Cirrus@Austlit

'The true story of a remarkable young girl growing up in the bush during the Great Depression.

'Patricia Jean Smith and her sister, Miss Mickie, grew up as railway children, their parents a station-mistress and a fettler. The catalogue of towns they lived in reverberates with the once-familiar clatter of metal and steam, but it was the tiny one-pub town of Waaia, in the centre of Victoria's wheat-rich Goulburn Valley, that kept drawing them back.

'These were days of yabbying and rabbiting, of bush girls riding bareback on wilful ponies, and of the tin-lizzies that transformed the Mallee forever. It was a time for learning, for devouring books and for satisfying a powerful thirst for knowledge. And then it was a time for war.

'Hear the Train Blow tells of Patsy Adam-Smith's classic upbringing during the Great Depression. It is a celebration of the ordinary people of Australia, and of a life that no longer exists.' (Publication summary)

'When Patsy Adam-Smith wrote Australian Women at War in 1984, her aim was to tap into thememories of all the ‘brave, modest, forgotten women’ while they were still alive, in order to honour them. Now, for the first time, this iconic volume is republished for an entirely new generation of readers.

'This magnificent work is a history of how Australian women have responded to war – from 1900, when the first nurses sailed to the Boer War, to 1945 and its aftermath. Recording the achievements of our women for all time, it tells of their bravery, self-sacrifice, endurance and devotion. Australian Women at War is a tribute to Australian women.' (Publication summary from 2014 edition)

'Gallipoli was the final resting place for thousands of young Australians. Death struck so fast there was not time for escape or burial. And when Gallipoli was over there was the misery of the European Campaign. Patsy Adam-Smith read over 8000 diaries and letters to write her acclaimed best-seller about the First World War. Soldiers sought her out to tell her why they went, what they saw, and how they felt about that great holocaust. Their simple accounts are more vivid than any novel; the years have not dimmed their memories of lost comrades and the horrors of war. These are the extraordinary experiences of ordinary men - and they strike to the heart. The Anzacs remains unrivalled as the classic account of Australia's involvement in the First World War.' (Publisher's blurb)