Cirrus@Austlit

'Black Rock White City is a novel about the damages of war, the limits of choice, and the hope of love. During a hot Melbourne summer Jovan's cleaning work at a bayside hospital is disrupted by acts of graffiti and violence becoming increasingly malevolent. For Jovan the mysterious words that must be cleaned away dislodge the poetry of the past. He and his wife Suzana were forced to flee Sarajevo and the death of their children.

'Intensely human, yet majestic in its moral vision, Black Rock White City is an essential story of Australia's suburbs now, of displacement and immediate threat, and the unexpected responses of two refugees as they try to reclaim their dreams. It is a breathtaking roar of energy that explores the immigrant experience with ferocity, beauty and humour.' (Publication summary)

'When A.J. Mackinnon quits his job in Australia, he knows only that he longs to travel to the Well at the World's End, a mysterious pool on a remote Scottish island whose waters, legend has it, hold the secret to eternal youth.

'Determined not to fly ("It would feel like cheating"), he sets out with a rucksack, some fireworks and a map of the world and trusts chance to take care of the rest. By land and by sea, by train, truck, horse and yacht, he makes his way across the globe - and through a series of hilarious adventures. He survives a bus crash in Australia, marries a princess in Laos, is attacked by Komodo dragons and does time in a Chinese jail. The next lift - or the next near-miss - is always just a happy accident away.

'This is the astonishing true story of a remarkable voyage, an old-fashioned quest by a modern-day adventurer.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Melbourne, 1871: John King is dying far from the deserts he traversed with the legendary Burke and Wills. Ten years on from that fateful expedition - the first to cross the Australian continent from south to north - King is finally ready to tell his story.The young Irishman had already endured the horrors of the Indian Mutiny when he signed on with the erratic Burke to explore a land he knew little about. As one of the advance group who were later abandoned by the rest of their party, King was with Wills as he penned his final letter; at Burke's side when he died. Then he was alone, the sole survivor, though barely alive when rescued by Alfred Howitt. But Howitt is a man who cannot let things be, and now he seems more inquisitor than saviour. He wants to know what King knows before it is too late . . .Effortlessly blending fact and fiction, this gripping novel brings to life the forgotten man of the most mythologised journey in Australia's history.' (Publication summary)

'Heroes, visionaries and eccentrics…

'Outback writer Marie Mahood is the author of the much loved Icing on the Damper and A Bunch of Strays. In the 1960’s she raised cattle and kids on the world’s most remote cattle station, Mongrel Downs, in the Tanami Desert.

'Here she writes about the heroes, visionaries and eccentrics of Australia’s vast outback. Her thirty-two characters include the greatest drover and Gulf trekker of them all, Nat Buchanan: prince of poddy-dodgers Harry Redford; the cattle king Sidney Kidman; outback surveyor supreme and all-round good bloke Len Beadell; Aboriginal warrior Jandamarra; Mat Wilson at the N.T. Depot store; gun shearer Jackie Howe; drover Edna Zigenbine on the Murranji Track; explorer and goldmine Christy Palmerston in the heartland of Cape York Peninsula; eccentrics such as the Gulf Hero and the Barkly Hermit; and drovers who were also painters and poets of repute.' (Publication summary)