Cirrus@Austlit

'She won the coveted 2022 Text Prize for her debut young adult novel and now Brisbane lawyer Megan Williams has a gong in the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards'

'The discovery of a cache of love letters from Charles Blackman to his wife Barbara is the basis for a book about one of Australian art’s most exciting eras'

'Rowan Dean’s book about the late great Barry Humphries is as edifying as it is entertaining'

'Patrick Holland grew up in Outback Queensland but his latest novel is set among the glittering towers of the Far East.' 

'From the author of Travels with My Angst and Any Guru Will Do, a vivid, nostalgic, and funny memoir of growing up in Hong Kong in the 1960s.

'Phil Brown's life begins in small town Australia — Maitland, NSW to be precise — but in 1963 his father Ted hankers to return to the Hong Kong of his childhood and to cash in on a construction boom in the burgeoning colony.

'Then under British rule, the world of Hong Kong is a truly fascinating place for gweilos or foreigners, both a colonial outpost and a region redolent with all the exoticism and contradictions of the Far East. The Brown’s home, in the garden suburb of Kowloon Tong, buzzes with characters: the family's amah, Ah Moy, frequent visitors such as the inscrutable Mr Lai, the spy-like Tony Parr, and family members such as Uncle Cyril. Not to mention the kid from across the road, Michael Hutchence.

'Combining recent visits to Hong Kong, where the author explores his childhood touchstones of the Kowloon Cricket Club, the beach at Shek O, the Peninsula Hong Kong and the bustling lanes of Kowloon, with an affectionate yet truly honest portrait of family, self and the 1960s The Kowloon Kid is an intimate and tender gem.'   (Publication summary)

'

Fear gripped me as I stood on the stage and surveyed the crowd, their expectant faces turned upwards in hope. My mouth was dry and I felt a flush of embarrassment as I clutched the microphone in my sweaty palm. Maybe I should have thrown up before I came on? Too late now. Then the first spare notes of acoustic guitar started, picking out the intro to Happy Together by The Turtles.'  (Introduction)

'Randy Munoz was the toughest kid in Kowloon Tong. For a start he had a knife. He first produced it on a YMCA camping trip we went on to some small, rugged islands in the Port Shelter group in the waters off Sai Kung in the eastern part of the New Territories.

We were bunked down in a huge shed on one of the islands because it was raining at the time and late at night contraband items including Scotch whisky (Johnny Walker red label to be precise) and Cuban cigars were produced by some of the older boys who must have been only 13 or 14. Randy, meanwhile, had his knife and during our weekend, which always reminds me of Lord of the Flies for some strange reason, we practised throwing it – sometimes at tree trunks, sometimes at the ground and sometimes at each other’s feet, nimbly jumping from side to side to avoid the blade.' (Introduction)