calf at Moola Bulla, to cowboy comics at the Beagle Bay mission.

'A story of white bosses, of priest bosses, of black stockmen and of staying out of trouble.

'With honesty and unexpected graciousness, Frank reminds us of a not-so-distant past and of how things happened for Aboriginal people in the North West.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This is a history and a travelogue to Sumbawa, Indonesia, released on the eve of the bicentenary of the largest eruption in recorded history – Mt Tambora with a VEI of 7 was ten times the size of the more famous Krakatau. It erupted on 10th April 1815 with dramatic impact on the East Indies and across the world: it changed the global climate for at least three years (known as the “Year Without Summer”) and the world reeled from its long lasting effects: more than 100,000 Indonesians died from the event or from the disease and famine that followed: millions were affected worldwide through starvation, disease and death; it caused the total the destruction of the Tamboran culture, language and people; massive European emigration; numerous floods and/or droughts; religious fervour and the creation of a new religion; the invention of the bicycle; the ‘westward ho!” wagon trains in the US; magnificent art; the birth of science fiction and Frankenstein; widespread riots and political instability; coloured snow and frosts in mid-summer.

'The author outlines the history of this largely unknown mountain, travels to Sumbawa and watches four year old jockeys racing horses, wades knee deep through a million jellyfish, meets royalty and unintelligible surfers and climbs the mountain and discusses the effects of world climate change on a population that is far from ready, even today.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.