Cirrus@Austlit

'A collection of inspirational and heartwarming stories about friendship, community and finding family in the unlikeliest of places...

'FAMILIES COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES.

'In these six captivating short stories, meet some members of the Otto Bin Empire - the homeless men and women who gather down by the docks.

'Adam, the teenage runaway, who has just one goal: to stay lost. Until life offers him a second chance.

'Oskar, the elderly Polish immigrant, who to outsiders cuts a lonely figure. But every afternoon, at the giant chessboard in the park, Oskar becomes a star.

'The poet Reginald, who claims he just wants to observe. Then he meets young Sally - and the scruffy kelpie who hangs around the bins – and is inspired in ways he’d never imagined.

'Johnny, the generous, charismatic, habitual criminal, who is finally determined to turn his life around – if only he can stay out of jail.

'Benny, the Big Issue vendor with a heart of gold, who loves nothing more than helping others.

'And finally Madge, the much-loved Otto Bin matriarch. Her past has always been shrouded in secrecy, but now she’s ready to share her story . . .' (Publication summary)

'Every city, town and village has its memorial to war. Nowhere are these more eloquent than in Australia, generations of whose young men have enlisted to fight other people's battles - from Gallipoli and the Somme to Malaya and Vietnam. In THE GREAT WORLD, his finest novel yet, David Malouf gives a voice to that experience. But THE GREAT WORLD is more than a novel of war. Ranging over seventy years of Australian life, from Sydney's teeming King's Cross to the tranquil backwaters of the Hawkesbury River, it is a remarkable novel of self-knowledge and lost innocence, of survival and witness.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Vintage reprint).