Cirrus@Austlit

'In this rich and stylish description by New Zealand scholar Salmond, Cook's voyages take on a peculiar, dreamlike quality. Salmond's claim is that Cook was far more affected by his exposure to the Polynesian world than historians have thought.'

'This book is fascinating as an incomparable travelogue filled with amazing stories – the sexual paradise of Tahiti, the 'discovery' of Hawaii, close relations with Maori, and Cook's tragic death on the beach in Hawaii.The 'trial' of the title followed a horrific incident in New Zealand's Queen Charlotte Sound when Maori killed and ate a boatload of Cook's men. Later, sailors caught a dog guzzling a pink remnant, put the dog on trial, then convicted, cooked and ate it.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'The protagonist of this first-person narrative is Archimedes, also called ""Happy,'' an Irish setter who has taught himself to read and write. Archimedes guides the reader through the streets of Sydney, Australia, and expounds on human and dog life. Happy's world includes a Sydney waterfront where humans act like seagulls and seagulls take on human characteristics: there are seagull tourists, seagull art critics and seagull gay-rights activists. The eponymous seagle is different from the other seagulls, spending most of its time soaring like an eagle, and Archimedes admires it from a distance.'

Source: Publisher's Weekly (https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-14-008090-2). (Sighted: 10/01/2018)

'The back-of-beyond New South Wales hamlet of Whitey's Fall is the home of a secret, solitary boy seeking love, two young men who crave the same woman, and an earnest, bumbling, and provocative government man.' (Publisher's blurb)

I Can Jump Puddles is Alan Marshall's story of his childhood, a happy world in which, despite his crippling poliomyelitis, he plays, climbs, fights, swims, rides and laughs. His world was the Australian countryside early last century: rough-riders, bushmen, farmers and tellers of tall stories, a world held precious by the young Alan Marshall. (Source: Trove)

'A Woman of the Future, first published in 1979, was David Ireland’s best-selling sixth novel and his third to win the Miles Franklin Award.

'An imaginative tour de force, it is the story of the young life of Anthea Hunt—from conception to sexual awakening. It is controversial and brilliant, and unlike anything else in Australian literature.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

'Interviews with urban and tribal Aborigines; first hand accounts by Aborigines of their experiences in Australia today.'